1650 to 1850 · Africanspan
Asante, Dahomey and Oyo grew as the trade reached its peak
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Between 1650 and 1850 the political map of the Gold Coast and the Bight of Benin was redrawn while Atlantic slaving climbed to its historical peak. The Asante confederacy came to dominate the western half of the region. To the east the kingdom of Dahomey and the Oyo empire became the major powers. These were large organised states with standing armies, tax systems and courts, and their expansion supplied the administrative machinery through which Akan, Ewe and later Yoruba speakers were taken, marched to the coast and sold. The traffic was conducted through African states that grew powerful by conducting it. One exception stands out. The kingdom of Benin, west of the Niger, never became a significant participant, which demonstrates that the choice was available to a state strong enough to make it. People deported from this coast carried their languages into the Americas, and the Rada rite of Haitian Vodou takes its name from Allada, a kingdom on this stretch of the Bight of Benin.
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