Badagry

BadagryListen^ⓘ, also spelled Badagri, (Gun: Gbagli) is a coastal town and Local Government Area (LGA) in the Badagry Division of Lagos State, Nigeria. It is quite close to the city of Lagos, and located on the north bank of Porto Novo Creek, an inland waterway that connects Lagos (Nigeria's largest city and economic capital) to the Beninese capital of Porto-Novo. The same route connects Lagos, Ilaro, and Porto-Novo, and shares a border with the Republic of Benin. As of the preliminary 2006 census results, the municipality had a population of 241,093.

Serving as a lagoon and an Atlantic port, Badagry emerged as a commercial center on the West African coast between 1736 and 1851. Its connecting and navigable lakes, creeks and inland lagoons acted as a means to facilitate trade and as a security bar for residents. During the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, the town was a middleman between European traders on the coast and traders from the hinterland.

Badagry is situated on the south-west coast of Nigeria, bordered by the Gulf of Guinea to the south. It is located 43 miles (69 km) southwest of Lagos and 14 miles (23 km) east of Seme, a border town in Benin Republic. Like Lagos Island, it is on the bank of inland lagoons, a system of creeks, waterways that are navigable to Lagos and Porto Novo. The distance between the lagoon and the ocean varies along the coast, in Badagry, the distance is about a mile. The depth of the lagoon varies according to the season, from highs of 3 meters to lows of a meter. The lagoons have a diverse fish population that includes bonga, croaker, longfin pompano, tilapia and catfish. The lagoon consists of brackish and freshwater with seasonal variability; west of Badagry, Yewa River provides water inflow to the lagoon.

There is a traditional Yoruba narrative that the first settlement within the area was an Awori group originally from Ile-Ife who lived at a nearby settlement. Robin Law, a scholar of West African history, notes an origin that sprouted out of a resettlement for displaced peoples of varied ethnic groups, mostly Ogu people, Ewe people and Oyo Yorubas. Another source links the people living at a settlement called Gberefu as the Ewe's of Oyo, an island along the Atlantic coast.

One of the recorded notable events in the history of Badagry was the acquisition of land by a European trader who was locally known as Yovo Huntɔkonu. Yovo or Yevu means a white person in Gbe languages. Many sources identify the European to be a Dutch trader called Hendrik Hertogh. Huntɔkonu meaning(laughing or smiling priest)arrived from the west, settling in the area after fleeing the wrath of an African chief. He reached the settlement called Apa under the Obaship of Alapa and he was given farmland to use for trading.

The name Badagry was said to be derived from the city's indigenes' methods of subsistence, which include fishing, farming, and salt production. Others think the city was called after Agbede (blacksmith in Yoruba and Gbe languages)a well-known farmer whose okra farm, Agbadarigi or Agbedeglime (inside blacksmith’s wall) was corrupted to Badagry by Europeans. Badagry served as a corridor for Europeans to carry slaves to new destinations in the early eighteenth century. Its cenotaph is called "Point of No Return," and the well at this location was charmed to make slaves who drank from it forget their fate. Badagry was one of the routes that benefited from the ongoing slave trade conflict between Portnovo and Dahomey at the end of the eighteenth century. Slaves taken during inter-village conflict were auctioned off at Badagry.

Chief Mobee was one of the African chiefs who participated in the slave trade in 1883. In Marina, Badagry, the first two-story structure was constructed in 1845.

Huntokonu set up a trading post on the gifted land in 1736 and it was after Huntɔkonu's settlement that Badagry emerged as a slave port, serving principally as an outlet for Oyo and displacing Apa politically and commercially. During this period, political refugees fleeing aggression from King Agaja Trudo migrated to Badagry. Agaja who was seeking an outlet to the sea was warring across the coast and the resulting war caused an influx of people living along the coast of Anlo, Keta, Weme, Quidah, Allada, Ajatche, and Popos to settle in Badagry. These group came to be known as Ewes/Ogu. Each migrant group were affiliated with Eight heterogeneous quarters and newly arrived immigrants settled in wards related to their state of origin. Badagry's wards were headed by commercial and political autonomous chiefs thereby creating a fragmented political structure. This flexibility was advantageous for trade but also caused internal instability.