DAHOMEY AND THE DAHOMANS
Being the Journals of two Missions to the King of Dahomay,
and Residence at his Capital, in the Years 1849 and 1850

FREDERICK E. FORBES

LONDON, LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS
1851

First Edition
In July 1850 Frederick Forbes, RN Commander, in the West Africa Squadron (WAS), visited King Gezo (or Ghezo) of Dahomey (present-day Benin) on a diplomatic mission. For many years Britain had played a central role in the transatlantic slave trade, but in 1833 abolished slavery throughout its empire. The WAS’s mission was to undermine the trade, both by intercepting French and Spanish slave ships and by using diplomacy to dissuade local leaders from taking part in the trade. King Gezo was the dominant figure in West Africa in the supply of enslaved people, as it was his main source of revenue.

When Forbes arrived in Dahomey, his requests for abolition were rejected by Ghezo who argued that its continuation was integral to the survival of the state, which had become reliant on the profits received by trading with Europeans. Ghezo instead suggested that enslavement could be gradually ended if Britain encouraged the expansion of trade in Dahomey palm oil to the detriment of the neighbouring Egba state of Abeokuta with whom Dahomey was at war.

These offers were refused and in March 1851, the Royal Navy started a blockade of Dahomey ports.

His account provides information not only on the country itself and the manners and customs of the people, but includes a large appendix with vocabularies of the Vahie and Dahoman languages.

Ghezo gifted Forbes a captive slave girl Omoba Aina, from the Egbado clan of the Yoruba people.

It is not clear whether Ghezo offered the child freely or whether Forbes bargained for her, but she clearly impressed him. Forbes believed that the fact that Gezo had held her for two years and not sold her to slave traders meant she was likely to be of high status. He also feared (with reason, as Ghezo was known to sacrifice high-status captives) that she was destined to be offered as a human sacrifice.

So Forbes accepted Aina as a gift on behalf of Queen Victoria. Before returning to England he took her to the Church Missionary Society in Badagry, a former slave-trading port, where she was baptised Sarah Forbes Bonetta, after his own name and that of his ship.

13 x 20 cm (Small 8vo.) xii + 244 pp + 7 plates. Vol. II. v + 248 pp + 6 plates.

Very good condition. Both volumes have been recased, with the cloth replaced on the spine and keeping the original boards. The inner hinges have been repaired with tape keeping the original endpapers. Cloth worn on the corners of the boards. Both front pastedowns are damaged (see photo). The colour and tinted plates are foxed and there is some occasional foxing to the pages. Binding firm, all plates present.