Early in 1730 the Oyo again invaded Dahomey, and Hufon from his place of exile in the west gave notice to the Europeans at Ouidah that he intended to make a further attempt to repossess his kingdom, but on this occasion it does not appear that this materialized.34 In fact, Agaja now opened negotiations with the king of Oyo, through the mediation of the director of the Portuguese fort at Ouidah, João Basilio, and Oyo made peace, abandoning the exiled Hueda to their fate. During 1730–31 attempts were made to arrange peace between Dahomey and the exiled Hueda also, on the basis of Hufon agreeing to become a tributary of Agaja, first by the governor of the English fort and then by the Portuguese director Basilio, but these came to nothing.35 The Hueda continued to mount raids on the beach to the south of Ouidah, severely disrupting trade there: in May and again in July 1731, for example, they plundered the European traders’ tents on the beach, on the second occasion killing six Europeans whom they caught there.36 By 1733 the Hueda seem to have established effective control over the beach, since ‘boys’ belonging to Captain Assou were then reported to be ‘serving’ in the tents set up on shore by two Portuguese ships trading there, and other Hueda were established in the Portuguese and English quarters of Ouidah itself. There is even some hint that Hueda control was formally recognized by Dahomey, the director of the French fort claiming credit with Assou for having interceded with Agaja on his behalf, seemingly to protect his interests in controlling the beach.37
At the same time, the rudimentary administration of the European trade at Ouidah which Agaja had established was in some disarray. In 1732 the ‘English Caboceer’ at Ouidah was executed by Agaja, for reasons which the English were unable to discover but which were presumed to reflect internal tensions on the Dahomian side.38 Relations between the Dahomian officials and the European forts were also bad; the ‘captain’ for the Portuguese, in unexplained circumstances, even made an attempt to seize the French fort. In 1733, however, Agaja decided to assert his control over Ouidah more effectively. As a first step, in January he summoned the directors of the three European forts to attend his ‘Annual Customs’ at Abomey; this attendance, which became an annual obligation thereafter, being probably intended to assert their status as holding office under Dahomian sovereignty. The Directors took the opportunity to complain against the three existing Dahomian ‘captains’, and Agaja in response replaced them with a single official, called ‘Tegan’.39 This was evidently a title, rather than a personal name, being held apparently by three successive persons, down to 1745.40 This new official was clearly concerned with more than just the conduct of trade, being referred to by the French, soon after his appointment, as ‘Governor of Gregoy [Glehue]’, implying that he exercised a more general administrative authority.41 His position therefore corresponded to the later office of Yovogan, ‘Chief of the Whites’, commonly described by Europeans as the ‘Viceroy’ of Ouidah, although the actual title of Yovogan does not appear to have been used for the Dahomian administrator of Ouidah until the late 1740s.42 The Yovogan’s residence was later to the north of the English fort and east of the French fort, on the site occupied nowadays by the Roman Catholic cathedral, the northern section of the town in which it is situated being still called Fonsaramè, ‘the Fon [i.e. Dahomian] quarter’ and being populated to the present by the descendants of Dahomian officials and merchants. The appointment of the Tegan probably marks the beginning of this Fon quarter in Ouidah.43
In records of the English fort in the following year the Tegan is described as ‘a Chief Captain of War deputed by the King of Dahomey to reside among the Forts’, and as ‘the Viceroy or Commanding Officer for Dahomey residing among the Forts’, indicating he also had command of troops stationed permanently in Ouidah.44 The installation of a military garrison seems to have occurred not at the time of the Tegan’s original appointment, but a few months later. In June 1733, in a decisive assertion of control over Ouidah, the Dahomians arrested about 80 Hueda in the Portuguese and English quarters of the town, and the next day a force of 400–500 Dahomian troops arrived ‘at the beach’ to the south and encamped there, seizing 40 ‘boys’ belonging to Assou who were employed by Portuguese ships trading there, all those taken prisoner being then carried off to Dahomian capital inland.45 This report of the setting up of a military camp on ‘the beach’ probably relates to the establishment of a Dahomian garrison at Zoungbodji, actually midway between Ouidah and the beach; local tradition recalls the establishment of this garrison after the Dahomian conquest, to oversee the arrival of European traders, under a chief with the title of Kakanaku (or, in its usual French form, Cakanacou).46 In contemporary sources, the Cakanacou is first attested in 1747, when the existing incumbent was killed in action and a replacement sent from Dahomey: his function is described as ‘General of War for the Beach’.47 Zoungbodji was generally referred to by Europeans in the eighteenth century as ‘Cakanacou’s village’.48
This assertion of Dahomian military control over Ouidah was complemented by efforts to conciliate and incorporate the exiled Hueda. As has been seen, Agaja had contemplated re-establishing the Hueda monarchy earlier: during 1728, he had first offered to permit Hufon to reoccupy his capital Savi and then to appoint a son of Hufon as king of Hueda. In the abortive negotiations with Hufon in 1731, Agaja again offered to accept him as a tributary, though whether the intention on this occasion was for him to be reinstalled in Savi or recognized as king over the Hueda in exile is not clear. However, Hufon died still in exile around the end of August 1733, and the succession to his kingship was disputed between two of his sons. One of the contenders, although able to occupy the royal capital, found himself besieged there by his opponent and contrived to send word to Agaja to offer his submission in return for Dahomian support. A Dahomian force marched to his relief, and he then went in person to Allada, where Agaja was currently residing, to pay homage to him, and received permission to reoccupy the old Hueda capital Savi, on condition of becoming tributary to Dahomey.49 This settlement was accompanied by a return of some of the exiled Hueda to Ouidah, around 500–600 of whom resettled there, according to a later account, ‘under the protection of the Portuguese fort’, meaning evidently in Tové, the indigenous Hueda quarter of the town, immediately north of the fort.50 Hueda tradition names the son of Hufon who succeeded him as king and submitted to Dahomian authority as Akamu.51 Local tradition in Ouidah also recalls the submission of the exiled Hueda to Agaja and their return to reoccupy their home country;52 the name of Akamu is also remembered there as having assisted in the resettlement of Tové quarter after the Dahomian conquest, and the Adjovi family traces its descent from Hueda royalty through him.53
The Hueda–Dahomey wars, 1743–75
The settlement of 1733 was not in fact the end of the matter, since the attempt to reconstitute the Hueda kingdom as a dependency of Dahomey was not in the long run successful. The new king appointed by Agaja was not accepted as legitimate by most Hueda, and he eventually withdrew to Dahomey, where he died ‘universally despised’.54 Agaja’s successor Tegbesu (1740–74) seems to have continued or revived the attempt to maintain a Hueda puppet monarchy under Dahomian suzerainty, since the records of the English fort at Ouidah report that in 1756 he appointed a ‘King of the Whydahs’ and sent him down to Ouidah, and in 1769 he proclaimed a new ‘King of the Whydahs’, named ‘Bangra’ (i.e. Agbangla, also the name of one of the pre-Dahomian Hueda kings), and sent him to Ouidah to be introduced to the European forts there.55