Asante, Dahomey and Oyo
West African states organise around the Atlantic trade, in gold and in people.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 200 years
- Known to
- ± 25 years
- Era
- Early Modern, Holocene
Oyo, Dahomey and the Asante Empire consolidate in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with strong central administration, standing armies and firearms obtained through Atlantic commerce. Asante gold and the elaborate craft traditions around it are exceptional. All three participate in the slave trade as suppliers, a fact that complicates simple accounts of the trade in either direction, and all were themselves eventually conquered by European powers.