17th century – 19th century
Southern Benin
The Kingdom of Danxome, identified with Dahomey in present-day Benin, is described as a highly centralized political system with a permanent heartland, a powerful king, ministers, delegated officials, and administrative chiefs. Through conquest and assimilation it expanded beyond its original ethnic base and developed into a multi-racial state with military, administrative, and economic centralization.
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The Story
The Kingdom of Danxome is contrasted with Kongo as a more centralized monarchy. It possessed a permanent heartland and a central authority composed of the king, his ministers, and their delegates. The king embodied supreme power and exercised extensive authority over subjects, wealth, agricultural labor, and the administration of the kingdom.
Village and regional chiefs governed in the king’s name, creating a system in which centralized power coexisted with administrative decentralization through chiefdoms. The king controlled wealth and selected farmers, known as glesi, for royal estates or for presentation to princes and chiefs. This arrangement linked political authority to economic management and the distribution of labor.
Conquest enlarged the original heartland by annexing neighboring and related peoples, including the Fon, Mahi, Alada, Savi, and Juda. The passage therefore describes Danxome as becoming a multi-racial state organized through a strong military and administrative machine. In the period immediately before colonization, it is characterized as a nation-state in which palaver and consent through the chiefdoms formed principles of government.
17th century – 19th century
Southern Benin
The Kingdom of Danxome, identified with Dahomey in present-day Benin, is described as a highly centralized political system with a permanent heartland, a powerful king, ministers, delegated officials, and administrative chiefs. Through conquest and assimilation it expanded beyond its original ethnic base and developed into a multi-racial state with military, administrative, and economic centralization.
Continue exploring
The Story
The Kingdom of Danxome is contrasted with Kongo as a more centralized monarchy. It possessed a permanent heartland and a central authority composed of the king, his ministers, and their delegates. The king embodied supreme power and exercised extensive authority over subjects, wealth, agricultural labor, and the administration of the kingdom.
Village and regional chiefs governed in the king’s name, creating a system in which centralized power coexisted with administrative decentralization through chiefdoms. The king controlled wealth and selected farmers, known as glesi, for royal estates or for presentation to princes and chiefs. This arrangement linked political authority to economic management and the distribution of labor.
Conquest enlarged the original heartland by annexing neighboring and related peoples, including the Fon, Mahi, Alada, Savi, and Juda. The passage therefore describes Danxome as becoming a multi-racial state organized through a strong military and administrative machine. In the period immediately before colonization, it is characterized as a nation-state in which palaver and consent through the chiefdoms formed principles of government.