17 Facts About Adandozan

Adandozan was a king of the Kingdom of Dahomey, in present-day Benin, from 1797 until 1818.

Adandozan's rule ended with a coup by his brother Ghezo who then erased Adandozan from the official history resulting in high uncertainty about many aspects of his life.

Adandozan took over from his father Agonglo in 1797 but was quite young at the time and so there was a regent in charge of the kingdom until 1804.

Adandozan was left alive and lived until the 1860s hidden in the palaces while he was largely erased from official royal history.

However, because Adandozan was young at the time, the first seven years of his rule were held by a regency of various elder statesmen.

Adandozan followed Agonglo's policies of trying to revive the slave trade through slave raiding of the Mahi people to the north and disrupting the trade at rival ports.

Unlike his father who had received Catholic missionaries from the Portuguese, Adandozan made clear that he had no interest in conversion but requested the Portuguese help him in building mining operations and a gun manufacturing facility in Dahomey.

Adandozan's assistant wrote to the British calling Adandozan a tyrant and this increased tension with the British.

Adandozan responded to the slowing of the slave trade by trying to reform the economy to focus on agricultural production.

Adandozan increased opportunities for agriculture and made the Corn Customs a primary festival held publicly.

The increased slave trade simultaneously undermined the agricultural reforms of Adandozan and increased the power of Francisco Felix de Sousa, a powerful Brazilian slave trader.

When he requested repayment for this loan, Adandozan publicly insulted de Sousa and imprisoned him causing de Sousa to flee to Little Popo.

Maurice Ahanhanzo Glele says that Adandozan was replaced because he had failed economically and then decided to sacrifice his sister, Sinkutin, to have her plead his case to the ancestors.

Adandozan lived much of his later life confined to the palaces, while his descendants changed their name to avoid association, and when he died he was buried quickly but with full royal honors.

Adandozan's legacy was reworked significantly by Ghezo and Glele who depicted the former king as a cruel and incompetent ruler who had usurped his throne and erased all official history of Adandozan.

Adandozan's name was largely erased from the history of Dahomey, and to this day is generally not spoken aloud in the city of Abomey.

Adandozan is not referred to in kings' lists and is not included in the cloth applique of the kingdom.