AFRICA/WEST INDIES/BENIN Dahomey/Slavery 1820 RARE 1st

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AFRICA/WEST INDIES/BENIN Dahomey/Slavery 1820 RARE 1st

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Sold Date: 06/18/2007
Channel: Online Auction
Source: eBay
Category: Ethnic, Folk & Native American Art

AFRICA/WEST INDIES/BENIN Dahomey/Slavery 1820 RARE 1st

EXCEEDINGLY SCARCE, TREATISE ON AFRICAN CULTURE AND SLAVE TRADE TITLED "A VOYAGE TO AFRICA WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE DAHOMIAN PEOPLE" BY JOHN M'LEOD PUBLISHED IN LONDON BY JOHN MURRAY 1820. ~Complete with all 4 Plates~ John M'Leod was an naval surgeon on a ship, w he describes his journey from England to Africa and to the West Indies. In this important treatise he describes in great details about the superstitious culture, characteristics, and customs of the Dahomian people. The small but important region of Dahomey (now the People's Republic of Benin) has played an active role in the world economy throughout the era of mercantile and industrial capitalism, beginning as an exporter of slaves and becoming an exporter of plain oil and palm kernels. Dahomey was a powerful West African State founded in the 17th century and survived until 1894 and then was a part of French West Africa. During times of war soldiers were sold as slaves and Dahomey did not become independent until 1960. Dahomey was later named Benin in 1975. This rare book was published by the most prestigious publishers of all time.

John Murray (publishing) is a British publishing house, renowned for the roster of authors it has published in its history, including Jane Austen, Lord Byron, Charles Lyell, and Charles Darwin. The business was founded in London in 1768 by John Murray (1745-1793), an Edinburgh-born Royal Marines officer, who built up a list of authors including Isaac Disraeli and published English Review . John Murray the elder was one of the founding sponsors of the London evening newspaper The Star in 1788.

HISTORY OF DAHOMEY

The origins of Dahomey can be traced back to a group of Aja from the coastal kingdom of Allada who moved northwards and settled among the Fon people of the interior. By about 1650, the Aja managed to dominate the Fon and Wegbaja declared himself king of their joint territory. Based in his capital of Agbome, Wegbaja and his successors succeeded in establishing a highly centralized state with a deep-rooted kingship cult of sacrificial offerings, including a heavy emphasis on human sacrifices in large numbers, to the ancestors of the monarch. Human sacrifices were not only made in time of war, pestilence, calamity, and on the death of kings and chiefs, they were also made regularly in the annual custom, which was believed to supply deceased kings with a fresh group of servants. Four thousand Whydahs, for example, were sacrificed when Dahomey conquered Whydah in 1727. Five hundred were sacrificed for Adanzu II in 1791. The sacrifices for Gezo went on for days. Human sacrifice was usually done by beheading, except in the case of the king's wives, who were buried alive. Visitors to the historic site of Dahomey today can still see a throne built on human skulls, a mass grave dedicated to one of the king's wives, and two temples with mortar mixed with human blood. All land was owned directly by the king, who collected taxes from all crops that were produced.

Economically , however, Wegbaja and his successors profited mainly from the slave trade and relations with slavers along the coast. As Dahomey's kings embarked on wars to expand their territory, they began using rifles and other firearms traded with French and Spanish slave-traders for young men captured in battle, who fetched a very high price from the European slave-merchants. Under King Agadja (ruled 1708-1732) the kingdom conquered Allada, w the ruling family originated, tby gaining direct contact with European slave traders on the coast. Nevertheless, Agadja was unable to defeat the neighbouring kingdom of Oyo, Dahomey's chief rival in the slave trade, and in 1730, he became a tributary of Oyo, though he still managed to maintain Dahomey's independence.

Even as a tributary state, Dahomey continued to expand and flourish because of the slave trade and later through the export of palm oil from large plantations that emerged. Because of the econo...