THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF AFRICAN-EUROPEAN INTERACTION - INVESTIGATING THE SOCIAL ROLES OF TRADE, TRADERS, AND THE USE OF SPACE IN THE 17TH-CENTURY AND 18TH-CENTURY HUEDA KINGDOM, REPUBLIC-OF-BENIN

Archaeological research has been underway at the site of the town of S avi, on the coast of Benin, West Africa, since 1991. Savi grew to inte rnational fame in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as the capi tal of the Hueda (Whydah) Kingdom, and a port of great importance in t he trans-Atlantic slave trade. Traders of many European nations, inclu ding the Netherlands, England, France, and Portugal, maintained perman ent trading establishments in Savi, until its destruction at the hands of the expanding state of Dahomey. These historical circumstances pla ce Savi in a unique situation which can shed light on the transformati ons and continuities experienced by an African society in the early pe riod of extensive European trade contacts. This paper discusses recent research that has focused on identifying the role of trade and interc ultural contact in the development and transformation of Hueda society during the course of Savi's transition into a major trans-Atlantic tr ading centre. Archaeological research has demonstrated that the Hueda actively assigned significant values and meanings to trade items that were incorporated into their society. Moreover, archaeological materia l from excavations within elite and commoner districts, combined with documentary evidence from eyewitness accounts, demonstrate distinct an d multifaceted motivations and strategies involved in establishing tra ding relations with Europeans. Special notice is made of the Hueda eff orts to negotiate and naturalize the contradictions introduced through the presence of European traders, who were recognized as both the sou rce of wealth and power, and as potentially destabilizing influences.