VOODOO IN HAITI

The Report of the Lords of the Committee of Council

appointed for the consideration
of all matters relating to trade and foreign plantations,
published in London, in 1789,
states, "Mr. Dalzell supposes that the number of slaves
exported from the Dominions
of the King of Dahomey amounts to 10,000 or 12,000 in a
year. Of these, the English
may export 700 to 800, the Portuguese about 3,000, and the
French the remainder."
This will explain how the Dahomans with their serpent cult
became so centred in the
French islands of the West Indies, and especially in Haiti.
William Snelgrave who, as we have seen, was the first to visit
Whydah, after the
conquest by the Dahomans, says of the slavery there: "And
this trade was so very
considerable, that it is computed, while it was in a flourishing
state, there were above
twenty thousand Negroes yearly exported thence, and the
neighbouring places, by the
English, French, Dutch, and Portuguese."[1] As he was in the
trade himself, he may
be regarded as speaking with authority.
It is with good reason, then, that Colonel Ellis states: "In the
southeastern portions of
the Ewe territory, the python deity is
[1. Snelgrave, A New Account of some parts of Guinea and the Slave-Trade, p. 2. Note:-On p. 159 of the same book,
Snelgrave states that from the entire Guinea Coast, the Europeans of all nations "have
in some years, exported at least
seventy thousand."
Cfr. also, W. D. Weatherford, The Negro from Africa to America, New York, 1924, p. 33:
"Dahomey, a small kingdom
on the Slave Coast, has sufficient open country, to allow of cooperation and aggressive
military operations. It is said that
this state at one time had an army of 50,000 mien and its terrible fighting Amazons of
3,000 women were no
inconsiderable military force. . . . This Dahomey kingdom flourished for centuries and
was one of the most powerful
allies of the slave traders during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is
supposed that this country alone, at the

height of the slave trade, delivered an annual quota of fifteen thousand slaves, most of
which were captured from
neighbouring tribes."]