French Dahomey
The slave trade ended in 1848. Then, the French signed treaties with Kings of Abomey (Guezo, Glele) and Hogbonou (Toffa) to establish French protectorates in the main cities and ports. However, King Behanzin fought the French influence, which cost him deportation to Martinique.
In 1863, the first French protectorate was established with King Toffa of Porto-Novo who sought help against the claims of the King of Abomey and attacks of the English settled in Lagos. In the same year, Glèlè, king of Abomey, authorized the French to settle in Cotonou. In 1882, the sovereign of the kingdom of Porto-Novo signed a new protectorate agreement with France which sent a "French resident" to assist the king.
In 1894, the French, victors of the local kings, created the colony of Dahomey and dependencies. The territory took the name of the kingdom most predominant and the most resistant to the foreign occupation: Danhome with its legendary king Behanzin. In 1894, Dahomey was colonised by France, subsequent to the surrender of the King of Abomey.
The colonial administration proceeded in 1895 to a territorial division of Danhome. Thus it created cantons, subdivisions and circles which were equivalent to the arrondissements, communes and provinces respectively.
Dahomey conquered, the French at once set to work to secure as much of the hinterland as possible. On the north they penetrated to the Niger, on the east they entered Borgu (a country claimed by the Royal Niger Company for Great Britain), on the west they overlapped the territory claimed by Germany as the hinterland of Togo.
The struggle with Great Britain and Germany for supremacy in this region formed one of the most interesting chapters in the story of the partition of Africa. In the result France succeeded in securing a junction between Dahomey and her other possessions in West Africa, but failed to secure any part of the Niger navigable from the sea.
A Franco-German convention of 1897 settled the boundary on the west, and the Anglo-French convention of the 14th of June 1898 defined the frontier on the east. In 1899, on the disintegration of the French Sudan, the districts of Fada N'Gurma and Say, lying north of Borgu, were added to Dahomey, but in 1907 they were transferred to Upper Senegal-Niger, with which colony they are closely connected both geographically and ethnographically. From 1894 onward the French devoted great attention to the development of the material resources of the country.
As of 1900, the territory became a French colony ruled by a French Governor. Expansion continued to the North (kingdoms of Parakou, Nikki, Kandi), up to the border with former Upper Volta. A Decree specified the denomination of the new territories “Colony of dahomey and its dependences”.
In 1904 Dahomey was incorporated into the French West African Federation (French Western Africa) and the colonial rulers used direct and indirect rules interchangeably in the various administrative devisions into which the territory was divided.
The colony was administered by a lieutenant-governor, assisted by a council composed of official and unofficial members. The colony was divided into territories annexed, territories protected, and "territories of political action," but for administrative purposes the division was into "circles" or provinces. Over each circle is an administrator with extensive powers. Except in the annexed territories the native states are maintained under French supervision, and native laws and customs, as far as possible, retained. Natives, however, may place themselves under the jurisdiction of the French law. Such natives are known as "Assimiles." In general the administrative system is the same as that for all the colonies of French West Africa. The chief source of revenue is the customs, while the capitation tax contributed most to the local budget.
As in most African countries, the French rulers of colonial Dahomey had two main goals: the maintenance of order and the production of raw materials. To accomplish these objectives, they created a highly centralized colonial administration and a tightly controlled, export-oriented economy. With few natural resources besides plentiful labor and a favorable climate, Dahomey's farmers were introduced to cotton in the early years of French rule. Cotton production gradually became the mainstay of the colonial economy. In addition, the French dredged a port at Cotonou and built road and rail links north to funnel goods from landlocked Niger and eastern Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) to the sea.
These patterns of economic activity remain firmly ingrained and to this day, cotton and the transshipment of goods are the twin foundations upon which modern Benin's economy rests. As in the colonial period, these industries are heavily influenced by external factors such as the weather, world commodity prices, and the political and economic situation in neighboring countries thus lending a boom-bust pattern to Benin’s economic sector and providing ongoing evidence to many Beninois that external factors (Nigeria, donors, etc.) play a primary role in determining their wellbeing.
The "pacification" of the north Hwas completed by the turn of the century. But then came a second wave of resistance in 1915 against what were seen as abuses by French colonial administration carried out by Southern Dahomeans. The Northerners did feel obliged to pay taxes and otherwise submit to the French colonial rulers who defeated them in the battles of the 1890's. But they objected to the presence of Africans from the South. They felt they were having to submit to a double foreign colonization of French governors and rulers and Southern administrators and teachers. There were two major revolts in the North. One in the North-West around Bimbereke and Nikki and the other in the North East around Natitingou by a Somba sub-group. Both revolts lasted for over two years, and were defeated by the French, but remained in the historical memories of the two peoples of the Bariba and the Somba as brave resistances to the double foreign domination. Resistance movements in Dahomey 1914-1917 resulted from the war recruitment and poorly accepted taxation, which favored the rapprochement of the indigenous people and their traditional leaders and provoked their solid opposition to the established power. The various insurrection movements which shook the colony at that time revealed the impossibility of governing without the assistance of the traditional chiefs. They isolated the colonizer from the colonized group and allowed all the harmful aspects to burst forth an integral administration which established direct contact between administrators and administrators.
It was the extent that administration suffered from this opposition of solidarity that it sought to reduce as much as possible the powers of the former rulers and weaken their representative character. As early as 1914, the communities in the southeast of the country, supported by their chiefs, refused the government's fiscal and military requirements. All the political reports of that period blamed the indigenous leaders for their lack of eagerness or lack of will effectively assist the administration in recruitment operations. By 1916-1917 the locals persisted in their effective resistance. In the northern part of the colony the situation appeared to be much better recruitment taxation and census were all reasons for discontent.
On December 4, 1958, it became the Republique du Dahomey, self-governing within the French community, and on August 1, 1960, the Republic of Benin gained full independence from France. Then began a period of political turmoil marked by the succession of 6 military coups between 1960 and 1972. Between 1960 and 1972, a succession of military coups brought about many changes of government.
Dahomey supplied the French with intellectuals. Most of the core “functionnaires” for French West Africa were Dahomian. Ambitious people from Dahomey and got out, got an education, and went to the French bureaucracy. They didn't stay in Dahomey because there was nothing to do. So, with independence, with De Gaulle's great pronouncement and everybody became independent at once in 1960/'61, all the Dahomian “functionnaires” were sent home from Cote d'Ivoire and Chad and Niger and Senegal and all the rest of it.
So, suddenly, there was this little town on the coast with very little economy and lots of “French” intellectuals. Those that didn't get jobs with the UN spent the time overthrowing each other. So, Dahomey had a nice long history of bloodless coups. They didn't kill each other. They were very good about it until well into the 1980s.
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