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An Alternative Text of King Agaja of Dahomey's Letter to King George I of England, 1726

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2014

Robin Law
Robin Law*
Affiliation:
University of Stirling/Hebrew University of Jerusalem, r.c.c.law@stir.ac.uk
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Extract

In an earlier issue of this journal I published the text of a letter to King George I of England written in the name of King “Trudo Audati” (better known under the name which he is given in in local tradition, Agaja) of the west African kingdom of Dahomey. Although dated 1726, this letter was received in England only in 1731, when it was belatedly delivered to London by Bulfinch Lambe, a former employee of the Royal African Company of England, who had spent some time in captivity in Dahomey, and who claimed to have written the letter at King Agaja's dictation. Lambe was accompanied to England by an African interpreter called “Captain Tom,” who vouched for the letter's authenticity; this man's African name was given as “Adomo Oroonoko Tomo,” though the middle name “Oroonoko” at least was surely not authentic, but borrowed from the popular romantic novel by Aphra Behn, Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave (1689). An official enquiry by the Board of Trade decided that the letter itself was a forgery, though on grounds I at least find unpersuasive; but it was acknowledged that Lambe had been charged with some sort of message from King Agaja, and arrangements were made for the repatriation of the interpreter “Adomo Oroonoko Tomo” to Dahomey, which was effected in the following year, 1732.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 29 , 2002 , pp. 257 - 271
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2002

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References

2 Law, Robin, “Further light on Bulfinch Lambe and the ‘Emperor of Pawpaw:” King Agaja of Dahomey's Letter to King George I of England, 1726’, HA 17(1990), 211–26.Google Scholar

3 For the inquiry and its verdict, see Johnson, Marion, “Bulfinch Lambe and the Emperor of Pawpaw: a Footnote to Agaja and the Slave Trade,” HA 5(1978), 345–50.Google Scholar

4 The Parliamentary History of England, from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, vol. 28 [1789–1791] (London, 1816), 82–91.Google Scholar

5 Law, Robin, “King Agaja of Dahomey, the Slave Trade, and the Question of West African Plantations: The Embassy of Bulfinch Lambe and Adomo Tomo to England, 1726-32,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 19(1991), 127–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Gentleman's Magazine 1(1731), 216, 401, 542Google Scholar; Boston Weekly News-Letter, 15/22 July and 5/12 August 1731.

7 Behn, Aphra, Oroonoko: An Authoritative Text, Historical Backgrounds, Criticism, ed. Lipking, Joanna (New York, 1997), 147–52.Google Scholar

8 Pennsylvania Gazette, nos 142 (29 July/5 Aug. 1731), 185 (8/15 June 1732), 186 (15/19 June 1732). My profound thanks to Daniel Rolph of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Gwenydd-Mercy College and Montgomery County Community College, who located these reports and supplied photocopies of them to me.

9 Adomo Tomo's baptism is also referred to in the Boston Weekly News-Letter, 15/22 July 1731, probably on the basis of a common source.

10 Hair, Paul, “Introduction,” in Hair, P.E.H., Jones, Adam, and Law, Robin, eds., Barbot on Guinea: The Writings of Jean Barbot on West Africa, 1678-1712 (2 vols.: London, 1992), 1:xix.Google Scholar

11 Gentleman's Magazine I, 542Google Scholar; Law, , “King Agaja of Dahomey,” 146.Google Scholar

12 Pennsyhania Gazette, no.186. “Widah”: which Tomo adopted as his surname, was the name of the principal coastal port of Dahomey (more commonly “ Whydah,” modern Ouidah), where the English Royal African Company's main factory in the kingdom was located.

13 Akinjogbin, Especially I.A., Dahomey and Its Neighbours, 1708-1818 (Cambridge, 1967), 73–74.Google Scholar

14 “Dawhomay” in 1789, here and subsequently.

15 “Pawpow” in 1789.

16 1789: “our kingdoms”

17 1789: “were ever permitted to come and see, unless when made slaves.”

18 1789: “thare [=there]”

19 1789: “countrey”

20 1789: “also”

21 1789: “Widah's”. 1789 generally gives this spelling also subsequently, but sometimes the spelling “Whidah,” as in 1732.

22 1789: “permit”

23 1789: “me”. On several subsequent occasions also, which are not specifically noted, 1789 uses the first-person singular where 1732 has plural forms.

24 1789: “trading subjects”

25 1789: “linguister,” here and subsequently.

26 1789: “Adome [sic] Oronoco Als Captain Tain [sic: =Tom]”

27 1789: “your friendship and enco[u]ragement, as formerly they had.”

28 1789: “but now hope”

29 1789: “restitution”

30 1789: “corresponding”

31 1789: “and”

32 1789: “feteashes,” here and subsequently.

33 1789: “God,”

34 1789: “then”

35 1789: “on Jacquin”

36 1789: “general and captain of war”

37 1789: “seventy-nine”

38 1789: “but”

39 1789: “that”

40 1789: “and”

41 1789: “neree,” perhaps for “nere [=near]”

42 1789 here is clearly corrupt: “muskeet [=musket],” if it was in the original text, must evidently have been an alternative for “gun” rather than for “cutlass.”

43 1789: “thare [=there]”

44 1789: “have taken”

45 1789: “as we did in my brother's reigne”

46 1789: “Nullow Yowzie Cocotow Hallecewtrode Tropa.” The spelling “Yawzy” in 1732 is probably closer to the original, the name of this king being recalled in local tradition as Yahaze.

47 1789: “Wimey”

48 1789: “were”

49 1789: “and his under captains of warrs's heads”

50 1789: “shatt [?=set]”

51 1789: “in warr”

52 1789: “that”

53 1789: “unless”

54 1789: “convenient”

55 1789: “propose”

56 1789: “or”

57 1789: “of,” clearly in error.

58 1789: “opens it”

59 1789: “was under the care att other times”

60 1789: “his”

61 1789: “his”

62 1789: “which”

63 1789: “was”

64 1789: “and”

65 1789: “and the son of the late king has been made by me”

66 1789: “he”.

67 1789 here has “out but,” presumably through a combination of misreading and dittography.

68 1789: “Caboshiers,” here and subsequently.

69 1789: “after that time, the chaire”

70 1789: “clauth [=cloth]”

71 1789: “guns, pistols”

72 1789: “which”

73 1789: “are Mahometans”

74 1789: “people”

75 1789: “and”

76 1789: “stranger”

77 1789: “sortes”

78 1789: “per”

79 1789: “him”

80 1789: “one,” evidently in error.

81 1789: “it”

82 1789: “Trudo Audato Povesavv Daujerenjon Suveveto Ene-Mottee Addee Pow, a Powlo Cow Hullow Neccresy”

83 1789: “Emperor of Dawhomay”