[edit]
There is a traditional Yoruba narrative that the first settlement within the area was an Awori group originally from Ile-Ife who lived at a nearby settlement. Robin Law, a scholar of West African history, notes an origin that sprouted out of a resettlement for displaced peoples of varied ethnic groups, mostly Ogu people, Ewe people and Oyo Yorubas. Another source links the people living at a settlement called Gberefu as the Ewe's of Oyo, an island along the Atlantic coast.
One of the recorded notable events in the history of Badagry was the acquisition of land by a European trader who was locally known as Yovo Huntɔkonu. Yovo or Yevu means a white person in Gbe languages. Many sources identify the European to be a Dutch trader called Hendrik Hertogh. Huntɔkonu meaning(laughing or smiling priest)arrived from the west, settling in the area after fleeing the wrath of an African chief. He reached the settlement called Apa under the Obaship of Alapa and he was given farmland to use for trading.
Point of No Return, Gberefu Island
The name Badagry was said to be derived from the city's indigenes' methods of subsistence, which include fishing, farming, and salt production. Others think the city was called after Agbede (blacksmith in Yoruba and Gbe languages)a well-known farmer whose okra farm, Agbadarigi or Agbedeglime (inside blacksmith’s wall) was corrupted to Badagry by Europeans. Badagry served as a corridor for Europeans to carry slaves to new destinations in the early eighteenth century. Its cenotaph is called "Point of No Return," and the well at this location was charmed to make slaves who drank from it forget their fate. Badagry was one of the routes that benefited from the ongoing slave trade conflict between Portnovo and Dahomey at the end of the eighteenth century. Slaves taken during inter-village conflict were auctioned off at Badagry.
Chief Mobee was one of the African chiefs who participated in the slave trade in 1883. In Marina, Badagry, the first two-story structure was constructed in 1845.
1736–1840[edit]
Huntokonu set up a trading post on the gifted land in 1736 and it was after Huntɔkonu's settlement that Badagry emerged as a slave port, serving principally as an outlet for Oyo and displacing Apa politically and commercially. During this period, political refugees fleeing aggression from King Agaja Trudo migrated to Badagry. Agaja who was seeking an outlet to the sea was warring across the coast and the resulting war caused an influx of people living along the coast of Anlo, Keta, Weme, Quidah, Allada, Ajatche, and Popos to settle in Badagry. These group came to be known as Ewes/Ogu. Each migrant group were affiliated with Eight heterogeneous quarters and newly arrived immigrants settled in wards related to their state of origin. Badagry's wards were headed by commercial and political autonomous chiefs thereby creating a fragmented political structure. This flexibility was advantageous for trade but also caused internal instability.
Slave trading did not take place on the same massive scale in Badagry as occurred in Bonny, Angola, Ouidah, and Calabar; In 1865, the amount of slaves transported out of Badagry was 800, while at Porto Novo, the figure was 1,200, and at Ouidah, up to 5,000 slaves were transported. The peak period of the slave trade in the city state was between 1736 and 1789, but the trade continued into the early nineteenth century, with Portuguese or Brazilian traders taking over from the Dutch.
The rise of Badagry on the coast led to hostilities with Ouidah, which combined with Oyo and Lagos to sack the town in 1784. After the destruction, Jiwa, a political refugee from Porto-Novo took over the reins of most of the political structures between 1784 and 1788. In 1821, Oba Adele was exiled to Badagry. He proved to be a source of leadership, and was able to make Badagry a politically independent state. The founding of Abeokuta also proved beneficial to Badagry as the former made use of Badagry as an outlet for trading. Adele was involved with the famous trader, Madam Tinubu and sided with Egba's in their conflict with Ota and Ijebu. Among Adele's followers from Lagos were Muslims, mostly servants from the Northern region, and this group introduced Islam to the Ogu people in the city-state.
After the British abolished the slave trade, notable trader Francisco Félix de Sousa migrated to Badagry around 1807. Trade in ivory, cloth and palm oil were also important economic activities of residents. Thomas Hutton established a presence in Badagri in 1838, and other British traders followed in subsequent years. Unlike in the interior, Badagry's soil was not suitable for commercial agriculture, but farms were set up in areas surrounding the town. The palm oil trade was of considerable value to Badagry, as was an illegal trade in slaves directed by Brazilians. The influence of anti-slave trade raids and cession of Badagry to Britain put a stop to the trade.
1840–1900[edit]
Picture of the Agia Tree where Christianity was first proclaimed in Nigeria
Badagry (February 1851)
Badagry's location as a coastal town with links northwards to Abeokuta and Oyo made it a port of entry for emigrants from Sierra Leone and missionaries. Around 1837, a settled Sierra-Leonean emigrant of the Methodist faith wrote a letter requesting a catechist in Badagry. The Methodists already had a missionary party in the Gold Coast, and some members were sent to Badagry. This party was led by Thomas Birch Freeman and Charles DeGraft. The Methodist missionaries first preached under an Agia tree and later erected a makeshift bamboo Church.
In 1845, a CMS missionary party arrived in Badagry. In the party were Revs. Townsend, Crowther and Gollmer, two teachers from Sierra Leone, some carpenters and wives of the party members. The intention of the party was to keep on moving to Abeokuta but as a result of the death of Sodeke, a chief in Abeokuta, they were delayed at Badagry. The party stayed in Badagry for a year and a half, building a mission house with two levels. Eugene Van Cooten joined the mission in 1850.
However, Christian proselytism in the first half of the nineteenth was not successful in Badagry, partly as a result of a civil war between 1851- 1854 and also as a result of Lagos becoming a British colony. In the years between the founding of the colony of Lagos and colony of Nigeria, Badagry lost influence to Lagos.
In 1863, wary of French influence in Porto-Novo, colonial Lagos signed a treaty of cession with Badagry chiefs.
The Congress of Berlin in 1884–1885, led to the displacement of the Gbe ethnolinguistic groups in the area, with especially the Badagry-Ogu/Ewe ethnic group falling under the British rule, and marginalized through being removed from the rest of the ethnolinguistic group.
Twentieth century[edit]
Between 1953 and 1965, Badagry was a divisional headquarters for an area composed of Badagry, Amuwo-Odofin, Ojo, and Ajeromi-Ifelodun. When Lagos State was created in 1967, it became one of the five administrative zones of the state.
Etymology[edit]
Gbede:gli:me- Gbe languages - Inside the blacksmith’s walls.
The first settler was a blacksmith known as Gbede or Agbede who relocated there from Porto Novo area and started an okra/okro farm. In order to protect his farm from wild animals, he erected a low mud wall. Neighboring communities started referring to the settlement as - Inside Agbede’s Walls. In Gbe cluster of languages, a blacksmith is called gbede or agbede. The name was corrupted to Badagry by the European traders. Yoruba immigration to the town has totally changed the character of Badagry to a Yoruba town.
Quarters[edit]
The city-state of Badagry was divided into eight wards with each having a traditional head. The eight wards are Jegba (Akran, The ruling house), Asago (Bala), Ganho (Agoloto), Posuko (Possu), Boeko (Mobee), Ahoviko (Wawu), Ahwanjigo (Jengen), and Wharakoh(vihento).
Archaelogy[edit]
A hallmark of Badagry’s infrastructure were its slave barracoons, which were where enslaved persons were typically held . These structures were built by Brazilian slave merchants under the order of Chief Sunbu Mobee, a notable figure involved in the slave trade. Although they are only a couple barracoons remaining, there were approximately 40 barracoons at the site. Each barracoon could hold up to 40 people and were typically 4 foot by 4 foot.
Another prominent figure involved with the material culture of Badagry is Chief Seriki Williams Abass who also participated in slave transactions. His personal collections, including personal objects like porcelain dishes and robes, obtained through trade and objects like shackles and chains that were used to restrain enslaved persons are currently preserved at the Seriki Faremi Williams Abass Museum in Badagry.
Moreover, other artifacts that were entangled with the transatlantic slave trade are currently held in Badagry's Heritage Museum, another notable museum of the city. Artifacts included in the museum include drinking pots, which were large pots from which enslaved persons would dip their hands in to get water. In addition to drinking pots, Badagry contained one well, known as the Attenuation Well, which served a distinct purpose. Before enslaved persons would be brought to the Americas, they were forced to drink from the well, and it was believed that they would forget their past lives. It is unclear when the well was dug, but it still serves a lasting impact as "The Point of No Return" in Badagry.
