ART + LAW
this war, which was waged by France against the
Kingdom of Dahomey and resulted in the defeat of
King Behanzin and the establishment of a French
protectorate.
French press reports are all but unanimous in
their conviction that these “ill-gotten gains” acquired
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by General Dodds in the course of a “punitive
expedition” and now in the Musée du Quai
Branly – Jacques Chirac must be returned. However,
the facts don’t support this. To listen to these
reports, one is tempted to imagine an unstoppable
force of heavily equipped soldiers led by a whiteskinned,
red-headed offi cer with a large mustache
and a colonial helmet, all coming to chastise the
“noble savages,” who are armed only with spears
and arrows. Such imagery is straight out of a
Tarzan movie and it is as much of an affront to
historical truth as it is to Dahomey’s King Behanzin,
who fought ferociously against the French (as
well as against many neighboring Yoruba chiefdoms
and kingdoms), often relying heavily on the
famous Dahomey “Amazons.” Known as minos,
or king’s wives, these were members of an elite,
all-female military regiment for which its “incredible
courage and audacity” even the French Foreign
Legion expressed its admiration.
What really happened is not diffi cult to verify,
and abundant sources tell the story. Behanzin
was undoubtedly a great king, but,
like his forebears, he was also a slave dealer
and a ruler who did not hesitate to use
force against his subjects and neighboring
kingdoms to establish and maintain his privileges.
The history of the Kingdom of Ketou,
which was mercilessly punished by Behanzin’s
father, King Glele, fi rst in 1882 and then again
in 1886, is edifying on this point. In the second
confl ict, the city of Ketou was sacked and
looted, its temples and altars destroyed, and its
houses burned, all under Glele’s personal direction.
Its people were sent into slavery in Abomey
after its chiefs were summarily executed. The
memory of the persecution by Dahomey is so
vivid in Ketou that a square in the town is devoted
to the “centenary of the renaissance of Ketou
1894–1994,” commemorating and celebrating
King Behanzin’s unconditional surrender on January
15, 1894.
The purpose of the Dodds expedition was not
to loot the regalia housed in the royal palace of
Abomey. It was motivated by a geopolitical confl
ict that pitted France, England, and the Kingdom
of Dahomey against one another for control
of the small coastal kingdom of Porto Novo.
After brutal combat, this ended with the taking
of Abomey on November 17, 1892, and Behanzin’s
ensuing fl ight from the region. But once
again, history cannot be reduced to such a simple
synopsis. Above and beyond the viciousness
Who will analyze the obvious and much-touted
role that Christianity and, more recently, Islam played in
the disappearance of so-called pagan idols? Who will take
a hard look at the pitiful state to which museums in Africa
have been brought in the hands of their directors or strive to
understand the almost complete absence of African collectors
of African art? And, fi nally, who will be willing to grasp the
history of mankind for what it is, without adopting some
moralistic and anachronistic analysis or a false
revisionist approach to explaining it?
“
“
of the fi ghting, the horrible loss of human
life in both camps, the image of the palace
of Abomey in fl ames, and of the “war
booty,” other relevant facts exist—that of
the Yoruba slaves, who, once liberated by
Dodds’ army, used their freshly gained freedom
to turn on their former Fon masters with
bloodthirsty fury, and that of a defeated king
who set fi re to his own palace before fl eeing
his capital. That fi re was extinguished by the
French, who, as an emblem of their victory and
without for an instant doubting the moral and
political justifi ability of their actions, took with
them the artworks that the Republic of Benin, a
state that did not exist at the time, now claims
as its own.
These facts are related, among other places, in
a 1985 reference work published by UNESCO:
General History of Africa, volume VII: Africa
Under Colonial Domination: 1880–1935, page
128:
But what upset the Fon military plan most was
the destruction of the harvest by the Yoruba slaves