In the Belly of Dan Space, History, and Power in Precolonial Dahomey
Abstract
The kingdom of Dahomey arose on the Slave Coast of West Africa in the tumultuous era of the slave trade. This essay explores elite architectural strategies designed to cope with political instability in this period, particularly the role of urban landscape planning and resettlement schemes in the creation of political order. Attention is directed toward the role of palace construction campaigns across the Abomey Plateau, the core zone of Dahomean political power. Drawing on multiple lines of evidence (archaeological, oral, and documentary), I argue that the production of space was centrally important for crafting orthodox histories of dynastic origins and gerrymandering social identities vis-à-vis the emerging state, providing new insights into the sources of political authority in West Africa in the Atlantic era, as well as into the complex intersections between space, power, and “history making” in the past.
