Slavery in the Kingdom of Dahomey
Slavery in the Kingdom of Dahomey was closely connected to warfare, royal finance, household and agricultural labor, and the Atlantic slave trade. The kingdom, centered at Abomey in present-day Benin, expanded southward under King Agaja by conquering Allada in 1724 and Whydah (Ouidah) in 1727. Control of Ouidah gave the monarchy direct access to one of the Bight of Benin's principal Atlantic ports.
Captivity and state power
Dahomean armies obtained captives through conquest and raiding. The state did not treat all captives in the same way: some were exported through Ouidah, while others became domestic servants, agricultural laborers on royal estates, dependents distributed to officials or soldiers, or victims in royal ceremonies. Slavery therefore supported both overseas commerce and the kingdom's internal political order. Captives could be converted into revenue, labor, rewards, and visible signs of royal authority.
European merchants and Dahomean rulers were mutually involved in the trade. Royal officials regulated access to Ouidah and collected customs, while Atlantic merchants supplied goods including firearms, cloth, alcohol, cowries, and prestige objects. This relationship did not make Dahomey merely an agent of European demand: its rulers pursued their own military and fiscal aims. Nor did Dahomean agency remove the central role of Atlantic shipping and plantation demand in sustaining exports.
Nineteenth-century suppression
British naval and diplomatic pressure increased during the reign of Ghezo (1818–1858). A treaty concluded in 1852 was understood by British officials as a commitment to end slave exports, but implementation was disputed and the trade continued. Palm-oil commerce grew, yet it did not immediately replace the political and fiscal uses of captive-taking. The history of suppression was consequently a process rather than a single decisive event, and internal slavery remained distinct from the closing of an export route.
Sources
The evidence includes port records, royal traditions, archaeology, diplomatic papers, and nineteenth-century European accounts. Travel narratives are useful but require caution because their authors wrote within abolitionist, commercial, or imperial controversies. The UNESCO documentation for the Royal Palaces of Abomey provides material context for the centralized monarchy, while the SlaveVoyages database documents the wider Atlantic traffic and its changing scale.