Using historically informed archaeology: Seventeenth and eighteenth century Hueda/European interaction on the coast of Bénin

Abstract

The period of the Atlantic slave trade between Africa and European colonies is relatively well documented compared with the historic records of many regions of precolonial Africa. However, this documentation necessarily presents a perspective distilled through European eyes. This paper suggests a methodology influenced by Annales history for critically analyzing documentary sources in conjunction with a critical interpretation of archaeological remains. Archaeological evidence from recent excavations at the site of Savi, capital of the Hueda kingdom, is contrasted with documentary evidence, facilitating an interpretation of motivations guiding Hueda interaction with European traders and structuring their spatial relationship.

Collective and interpretive openings: perforated Gbe ritual ceramics at local, regional and Diasporic spheres of interpretation

“…Kenneth Kelly (1997aKelly ( , 1997bKelly ( , 2001Kelly ( , 2002Kelly ( , 2004 was the first to conduct archaeological research on Hueda in the early 1990s, focusing on the palatial Huedan capital at Savi in order to illuminate processes of continuity and change associated with the massive influx of European trade goods into élite spheres of exchange. My own research has used both survey and excavations with the aim of integrating the Huedan countryside with this emerging narrative (Norman 2009a).…”

Current Perspectives in the Archaeology of Ghana

“…The majority of the initial, more substantive archaeological research associated with the European outposts did not directly deal with the European contexts or the African Diaspora, but rather focused on the impacts and transformations in the associated African communities (e.g. DeCorse 2001a; Kelly , 2001. In a similar vein, the contributors to the 2001 edited volume West Africa during the Atlantic Slave Trade: Archaeological Perspectives sought to understand the impacts of that trade on West African populations (DeCorse 2001b).…”

Power by design

“…Allada and Hueda flourished during the early years of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. As demand for human captives in the New World expanded dramatically over the course of the seventeenth century, proximity to coastal ports granted Alladan and Huedan élites access to vast quantities of Atlantic wealth (Kelly, 1995(Kelly, , 1997a(Kelly, , 1997bLaw, 1991;Norman, 2008;Norman and Kelly, 2006). Consequently, powerful palace-centered polities emerged from early experiments in political centralization based on this economic foundation.…”