Representations of the Kingdom of Dahomey and Black American identity politics prior to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair

The coastal west African Kingdom of Dahomey was a popular topic in sensational newspapers like the New York Herald, and also figured prominently in the pages of radical missionary and abolitionist news publications like the National Era, the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Christian Recorder, and even the Frederick Douglass Paper. Reports about the kingdom served a double function. Among proponents of slavery, mid-nineteenth century news about Dahomey justified why the emancipation of America's enslaved people was a dangerous prospect. On the other hand, the abolitionists cited Dahomey's religious and cultural customs, and the kingdom's economic reliance on human trafficking as evidence it was a backwards and savage nation. "Dahomey" became an easy signifier for nineteenth century ideas about "darkest Africa," and complicated the Black free-elites' self-authoring and racial uplift objectives. At the same time, both White and Black missionary zealots were obsessed with "redeeming" Africa. Importantly, the extent to which Dahomey's "bad press" exasperated the Black elite throughout the mid-century was fully revealed at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. If only in retrospect, events like the Chicago fair provide opportunities to observe how such narratives shaped public attitudes about Black American turn-of-the-century issues like national belonging, emigration to Africa, and racial violence and disenfranchisement.