Dahomey's Royal Road

Abstract

Nineteenth-century European visitors to the kingdom of Dahomey were not easily impressed, certainly not by any infrastructural refinement. So when one after another perceived grandeur in the Cana-Abomey road, it was no small compliment. For French travelers the road was “magnifique,” “superbe,” a “merveille,” “fort belle,” “vraiment belle,” or “des plus belles.” For British travelers “splendid” or—perhaps the ultimate accolade—as broad as any thoroughfare in England.This remarkable road was the last leg of the regular route from Dahomey's Atlantic port of Whydah to the royal capital at Abomey. Its basic purpose was not to impress foreigners on their approach to the capital, as one might imagine, but to allow the kings of Dahomey to travel to and from Cana in style.In Fon traditions Cana dates back to the origins of the kingdom in the early seventeenth century and may have preceded Abomey as tribalchef-lieu. When Dahomey was subject to the Yoruba empire of Oyo (from the 1730s or 1740s to the 1820s), Cana was the place where Oyo messengers collected the annual tribute. King Gezo (1818-58) is said to have begun his successful challenge of Oyo very early in his reign by having those messengers slaughtered.