Fon people

language area. Map of the Fon (purple) and other ethnic groups, according to Capo (1998). Since the seventeenth century, the Fon have been concentrated in the Benin region and the southwestern part of Togo and Nigeria. The Fon people, like neighboring ethnic groups in West Africa, remained an oral tradition society through the late medieval era, without ancient historical records. According to these oral histories and legends, the Fon people originated in present-day Tado, an Aja kingdom now situated near the Togo–Benin border. Their earliest ancestors, called Agassouvis, were originally a part of the ruling class in Tado. The Aja people had a major dispute ; one group broke off and these people came to be the Fon people, who migrated to Allada with king Lande Ajahouto. The sons of king Ajahouto disputed who should succeed him after his death, and the group split again. This time, a Fon group migrated with Ajahouto's middle son Do-Aklin northwards to the Abomey's plateau, where they founded the kingdom of Dahomey sometime about 1620 CE, The Fon people have been settled there since, while the kingdom of Dahomey expanded in southeast Benin by conquering neighboring kingdoms. But these sources are highly controversed. The claim to any origin from within Allada is not recorded in contemporary sources before the late eighteenth century, and is very likely an attempt by the ruling dynasty in the Dahomean kingdom's capital of Agbome to legitimize its conquest of the independent coastal kingdom of Allada in the 1720s. These claims can also be interpreted as a metaphorical expressions of cultural and political influences between kingdoms rather than actual kinship. == History ==

While references and documented history about the Fon people are scant before the 17th century, there are abundant documents on them from the 17th century, particularly written by European travelers and traders to West African coasts. These memoirs mention such cities as Ouidah and Abomey. Among the most circulated texts are those of Archibald Dalzel, a slave trader who in 1793 wrote the legends, history and slave trading practices of the Fon people in a book titled the History of Dahomey. Modern era scholars have questioned the objectivity and accuracy of Dalzel, and to what extent his pioneering book on Fon people was a polemic or dispassionate scholarship. N. Savariau, Le Herisse and M.J. Herskovits' anthropological study on Fon people published in 1938. Slavery, Bight of Benin The Fon people did not invent slavery in Africa, nor did they have a monopoly on slavery nor exclusive slave trading activity. The institution of slavery long predates the origins of the Fon people in the Aja kingdom and the formation of the kingdom of Dahomey. The sub-Saharan and the Red Sea region, states Herbert Klein – a professor of history, was already trading between 5,000 and 10,000 African slaves per year between 800 and 1600 CE, with a majority of these slaves being women and children. According to John Donnelly Fage – a professor of history specializing in Africa, a "slave economy was generally established in the Western and Central Sudan by about the fourteenth century at least, and had certainly spread to the coasts around the Senegal and in Lower Guinea by the fifteenth century". By the 15th century, Songhay Empire rulers to the immediate north of the Fon people, in the Niger River valley, were already using thousands of captured slaves for agriculture. The Fon rulers and merchants, whose powers were established on the Atlantic coast between 1700 and 1740, entered this market. During the Atlantic Slave Trade, the Fon people were both victims and victimisers of other ethnic groups. Under vassalship to the Oyo Empire, Dahomey had to provide Oyo with slaves as annual tribute. Many of these slaves were Fon men, which altered the gender demographics of the Dahomeans, and resulted in their reliance on an all-female military unit, called the Agoji or Mino. Many of the Fon people, annually, enslaved by Oyo, were sold into the Atlantic Slave Trade. Criminals of Dahomey could also be exported to the New World, even if they were of the Fon people. The foreign slaves sold by Dahomey came from wars between the Oyo Empire, the Kingdom of Dahomey, and the Allada Kingdom. However, other enslaved people came from systematic kidnapping within the kingdom or at the frontiers, as well as the caravans of slaves brought in by merchants from the West African interior. The Fon kingdom of Dahomey controlled the port of Ouidah, from where numerous European slave ships disembarked. However, this was not the only port of the region, and it competed with the ports controlled by other nearby kingdoms on the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra. The enslaved people sold by Dahomey, belonged to ethnic groups such as the: Ewe, Aja, Whydah, Mina, and Yoruba. The slave traders and ship owners of European colonial system encouraged competition, equipped the various kingdoms with weapons, which they paid for with slaves, as well as built infrastructure such as ports and forts to strengthen the small kingdoms. However, slave trading in the Bight of Benin soon came to an end as European and American nations passed legislation which outlawed their involvement in the slave trade. The last nation in the Americas to officially outlaw the slave trade was Imperial Brazil, in 1851. When slave exports ceased, the king of Dahomey shifted to agricultural exports to France, particularly palm oil, but used slaves to operate the plantations. The agricultural exports were not as lucrative as slave exports had been in past. To recover state revenues he leased the ports in his kingdom to the French through a signed agreement in late 19th century. The French interpreted the agreement as ceding the land and ports, while the Dahomey kingdom disagreed. This started the colonial rule for the Fon people. French colonial era The period of French colonial empire marked the end of the Fon royalty, though France kept the system of plantations, which they had inherited from the royalty. The French colonial administration targeted slavery in Benin, they outlawed capture of slaves, legally freed numerous slaves, but faced resistance and factional struggles from previous local slave owners running their farms. The slavery that continued included those that was lineage-related, who cohabited within families in the region. The Fon aristocracy adapted to the new conditions, by joining the ranks of administrators in the French rule. These complaints gelled into an anti-colonial nationalism movement in which the Fon people participated. == Religion ==

Some Fon people converted to Christianity or Islam under the influence of missionaries during the colonial era, in Benin and in French West Indies colonies, but many continued their traditional religious practices. While Islam arrived in the Benin area between 11th and 13th centuries, Christianity was adopted by Dahomey ruler Agonglo who came to power in 1789, and his Fon royalty supporters, with missionaries welcomed. According to Steven Mailloux, the missionaries attempted to integrate the old concepts of Fon people on cosmogenesis to be same as Adam-Eve, and their Legba to be Christian Satan, teachings that led to syncretism rather than abandonment. The Fon people, states Mary Turner, have generally proven to be highly resistant to Christianity and Islam, even when brought over as slaves in a new environment as evident in Haiti. They have generally refused to accept innovative re-interpretation of Fon mythologies within the Abrahamic mythical framework. The priests of the Fon people, contrary to the expectations of the missionaries, adopted and re-interpreted Abrahamic myths into their own frameworks. The religious practice of the Fon people have four overlapping elements: public gods, personal or private gods, ancestral spirits, and magic or charms. Thus, the Vodoun religion is polytheistic. The Fon people have a concept of a female Supreme Being called Nana Buluku, who gave birth to the Mawu-Lisa and created the universe. A typical traditional home compound of the Fon people has a Dexoxos, or ancestral shrine. While many Fon identify as Christian, the majority continue to practice Benin's traditional religion Vodun. The Fon have priests and mediums who receive the spirits on the occasion of the great festivals. The cult of the sacred serpents in the temple of Whydah had some importance, but eventually fell into disuse. Practice can involve drumming to induce possession by one of these gods or spirits. Together with other cultural groups from the Fon homeland region such as the Yoruba and Bantu, Fon culture merged with French, Portuguese or Spanish to produce distinct religions (Voodoo, Obeah, Candomblé and Santería), dance and musical styles (Arará, Yanvalou). In the French colonies, such as Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), the Christian missionaries confiscated and burnt the statues and religious objects of the Fon people, but this did not end their practices. They rebuilt their icons again. The Fon people and their government have reversed the colonial attempts to culturally change them. After the end of the colonial era, January 10 has been declared an official annual holiday in Benin dedicated to Vodun gods. == Society and culture ==

The Fon people are traditionally settled farmers, growing cassava, corn and yams as staples. The Fon culture incorporated culture and shared ideas with ethnic groups that have been their historical neighbors. Many of their practices are found among Yoruba people, Akan people, Ewe people and others. Dahomey Amazons A notable part of the Fon people's society was their use of female soldiers in combat roles over some two centuries. Over 3,000 women trained and served as regular warriors to protect the Fon and to expand its reach. The women warrior's brigade was led by a woman. Given the oral tradition of Fon people, when women joined as warriors in Fon society is unclear. The earliest European records, such as those of Jean-Pierre Thibault, suggest that the tradition dates back to the early 18th century or even earlier. These gender roles were foreign to the European travellers, and early fictional stories in European media are considered unreliable by many scholars. ==Notes==