Benin
By Adrienne Curry
(This is the first part in a series of articles on my Catholic Relief Services trip to Benin)
Background and History
Benin, located in West Africa, is the size of the state of Pennsylvania and is home to 42 ethnic groups. French is the country’s official language. The native languages include Fon, Yoruba, Voltaic, and Fulani. The Fon speakeakers, live in the south. The Yoruba live in the southeast near Nigeria. The Voltaic speakers live in central and North Benin, and the Fulani live in the north. Nearly three quarters of the inhabitants follow traditional religious beliefs; voodoo originated in Benin, and was officially recognized in 1996. About 15% of the people are Christian (largely Roman Catholic) and an equal number (living mostly in the north) are Muslim. Benin’s population is concentrated in the southern portion of the country and in rural areas.
Benin’s economy is overwhelmingly agricultural, with most workers engaged in subsistence farming. The chief crops are cotton, corn, sorghum, cassava, beans, rice peanuts, and palm oil. Goats, sheep, and pigs are raised. There is a sizable freshwater fishing industry, and some sea fish are also caught. Most of Benin’s few manufacturers are either processed agricultural goods or basic consumer items; the main products include foods and beverages, textiles, footwear, cement, and ginned cotton.
Petroleum, which was discovered offshore of Porto-Novo in 1968, became Benin’s largest export in the 1990s. The country’s other mineral resources, which include chromite, low-quality iron ore, ilmenite, and titanium, have not as yet been exploited on a large scale. There is also a developing tourist industry. The county has limited rail and road systems, and they are almost exclusively in the southern and central parts of the country; rail lines are being extended to Niger. In the 1980s, Benin began to develop its hydroelectric potential through the Mono River Dam project.
The chief imports are foodstuffs, beverages, petroleum products, machinery, electrical equipment, motor vehicles, and metals. In addition to crude oil, the principal exports are cotton, palm products, and cocoa. The annual cost of imports usually far exceeds earnings from exports. The leading trade partners are France, Brazil, Portugal, and Thailand. Benin is a member of the Franc Zone.
Since 1991, Benin has been a multiparty democracy, with a unicameral national assembly. The president is the head of state. The president and the members of the legislature are popularly elected. Administratively, the country is divided into six provinces.

History

Little is known about the history of north Benin. In the south, according to oral tradition, a group of Aja migrated (12th or 13th century), eastward from Tado on the Mono River and founded the village of Allada. Later, Allada became the capital of Great Ardra, a state whose kings ruled with the consent of the elders of the people. Great Ardra reached the peak of its power in the 16th and early 17th century.
A dispute (c. 1625) among three brothers over who should be king resulted in one brother, Kokpon, retaining Great Ardra. Another brother, Do-Aklin, founded the town of Abomey, and the third, Re-Agdanlin, founded the town of Ajatche or Little Ardra (called Porto-Novo by the Portuguese merchants who traded there). The Aja living in Abomey organized into a strongly centralized kingdom with a standing army and gradually mixed with the local people, thus forming the Fon, or Dahomey, ethnic group.
By the late 17th century, the Dahomey were raiding into their neighbors for slaves, who were then sold (through coastal middlemen) to European traders. By 1700, about 20,000 slaves were being transported annually, especially from Great Ardra and Ouidah, located on what was called the Slave Coast. In order to establish direct contact with the European traders, King Agaja of Dahomey (reigned 1708-32), who began the practice of using women as soldiers, conquered most of the south (except Porto-Novo). This expansion brought Dahomey into conflict with the powerful Yoruba kingdom of Oyo which captured Abomey in 1738 and forced Dahomey to pay an annual tribute until 1818. However, well into the 19th century Dahomey continued to expand northward and export slaves, despite efforts by Great Britain to end the trade.
In 1863, Porto-Novo accepted a Frence protectorate, hoping thereby to offset Dahomey’s power. During the 1880s, as the scramble among the European powers for African colonies accelerated, France tried to secure its hold on the Dahomey coast in order to keep it out of German or British hands. King Behanzin (reigned 1889-93) attempted to resist the French advance, but in 1892-93 France defeated Dahomey, established a protectorate over it, and exiled Behanzin to Martinique. During the period 1895-98 the French added the northern part of present-day Benin, and in 1904 the whole colony was made part of French West Africa.
Under the French a port was constructed at Cotonou, railroads were built, and the output of palm products increased. In addition, elementary school facilities were expanded, largely under the auspices of Roman Catholic missions. In 1946, Dahomey became an overseas territory with its own parliament and representation in the French national assembly; in 1958, it became an autonomous state within the French Community. Independence was proclaimed on August 1, 1960, and the following month Dahomey was admitted to the United Nations.
Benin’s political history since independence has been checkered. The first president, Hubert Maga, was ousted in 1963 by the army commander, and a series of four coups followed in the next six years. In 1970 a three-member presidential commission took power and suspended the constitution. The members, including former president Maga, were to serve as president successively. Maga held office first, succeeded in 1972 by Justin Ahomadegbe. Later that year, however, Major Mahieu Kerkpu seized power, ending the commission form of government. In November 1975 the country was renamed Benin. A new constitution, making the People’s Revolutionary Party of Benin the sole political party, was promulgated in 1977. Three former presidents, detained since the coup of 1972 were released in 1981.
Elected president by the National revolutionary Assembly in 1980 and reelected in 1984, Kerekou survived a military coup attempt four years later. Faced with economic problems and internal dissent, he abandoned Marxism-Leninism as the official ideology in late 1989. A new constitution, adopted in 1990, paved the war for the establishment of a multiparty democracy in Benin. The next year, in the country’s first free elections in 30 years, Kerekou was defeated by Prime Minister Nicephore Soglo. Soglo attacked Benin’s struggling economy by instituting austerity measures and promoting free-market economics. While the nation’s economy improved slowly, Soglo’s popularity sagged. In March 1996 elections Soglo was defeated by Kerekou.
Kerekou, who renounced his autocratic, Marxist-Leninist past, further liberalized Benin’s economy and secured economic assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN). He was reelected in March 2001.

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