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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 January 2009
A study of the interaction between the aims of African rulers, the British and Gold Coast governments, and Wesleyan missionaries in Dahomey between 1843 and 1867 suggests that neither Africans nor Europeans made any consistent distinction, at this time, between the religious and secular aspects of British influence in Dahomey.
1 No other Protestant missionary society was active in this area. For the work of the Roman Catholic Société des Missions Africaines from 1861 onwards, cf. J. Lafitte, Le Dahomé. Souvenirs de voyage et de mission (1873);Google ScholarDesribes, E., L'Evangile au Dahomey et à la Côte des Esclaves (1877);Google ScholarBouche, P., La Côte des Esclaves et le Dahomey (1885);.Google ScholarTodd, J. M., African Mission (1962), especially chapter iii and IV.Google Scholar
2 Louis Fraser describes as follows the procedure of a meeting he had as British vice-consul with the King of Dahomey in 1851: ‘I read [Lord Palmerston's two letters] piecemeal, then rendered them as near as I could into Madiki's English, which is no joke, and then he interpreted, as well as he could, I suppose.’ Fraser's Journal, fo. 90r, in Beecroft to Palmerston, 19 Feb. 1852, F.O. 84/886, end. 20, sub-encl. in no. 3.Google Scholar
3 Todd, J. M., op. cit. 3, prefers the term ‘religious murder’.Google Scholar
4 Draft treaty of 8 Mar. 1847, in Winniett to Grey, 12 May 1847, C.O. 96/11, no. 42. The draft treaty of 6 May 1843, of which there is a copy in the Gold Coast inward correspondence of the Methodist Missionary Society, had proposed £700 p.a. for seven years.Google Scholar
5 Beecroft extended to five years, subject to ratification, Palmerston's authorization to offer £3000 p.a. for three years. Palmerston to Beecroft, 25 Seb. 1850, F.O. 84/816, no. 1 and encl. 6; Beecroft to Palmerston, 22 July 1850, F.O. 84/816, no. 9 and end. Cf. S. O. Biobaku, The Egba and their Neighbours, 1842–72 (1957), 39f.Google Scholar
6 By Cruickshank Cf. C. W. Newbury, The Western Slave Coast and its rulers (1961), 51. Winniett's estimate the previous year had been $50,000 or £10,400 p.a. Winniett to Grey, 12 May 1847, C.O. 96/11, no. 42.Google Scholar
7 Minute by Palmerston, 30 Sept. 1850, on Beecroft to Palmerston, 22 July 1810, F.O. 84/816, no. 9; cf. K. O. Dike, Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta, 1830–1885 (1956), 130.Google Scholar
8 Malmesbury to Beecroft, 20 Mar. 1852, F.O. 84/886, encl. 23 in no. 4Google Scholar
9 Ghezo to Queen Victoria, 20 Jan. 1852, ibid. encl. 24; cf. Freeman to Secretaries of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, 12 Aug. 1854; Freeman to Ord, 2 Apr. 1856. Unless otherwise specified, references are to Gold Coast inward correspondence of the Methodist Missionary Society.
10 The evidence is conflicting. In Oct. 1853 Campbell reported that the slave trade was on the increase, except at Whydah where the King of Dahomey had forbidden it. In the following May Freeman saw a shipment of 650 slaves, but noted that Ghezo's court seemed poorer than he had previously known it. (Campbell to Clarendon, 31 Oct. 1853, F.O. 84/920, no. 24; Freeman to Secretaries, 12 Aug. 1854; Campbell to Ghezo, 13 Apr. 1854, in Campbell to Clarendon, 4 May 1854, F.O. 84/950, encl, 1 in no. 6.)Google Scholar
11 Campbell to Clarendon, 4 Apr. 1857, F.O. 84/1031, n. 9. Cf. Newbury, op. cit. 54, n. 1.Google Scholar
12 Bernasko to West (?), 1 Feb. 1862.Google Scholar
13 Bernasko to West (?), 1 May 1862.Google Scholar
14 On these, Hurt, cf. N. K., Wesleyan Missions on the Eastern Frontier of Cape Colony, 1820–1840, unpublished M.A. thesis (London, 1958), folios 32–8.Google Scholar
15 Wesleyan Methodism in Britain, in a conservative reaction after the French Revolution, became anxious to show that religious nonconformity did not imply revolutionary tendencies in politics. Cf. R. G. Cowherd, The Politics of English Dissent (1959 edition), 17; R. E. Davies, Methodism (1963) Pelican edition, 134f.Google Scholar
16 West to Hoole, 6 June 1859.Google Scholar
17 Campbell to Clarendon, 28 May 1855, F.O. 84/976, no. 8 and encl; same to same, 30 Aug. F.O. 84/976, encl. 7 in no. 15.Google Scholar
18 Freeman to Forster, 5 June 1855*; same to same, 2 July 1855*. The asterisk denotes autograph copies of Freeman's correspondence, M.M.S.: B. West Africa 3.Google Scholar
19 W.M.S. General Committee minute, 9 Oct. 1850, M.M.S.: M/OM 1, 484.Google Scholar
20 Cf. Andrews to Newcastle, 31 Aug. 1860, C.O. 96/48; same to same, 9 Oct. 1861, CO. 96/54.Google Scholar
21 Freeman to Secretaries, 5 Nov. 1873; cf. Wolseley to Secretaries, 13 Dec. 1873, unsigned articles by Freeman entitled ‘The Ashantee War’, Methodist Recorder, 9 Jan.; 16 Jan. and 6 Feb. 1874.Google Scholar
22 Freeman to Forster, 6 Mar. 1855*; same to same, 5 June 1855*.Google Scholar
23 Freeman to Ord, 27 Mar. 1856; cf. N. A. Birtwhistle, Thomas Birch Freeman (1950), 101.Google Scholar
24 Freeman to Forster, 15 May 1856*.Google Scholar
25 Cf. e.g., Winniett's Report for 1846, C.O. 96/11, no. 27, which concludes: ‘… the Christian Religion on which all the principles of good Government are founded is steadily and surely making its way among the people’.Google Scholar
26 Freeman, fo. 514, in Andrews to Newcastle, 9 Aug. 1861, C.O. 96/54.Google Scholar
27 Freeman to Swanzy, 12 June 1855*.Google Scholar
28 Typescript of untitled MS., M.M.S.: B. ‘West Africa 4, fo. 286. Henceforward referred to as ‘Reminiscences’.Google Scholar
29 African priests from Sāo Tomé visited Whydah twice a year. Cf. F. E. Forbes, Dahomey and the Dahomans (1851), 1, 176, and 118f.; Todd, op. cit. 50.Google Scholar
30 ‘Reminiscences’, folios 232, 421–6; cf. Newbury, op. Cit. 50.Google Scholar
31 ‘Reminiscences’, folios 200, 238.Google Scholar
32 Freeman, T. B., Journal of Various Visits … (1844), II, 239ff., for 3 01 and 12–14 Mar. 1843.Google Scholar
33 13 Mar. 1843. In Freeman to Secretaries, 27 Mar. 1843; cf. Wesleyan Missionary Notices, 1843, 395.Google Scholar
34 Freeman to Secretaries, 27 Mar. 1843.Google Scholar
35 Freeman to Maclean, 11 May 1843.Google Scholar
36 Maclean to Freeman, 24 May 1843, in ‘Reminiscences’, folios 422 f.Google Scholar
37 Winniett to Grey, 22 Feb. 1847, C.O. 96/11.Google Scholar
38 Hill to Stanley, 16 May 1844; same to same, 11 Nov. 1844, C.O. 96/4, nos. 15, 56; Freeman to Bannerman, 30 Jan. 1851*; ‘Reminiscences’, ch. xxxi, esp. folio 444.Google Scholar
39 Duncan, J., Travels in West Africa (1847), II, 268–71.Google Scholar
40 ‘I believe this humane change has been principally brought about through the advice of Mr Freeman, who is much in favour with his Majesty’.Google ScholarDuncan, , op. cit. I, 258, cf. it, 305f.; ‘Reminiscences’, folios 286, 310, 313.Google Scholar
41 Cf. Fraser's Journals, in Beecroft to Palmerston, 19 Feb. 1852, F.O. 84/886, encl. 20, sub-encl. 1 in no. 3, and in Beecroft to Malmesbury, 28 June 1852, F.O. 84/886, no; 2; cf. Malmesbury to Fraser, 19 Apr. 1852, F.O. 84/886, no. 3.Google Scholar
42 Beecroft's Journal for 4 July 1850, in Beecroft to Palmerston, 22 July 1850, F.O. 84/816, no. 9 Bannerman to Grey, 11 Feb. 1851, C.O. 96/22, no. 16 and encls.Google Scholar
43 ‘Reminiscences’, folios 25–8, cf. folios 15f.; Christianity the Means of Civilization (evidence given to the House of Commons Committee on Aborigines by secretaris of three missionary societies) (1837). For the contrary view, cf. Duncan, op. cit. 1, 116Google Scholar
44 Freeman to Beecham, 1 June 1853.Google Scholar
45 Freeman to Ghezo, 18 July 1853;Google ScholarFreeman to Dawson, 18 July 1853*.Google Scholar
46 Freeman to Secretarie, 30 May 1853; same to Hill, 9 Dec. 1853*.Google Scholar
47 Freeman to Secretaries, 5 July 1854; same to same, 12 Aug. 1854; same to Hill, 10 08. 1854*;Google ScholarWharton to Secretaries, 16 Aug. 1854;Google ScholarFreeman to Secretaries, 20 July 1855; same to same, 14 Feb. 1856; same to same, 15 May 1856; ‘Reminiscences’, folio 337.Google Scholar
48 A few years later, Roman Catholic missionaries were to encounter the same reluctance on the part of Glele to allow mission work to extend beyond a similar ‘curtain society’, whose focus in this case was the Portuguese fort at Whydah. Cf. Todd, op. cit. 49ff.Google Scholar
49 Dawson to Freeman, 23 Feb. 1855.Google Scholar
50 Freeman to Secretaries, 12 Aug. 1854. Freeman set up a regular postal service between Whydah and the eastern frontier of the Gold Coast.Google Scholar
51 Freeman to Dawson, 5 Feb. 1855.*Google Scholar
52 Dawson to Freeman, 23 Feb. 1855, reporting an interview of 24 Dec. 1854.Google Scholar
53 Freeman to Laing, 1 Sept. 1856*.Google Scholar
54 Freeman to Secretaries, 2 Apr. 1856.Google Scholar
55 West to Hoole, 6 June 1859; same to same, 10 Sept. 1858.Google Scholar
56 West to Hoole, 10 Feb. 1860.Google Scholar
57 Bernasko to Wharton (?), 31 Dec. 1860.Google Scholar
58 Wharton to Osborn, 3 Apr. 1861;Google Scholarcf. Bernasko to Wharton (?), 29 Nov. 1860. The word ‘missionary’ had at this time no racial connotation, African Wesleyan ministers being known until 1870 as ‘native assistant missionaries’.Google Scholar
59 Bernasko to West (?), 1 May 1860;Google ScholarWest to Secretaries, 12 Aug. 1862;Google ScholarBernasko to West (?), 3 Oct. 1862.Google Scholar
60 Bernasko to West (?), 29 Dec. 1862;Google ScholarWest to Secretaries, 12 Sept. 1863;Google ScholarBurton to Secretaries, 13 June 1863, in F. D. Walker, A Hundred Years in Nigeria (1942), 56;Google ScholarBurton, R. F., A Mission to Gelele King of Dahome (1893 edition), 1, 18, 56f., 79; 11, 227, 229;Google ScholarSkertchly, J. A., Dahomey as it is (1874), 16f., 49f., 237f.Google Scholar
61 The Scantier evidence from smaller neighbouring kingdoms in which the W.M.S. was at work points in the same direction, although mission workers were less involved than at Whydah in unofficial diplomatic activity. At Porto Nova, the African minister Joseph Marshall preached periodically to King Sodji from his arrival in 1862, but this did not prevent a rumour in 1867 that converts (not, apparently, recaptives) at an outstation named Ashipa were building, not a church, but a British fort. The subsequent persecution did not extend to ‘expatriate’ Christians, e.g. from Lagos (Marshall to West, 24 Sept. 1867; Richmond to West, 2 Oct. 1867; Grimmer to Boyce, 1 Dec. 1868). At Agoué, where Roman Catholic work had begun without European initiative as early as 1835, the long-standing hostility between wards known as ‘English Town’ and ‘Portuguese Town’, which had led to civil war in 1860, assumed in 1876 a religious aspect. A house which Quashi Gazo or Ganzozo, the chief of English Town, had transferred to the W.M.S. by deed of gift was occupied, under French pressure, by the ‘Portuguese’ and Roman Catholic party, Quashi Gazo's gift being understood as a step towards British occupation of the whole town (Milum to Boyce, 15 June 1876; T. E. Williams to Secretaries, 18 Sept. 1876; Milum to Secretaries, 23 Nov. 1876; cf. T. E. Williams to Secretaries, 19 July 1878; Bouche, op. cit. 266f.). At Anécho, it was popularly thought that one of the aims of Protestant mission work was ‘to introduce a foreign government to a country’ (Franklin to Secretaries, 29 Oct. 1880). At Ado, the Wesleyan agent was accused by the chief in 1880 of being a British spy (Marshall to Kilner, 31 July 1880).Google Scholar
