Agoli-agbo
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![](http://178.128.105.246/content-http-upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/64/Agoli-Agbo%2C_roi_d%27Abomey_et_sa_cour_%28Dahomey%29.jpg/220px-Agoli-Agbo%2C_roi_d%27Abomey_et_sa_cour_%28Dahomey%29.jpg)
![](http://178.128.105.246/content-http-upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/Couronnement-Agoliagbo.jpg/220px-Couronnement-Agoliagbo.jpg)
Agoli-agbo is considered to have been the twelfth and final King of Dahomey. He was in power from 1894 to 1900.
Biography
[edit]He took the throne after the previous king, Béhanzin, went into exile after being defeated in the invasion of Dahomey by France in the Second Franco-Dahomean War.
The exile of Béhanzin did not legalize the French colonization. The French general Alfred-Amédée Dodds offered the throne to every one of the immediate royal family, in return for a signature on a treaty establishing a French protectorate over the Kingdom; all refused.
Finally, on January 15, 1894, Béhanzin's Army Chief of Staff Prince Agoli-agbo (whose name meaning "the dynasty has not fallen"[1]), brother of Béhanzin and son of King Glélé, signed. He was appointed to the throne, as a 'traditional chief' rather than head of state of a sovereign nation, by the French when he agreed to sign the instrument of surrender.
He 'reigned' for only six years, assisted by a French Viceroy. The French prepared for direct administration, which they achieved on 12 February 1900. As the Indigénat exacerbated the exploitation, Agoli-agbo went into exile in Gabon.[1]
In 1910, he was allowed to return and to live in the Save Region. He occasionally returned to Abomey in order to perform ancestor worship for the departed kings.
![](http://178.128.105.246/content-http-upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8c/Symbole_de_Agoli_Agbo_roi_du_Dahomey_au_mur_de_la_place_Goho_%C3%A0_Abomey_au_B%C3%A9nin2.jpg/220px-Symbole_de_Agoli_Agbo_roi_du_Dahomey_au_mur_de_la_place_Goho_%C3%A0_Abomey_au_B%C3%A9nin2.jpg)
Agoli-agbo's symbols are a leg kicking a rock, a bow (a symbol of the return to traditional weapons under the new rules established by the colonial administrators), and a broom, and the last king of Dahomey.
References
[edit]- ^ a b Hargreaves, John D. (1985). West Africa Partitioned: Volume II The Elephants and the Grass. Springer. pp. 178–180. ISBN 9781349028252.