February is Black History Month in America

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February is Black History Month in America

“Between 1710 and 1810, 1,000,000 slaves principally of FON, AJA, NAGO, MAHI, AYIZO, and GEDEVI dissent, were exported on English, French, and Portuguese vessels out of the Bight of Benin and what was then called the slave coast of Africa.
This trade which continued from the region in varying degrees through the end of the 19th century contributed to one of the greatest intercontinental migrations in world history.

Many of those who were sent from this area were brought to Brazil and various Caribbean islands.
The slave trade had dire consequences not only for the men and women who crossed the Atlantic but also for many who remained in Africa.
In the Kingdom of DANHOME, the acquisition and trading of slaves had assumed dimensions of national industry.
To a large extent, the DANHOME state economy was based on annual raise and military expeditions against neighboring groups and villages, the primary purpose of which was to capture men, and to a lesser extent women and children, who could be sold for profit.
In the course of these campaigns, which often took place soon after harvest, many people lost their lives immediately in confrontations with the DANHOME troops; others lost their freedom, homelands, and dignity when they were taken prisoner and were brought to the down-home capital, where they were either sold into slavery or kept as prisoners, later to be killed in state ceremonies are forced into involuntary lifelong servitude in the state militia, harems, plantation labor groups, or households of the governing elite.

Those fortunate enough to flee the advancing Danhome armies also suffered greatly.
Most returned to their homes to find their farms burned, their granaries empty, their animals stolen or slaughtered, and their houses and temples destroyed.
For them, the answer often was further flight and hiding.
With the famines that often followed, medical problems, infertility, infant mortality and were rampant.
The prime targets of the slave raids, primarily young men, were precisely the ones who would have been essential in providing the labor needed to rebuild and sustain the community.
Without them, survival was tenuous. Although the situation often was dire, it would have been intolerable without a viable means of both comprehending and coping with the difficult conditions. This included the prominent use of BOCIO and BO.
No matter what the misfortune, works at this time provided a means of personal and social responsibility to the attendant problems or concerns.”
“Vodun Art, Social History and the Slave Trade”
Suzanne Preston Blier
Photo: King Behanzin of Danhome (1845 – 10 December 1906), ruled from 1889 to 1894.
Béhanzin was Dahomey's LAST INDEPENDENT RULER established through traditional power structures. He led the resistance to French colonization of his kingdom, during the Dahomey Wars.
“I am the king of Blacks and Whites have nothing to do with what I do . Villages which you speak of are mine.They belong to me and I want them to be independent. I would like to know how independent French villages were broken by me ? King of Dahomey .”