History Starts Here

ABOMEY
1930

The classroom was hot and close, a long mud-brick room whose narrow windows admitted fierce bars of white sunlight but very little air.
The afternoon heat had gathered beneath the corrugated roof since morning, drawing the smells out of everything: chalk dust, old timber, damp earth, coconut oil from neatly combed hair and the sourness of young bodies imprisoned inside stiff European collars.
Flies worried at the window openings and bumped stupidly against the glass of the framed Sacred Heart above Sister Adeline’s desk.
Sweat ran between Houéfa’s shoulder blades. Her blue cotton dress clung to her back, and one of the tight braids her mother had made that morning was beginning to pull painfully at her scalp.
At twelve, she was the eldest of the three and had already acquired the grave, watchful expression of a child accustomed to keeping a brother and younger sister out of trouble.
Beside her sat her sister, Dossi, two years younger, fine-boned and bright-eyed, with a round face that revealed every thought before she could hide it.
Her brother, Gbodja, occupied the bench behind them. He was eight, narrow as a reed, all elbows, dusty knees and restless curiosity. His shirt had escaped his shorts on one side before the first lesson, and his closely cropped head shone with perspiration.
Even so, no one fidgeted. Lessons about arithmetic and French would usually send half the class to sleep. Today, however, Sister Adeline was talking about the Agojie—the women warriors of Abomey—and despite the heat in the room she had the children’s full attention.
Sister Adeline stood as rigidly as the ruler beside her attendance book. Her white habit was spotless despite the red dust beyond the schoolyard, and the starched wings of her wimple framed a long, pale face made pink by the heat.
Moisture glistened along her upper lip, but she gave no sign of discomfort. Only the faint movement of the wooden beads at her waist betrayed the impatient tap of one finger against her rosary. Like others in her mission, Sister Adeline had learned something of the language and customs of the people she taught. She respected what she considered worthy in Dahomean culture, but that respect ended wherever French law or Catholic teaching began.
“Before the French arrived, Dahomey was a powerful kingdom,” she told the class. “Its people had laws, skilled craftsmen, elaborate ceremonies and traditions reaching back many generations. But power and tradition must not be mistaken for civilisation. Dahomey also had laws, practices and rituals that have no place in a civilised modern world.”
She turned and wrote AGOJIE upon the blackboard, then beneath it: AMAZONES DU DAHOMEY.
Sister Adeline pointed the words as she spoke “The Agojie were the women soldiers of Dahomey, whom Europeans called Amazons. They served the king and carried out his commands. They worshipped false gods because they did not know the love of Christ or Mother Mary, and they placed obedience to their king above Christian conscience.”
Houéfa glanced at Dossi. This did not sound like the stories their father told them.
Sister Adeline placed the chalk beside the board.
“The Church does not ask us to despise the people of old Dahomey. They were no more than innocent children who had not yet received the full light of Christian teaching. We may preserve what was worthy in their culture, but customs that oppose French law and the teachings of the Holy Church must be left behind in antiquity.”
Houéfa’s hand began to rise, then stopped halfway.
Interrupting Sister Adeline was unwise. Correcting her was worse.
Beside her, Dossi shook her head in warning.
Houéfa lowered her hand.
Gbodja had no such caution.
“Our father says they were great warriors,” he called out.
Several children turned towards him.
Sister Adeline stared across the room. “Gbodja! Did you raise your hand?”
For a moment, Gbodja did not answer.
“No, Sister Adeline.”
“Then you will raise your hand and wait until you are invited to speak.” She let the scolding settle. “You need to give everyone a turn to be heard.”
“Yes, Sister Adeline.”
She allowed the silence to stretch before returning to the lesson.
“Your father is entitled to be proud of his ancestors and so he should. The Agojie possessed courage and endurance, but courage alone does not make an army disciplined or its cause just.” She continued, hoping that would satisfy any questions he might have.
Gbodja’s hand rose slowly this time.
Sister Adeline regarded it with understandable suspicion.
“Yes, Gbodja?”
“Why did they worship false gods?”
Several children looked towards Sister Adeline.
“Because they did not know Christ or Mother Mary,” she replied. “That was why the missionaries came: to teach, to guide and to bring the people into the true faith and God’s good grace.”
Gbodja frowned. Sister Adeline had answered him, but not in the simple manner he preferred.
“What happened when they fought the French?” Dossi asked.
She had forgotten to raise her hand.
Sister Adeline noticed, but even in the rising, confining heat of the classroom she could not let it remain.
“You must raise your hand to speak, please, Dossi. You know that is the rule.”
Dossi raised her hand quickly and then brought it back down just as fast, as though that would make amends.
Sister Adeline acknowledged the gesture but it was getting to hot to argue.
“They fought fiercely, sometimes bravely but fierceness and bravery are not the same as discipline. The French Army had modern rifles, cannon and trained soldiers who obeyed their officers without hesitation. Courage could not overcome those advantages.”
Houéfa raised her hand properly this time.
“Then they did not lose because they were women?” there was a challenge in her voice as she spoke.
“No, that was not the reason,” Sister Adeline said. “They lost because France possessed the stronger, better-equipped and more disciplined army.”
The answer seemed to surprise several children.
Another hand was raised.
“Why were the French fighting them?” Houéfa asked.
Sister Adeline folded her hands before her, closed her eyes briefly before continuing.
“Because France had a duty to protect its interests and its people upon the coast and to bring peace and order to the region. King Béhanzin refused to accept the presence of the French and work cooperatively with French authority.”
Gbodja’s hand shot up again.
“Then the French started it?”
A murmur of laughter passed through the classroom.
“History is rarely as simple as deciding who the instigator was,” Sister Adeline said.
The class reacted with murmurs. Even at their age, a non-answer could indicate who the culprit was.
Sister Adeline waited until it subsided.
“France did not come merely to fight. It brought peace, law, education, medicine and the Holy Church. With those gifts came the duty to put aside practices that belonged to an uncivilised past.”
She picked up the chalk again.
“You may begin practising civilised discipline by copying what I have written without further interruption.”
The class bent over their slates. Even Gbodja recognised that his supply of questions had been exhausted for the moment.
The bell rang at the end of the lesson, its iron clang startling a pair of lizards from the outer wall.
The children escaped into the sunlight in a burst of voices, bare feet and worn sandals. Even beneath its full force, the air felt cooler than the classroom.
Dust lifted around their ankles and hung in the glare.
Beyond the schoolyard, Abomey spread beneath an immense bleached sky: low red-brown walls, rusting roofs, broad-crowned mango trees and the deeper green of the forest beyond the town.
Women returning from the market balanced baskets upon their heads. Somewhere a bicycle bell rang twice, a goat protested at being dragged from a patch of cassava, and a vendor called the price of oranges in a voice made hoarse by the day.
“Sister Adeline said the Agojie were fierce but undisciplined,” Gbodja announced as they started home.
“Father says they were great warriors,” Dossi replied.
“Perhaps they were both,” Houéfa said.
Gbodja kicked a stone from the path. “Sister Adeline did not tell us who started the war.”
“She said it was complicated.”
“That means she does not know.”
“It means you would not stop asking questions,” Dossi said.
“Questions are how people learn things.”
“Not when no-one can hear the answers because you are already asking the next one.”
Gbodja kicked the stone again, this time sending it into the weeds.
“Do you think France really came to make everyone civilised?” he asked.
“Sister Adeline thinks so,” Houéfa replied.
“That is not what I asked.”
“I don’t know what else to say.”
They followed a red-earth road polished hard by feet and bicycle tyres, passing compounds from which the afternoon meal announced itself in smoke and smell: fish drying above coals, crushed pepper, frying plantain, woodsmoke and the rich nuttiness of palm oil.
Cicadas screamed from the trees as though darkness were something they had to summon by force.
They entered the family compound through its crooked wooden gate. The house was built of earth the colour of dried blood, its walls cool and faintly damp within despite the heat outside.
The low roof cast a deep band of shade across the doorway. Bundles of drying herbs hung from the rafters beside a woven basket and three blackened cooking pots.
The compound usually carried the unmistakable smell of their mother’s cooking. Today, woodsmoke and dried leaves were joined by pipe tobacco and the clean, bitter fragrance of Nana Sika’s homemade soap.
The three children stopped.
Nana Sika was bent over the cooking fire in the yard, stirring the evening meal with a long wooden spoon.
“Nana?” Houéfa said. “What are you doing here?” sounding pleasantly surprised.
Sika looked over her shoulder. She was a tall woman diminished slightly by age but not bent by it. Silver threaded the short, tightly coiled hair at her temples, and fine ceremonial marks lay almost hidden among the deeper lines of her cheeks. Her eyes, dark and remarkably clear, missed very little.
“Cooking your supper,” she said. “Unless you have learned to live upon noise and arguments. In that case, Gbodja could feed all three of you for a week.”
Dossi laughed. Gbodja looked offended.
“Where is Mama?” Houéfa asked.
“Your father has gone to Cotonou on business. Your mother has gone to make certain he conducts it properly.”
“She did not tell us,” Dossi said.
“No. She packed her best dress in great secrecy.” Sika tasted the stew. “Your father’s business must become very important after sunset.” She gave a sly knowing grin as she spoke.
The children considered this without understanding it.
“When are they coming home?” Houéfa asked.
“They will be home tomorrow evening around supper time. Until then, I am here to make certain you do not starve, burn down the house or kill one another with your silly nonsense.”
“We would not burn down the house,” Dossi said.
“Good. That leaves only starvation and murder to worry about.” Nana Sika let out another sly grin.
Gbodja had already moved on.
“We learnt about the Agojie today.”
“Did you?” Sika returned her attention to the pot. “And what did Sister Adeline tell you?”
“She said they were fierce but undisciplined.”
“Did she?”
“She said they worshipped other gods,” Dossi added.
“Most people did in those days.”
“Were they false gods?” Gbodja asked.
Sika added a pinch of salt to the pot.
“If you believe in a god, then that god is not false to you.”
The children thought about that for a moment.
Houéfa watched her grandmother. “Sister Adeline said they did not know Christ or Mother Mary.”
“Sister Adeline is a nun. I would be surprised if she said anything else but she is correct , none us knows what we don’t know”
The children reflected momentarily on that but late in the afternoon just before supper after a hard day in the classrooms heat it did not settle.
“She said the Agojie fought fiercely,” Dossi continued. “But France had better weapons and disciplined soldiers.”
“France did have better weapons.”
“Father says the Agojie were the bravest warriors in Dahomey,” Gbodja said.
“Your father is proud of Dahomey and rightfully so..”
“Is he right?”
“Pride and truth sometimes walk together. Sometimes they take different roads.”
“That is not an answer.”
“Then Sister Adeline has taught you something useful after all.”
Dossi giggled. Houéfa tried not to.
Somewhere beyond the compound, a woman called across a courtyard. Sika looked up, then continued stirring the pot and tasted the broth.
“Put the bowls on the table,” she said. “Your supper will be ready soon.”
Gbodja had not finished.
“Why did France and Dahomey have a war?”
“That question will still be waiting after you have washed your hands.”
“You always say that when you do not want to answer.”
“And you always ask another question before I have finished answering the first. Go and wash so we may both survive the evening.”
The children obeyed, although Gbodja continued speaking all the way to the water basin. Sika suspected his questions would continue throughout supper as well.