Musée d'Histoire de Ouidah

Slave-trade history museum inside the old Portuguese fort

Housed in the Fort of São João Baptista de Ajudá, the small Portuguese trading post that was the centre of European slaving operations on this coast for 250 years. Whitewashed walls, a square keep, a small chapel. The galleries trace the history of the trade, the kingdoms of Whydah and Dahomey, and the diaspora — particularly the connection to Bahia in Brazil.

Allow an hour. The captions are mostly in French. The fort itself is part of the experience: walls of West African earth and European stone, slave-holding rooms now empty, a flagpole that still flies the Portuguese flag on one day each year.

things to do museum
A story
The fort was the last Portuguese possession in Africa. Portugal kept a token garrison here until 1961, four years after the rest of colonial Dahomey had become independent French territory. The Benin government finally took over the fort in 1962 after a brief armed standoff. The Portuguese commander burned the archives and the flag before he left.