Savagery in the Kingdom of Dahomey.

News & Politics
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"…1763, estimated that from 10,000 to 12,000 slaves were exported from Dahomey annually. In 1770 the king demanded customs duty to the value of 14.5 slaves from every ship wishing to trade at Ouidah and his merchandise was valued at the rate of 25 guns, or 100 kg of gunpowder, or six anchors (a contemporary measure) of brandy, or assortments of cloth, or 80,000 cowrie shells per slave. It was alleged that the king of Dahomey customarily sold his own people into slavery, but this can hardly have been a more unwelcome fate than that visited upon the hundreds who were sacrificed in the annual round of ritual and ceremony.

Richard Burton, who visited the Dahomean court as British Consul in 1863, concluded that although its sacrificial customs had been greatly exaggerated ‘the annual destruction is terribly great’. Nocturnal executions which took place during Burton’s visit (but not witnessed by him) accounted for an estimated total ‘butchery bill’ of seventy-eight or eighty individuals, and he estimated that not less than 500 were ceremonially slaughtered in average years, and not less than 1,000 during years of grand ceremony.

Still more were executed in the ‘normal’ course of events. When the king was ill, for instance, the witchcraft responsible would be rooted out by the deaths of all suspect individuals, and should the king have some interesting piece of news he wished to pass on to his forebears he would whisper it to a messenger who was then immediately dispatched to the afterworld.
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[SIZE=2]Burton concluded: ‘It is evident that to abolish human sacrifice here is to abolish Dahomey.’ But he saw some hope: During the last reign the victims, gagged and carrying rum and cowries for the people, were marched about, led with cords, and the visitors were compelled to witness the executions. In 1862 – 63 the wretches were put to death within hearing, if not within sight, of the white visitors. In 1863 – 64 the King so far regarded the explicit instructions which I had received that no life was publicly taken during the daytime. This is, let us hope, the small end of the wedge. 16[/SIZE]

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This sounds like a sweet deal even today. If I was a king I wouldn’t hesitate to hand over random ghaseers for such treasure.

For someone who didn’t witness the event, this guy sounds cocksure about what he writes. How would a community get rid of 500 to 1000 bodies after such an event? Reminds me of something else I read years ago. Some mzungu wrote about how cannibalism “was rife” in central Africa and the Congo, even though he never witnessed a single incident.

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:D:D:D:D

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[SIZE=5]@LuandaMagere kuja ujisomee. Huwa unafikiri Africans of that period were angels and innocent victims but cheki maneno.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=5]Nilikuambia that Africans used to sell fellow Africans into slavery ukakataa kata kata.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=5]Africans are their own worst enemies.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=5]Kuja na fellow afro-conscious Wakandans @mugwanjira, @BBIsiMuhimu , @Tony254 na @KamauLM [/SIZE]

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[SIZE=6]A look at Dahomey’s gory history of human sacrifices on a large scale[/SIZE]
https://cdn-face2faceafrica-com.cdn.ampproject.org/i/s/cdn.face2faceafrica.com/www/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Kingdom-of-Dahomey.jpg
The Kingdom of Dahomey, Photo: Black History Month

Dahomey was once known as the ‘Slave Coast’ where human sacrifices were done on a large scale contrary to earlier write ups by Europeans in the 1700s about this great kingdom that referred to one or two killings of people.
For instance, references made of Allada and Whydah before their conquest by the Dahomey talks of human sacrifices without much detail or emphasis.

“Dapper, refers to the killings of concubines and servants at royal funerals in Allada, and later accounts of Whydah record the sacrifice of wives and slaves at royal funerals there also, as well as the practice of substitutionary sacrifice, the killing of a man to preserve the king when ill.”

Later detailed accounts of the kingdom indicate human sacrifices were done on a rather large scale.

An English trader in 1727 allegedly witnessed the massacre of 400 war captives in a Dahomian ceremony. Some say his report stated 4,000 human sacrifices instead after the kingdom’s conquest of Whydah earlier that year.

The death of a royal was an excuse to kill more humans as part of their customs. It is reported that the “funeral ceremonies for King Kpengla, who died in 1789, involved, over a period of two years, the killing of some 1,500 persons, many of them war captives.”

A temple in Abomey has a tomb where a king was buried with his wives. The king was known to have about 200 wives and custom demands the king to be buried with his wives. When he died 41 women were killed to join him in the afterlife – a practice they believed in.

In addition, there was a custom known as the ‘Annual Customs’ or ‘Watering of the Graves’ where war slaves and criminals were killed to commemorate the death of the kings annually.

The yearly celebration saw about 40 to 50 and as high as 200 to 300 people killed. According to an eyewitness account, dating back to the 18th century only about 100 or less people were killed. Historians, however, believe there were some done in the royal palace unknown to the public.

Usually women were victims of such sacrifices, they were killed to send special messages to the dead kings. The total annual slaughter in Dahomey, even apart from the royal funerals, must be bothering around the thousands.

The killings of thousands of war captives by the people of Dahomey was a “Custom of their Nation.” Some say the sacrifices were rampant due to the massive success chalked by its military operations on a rather large scale in the eighteenth century.

Agaja, the king who was responsible for the conquest of Allada and Whydah in the 1720s is said to be the enforcer of the annual customs that was introduced in Dahomey.

In 1818, King Adandozan of Dahomey was overthrown, according to some historians because he wanted to sway from the norm and not ‘water the graves’ of his predecessors. Some say it was due to his lack of military prowess hence less war slaves to use for the sacrifices.

His successor, Gezo, in revived the ceremony in full swing after his historic victory against the neighbouring kingdom of Oyo in 1823. Gezo in a bid to etch his name in Dahomian history instituted an additional annual festival involving human sacrifices to commemorate his win in Oyo.

Under Gezo, victims offered at the regular Annual Customs increased to over 300 in the 1830s and 1840s.

The scale of human sacrifice took a downhill and diminished from the 1850s onwards. It was after the French conquered Dahomey in the 1890s that the large scale of sacrifices reduced until then it was practiced on a large scale.

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Yeah big pinch of salt with these numbers but human sacrifice was common in Dahomey, Benin, Oyo and most Kingdoms in what is Southern Nigeria today. So entrenched that it might be still happening today and was certainly happening only a few decades ago.

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Mtaambiwa mara ngapi. White man dehumanized Africans in their books and accounts, so as to justify slavery to their kinsmen. Take this info with a wheelbarrow of salt.

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Until lions have their own storytellers, tales of heroism will always praise the hunter kinda thing this

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Judging by the rapid and wanton massacres of 500K to 800K Rwandan Tutsi in the genocide of 1994, which is of recent memory witnessed by most of us, I’d say such butchering by African leadership of its own people is not news. We have a great history of haphazard blood letting