page_title: Kingdom of Whydah
section_title: European presence
hierarchical_section_title: Kingdom of Whydah / European presence
caption_attribution_description: English: Coronation ceremony for the King of Whydah on the Guinea Coast in April 1725 (etching) Français&#160;: Original caption: “Couronnement du Roy de Juda à la coste de Guinée au Mois d'Avril 1725” (gravure)
context_page_description: The Kingdom of Whydah was a kingdom on the coast of West Africa in what is now Benin. It was a major slave trading area. In 1700, it had a coastline of around 16 kilometres; under King Haffon, this was expanded to 64 km, and stretching 40 km inland.
  The Kingdom of Whydah was centered in Savi. The last ruler of Whydah was King Haffon, who was deposed in 1727, when Whydah was conquered by the Kingdom of Dahomey.
context_section_description: With King Haffon's rise to power in 1708, European trade companies had established a significant presence in Whydah and were in constant competition to win to King’s favor. The French Company of the Indies presented Haffon with two ships worth of cargo and an extravagant Louis XIV-style throne, while the British Royal African Company gifted a crown for the newly appointed King. Such practices illustrate the high level of dependence European traders had on native African powers in the beginning of the 18th century, and also the close relationship that emerged between the two entities. This association is further reiterated by the fact that Dutch, British, French, and Portuguese trading company compounds all bordered the walls of Haffon’s royal palace in the city of Savi.  These compounds served as important centers of diplomatic and commercial exchange between European companies and the Kingdom of Whydah. 
  While company compounds facilitated the interaction between European traders and native Africans, the true center of European operations in Whydah were the various forts that existed along the coast near the town of Glewe. Owned by the Portuguese Crown, the French Company of the Indies, and the British Royal African Company, the forts were mainly used to store slaves and trading merchandise. Made up of mud walls, the forts provided tolerable protection for the Europeans but were not strong enough to withstand a legitimate attack from the natives. Furthermore, because the forts were located more than three miles inland, cannons could not effectively protect European ships in the harbor and anchored ships could not come to the aid of the forts in times of need. In this sense, while the forts showcased some degree of European influence, the reality was that the Europeans relied heavily on the king for protection and local natives for sustenance and firewood. This relationship would take a drastic turn with the decline of royal authority and increase of internal power struggles throughout the 18th and 19th centuries that gave way to French colonization of the region in 1872.
caption: Europeans at the coronation ceremony of the King of Whydah in April 1725
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