Contemporary Vodun arts of Ouidah, Benin

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The Slave Route of Ouidah

As a reinvention of various aspects of the slave trade from the Ouidah port, the Slave Route appeals on an emotional level to tourists, especially those of African descent. Beginning just outside the de Souza family compound, where the auction block is said to have been located, it follows the footsteps of the hundreds of thousands of African captives who walked the three miles to the beach and then onto ships destined for the Americas. Lined with contemporary sculptures representing Vodun spirits and Dahomean kings, and marked at critical points by single sculptural works or by multiple-work monuments depicting the atrocities of the slave trade, the route narrates the history of Benin for international and local audiences.

This narrative is both simplified and embellished. The monuments or single sculptures located at the critical sites between the purported location of the auction block and the beach are engraved with a panel of didactic material. Often the histories given and the locations of the sites are not corroborated by or even mentioned in the literature on the subject (Curtin 1969; Manning 1982, 1991; Law 1991). Some generalizations are understandable, for much is truly unknown about the circumstances of the slave trade from the Ouidah port. In other cases, the histories seem highly unlikely. The "unknown" of the slave trade, however, is of little importance compared to its "living history"--that is, what the markers say today, as improbable as some of it may seem.

The Slave Route of Ouidah reflects centuries of transatlantic interactions that have ultimately affected, transformed, and reinvented not only the history of Benin but also its subsequent art forms. The Supreme Chief of Vodun in Benin, Daagbo Hounon, plays an active role in this reinvention of history. Since 1993, January 10 has been celebrated as National Vodun Day (Fig. 11). The festival's main activity is the reenactment of the slave march to the beach. It is led by Daagbo Hounon, who, with his followers, stops, prays, and makes offerings at each site along the route. The procession honors the memory of those ancestors lost in the slave trade and celebrates those who survived and passed down the religion and arts of Vodun that flourish today throughout the African Diaspora. Thus, the art and monuments are both historical markers and active ancestral shrines.

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Each National Vodun Day to date has been celebrated not only by Beninese but by Haitians, Brazilians, Cubans, Americans, and others who have returned to pay their respects in the land of their ancestors, turning Ouidah into a pilgrimage site for people of African descent, much in the manner of the slave factories of Goree Island and Cape Coast. International recognition of the city's function in this regard reflects broader changes in Africa. One might especially see this particular case of Vodun as the local manifestation of a more global phenomenon of postcolonial nations seeking ways to represent--from their own perspectives--their histories to an international audience. The following are the commemorative sites on the Slave Route.