Tag: Benin stamp

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Benin 1997, The Renaissance is limited to the capitol

One question that arises when there is a dictator for life. With whom do you replace him. Domestic and international pressured opposition to be allowed in government. The new politicians were promising a Renaissance. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The bird on this stamp has nothing to do with Benin. The stamp uses the old name carduelis spinus. The more modern term is the Eurasian siskin or the more common name Black-headed goldfinch. It is not endangered and winters in southern Europe and summers in northern Europe and Siberia. Saint Petersburg in Russia has surpassed even Benin in honoring the black-headed goldfinch. There is a frequently stolen and replaced statue of the bird. The reason the statue is frequently stolen is that the birds coloring resembles the uniform of a prominent local school.

Todays stamp is issue A284, a 150 Franc stamp issued by Benin on July 30th, 1997. It was a six stamp and one souvenir sheet issue in various denominations honoring songbirds. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 50 cents cancelled to order. In the early 2000s, a large group of Benin issues were declared fake and some old issues were overstampted for use. The overstamp included a lower denomination but of course that does not mean that the Benin franc appreciated. For some reason the catalog claims value of the overprinted version up at $80.

This area of the west African coast was changed a great deal both by colonialism and the end of the slave trade. The French built the new capital on the coast with their administration centered there. This was both a draw and a displacement of the local tribes. The end of the slave trade saw European navies trying to stamp out the trade still going on with independent Brazil.

Soon ship fulls of Afro Brazilians began to be deposited all along the coastal ports. They became a separate ethnic group than began to achieve far higher levels of economic development than their numbers would indicate.

From 1972-1992 Benin was ruled by Dictator Matheou Kerekou. He was an avowed Marxist and changed the name of the country from Dahomey to Benin. The French had used the name Dahomey but it was also the name of the place before them. The name change was hoped  to better represent the tribes of the interior. Can’t have that.

It will surprise nobody that Benin did not become a worker’s paradise. The end of the Cold War provided an opportunity for the put upon Afro Brazilian merchant class to rise. The sudden end of Eastern bloc aid was a blow and the early 90s was a period of donor fatique. Nicephone Soglo and his wife Rosine formed a Party for a Renaissance in Benin. They were well off and of Brazilian heritage and the party was most powerful  in the capital.

You never see the President of Brazil dressed like this. Soglo should send him an outfit.

International pressure forced Kerekou to appoint Soglo first Prime Minister and then he successfully ran for President in 1992. Benin was perhaps overdue for a renaissance. Solgo’s results were somewhat short of Florence though the Brazilians in the capital were happyish. Solgo did think to attend in person, one of the few heads of state. the first Tokyo International Conference on African Development. Benin was looking for another benefactor and Japan was about the only one out there offering new money. Interestingly the first conference was judged a failure by the Japanese because they were still just handing out direct aid instead of anything sustainable or measurable.

Tokyo gets a full house for it’s African aid conferences. Perhaps too full, the next one is set for Kenya

 

Kerekou ran against Solgo again in 1996 under the slogan, How do you like me now? Well that should have been his slogan. He was then reelected. Solgo did not slink away. Instead he realized his party’s prospects were mainly in the capital. Soglo ran for Mayor of the capital and ended up mayor for life. Well until he was replaced by his son. No doubt the promised renaissance is right around the corner. No doubt Soglo’s son has calls in to China and Brazil.

Well my drink is empty. Come again soon when there will be another to be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

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Dahomey 1970, The Bariba remember Kisra and Sabi Simi with a horse fantasia

A horse fantasia is a middle eastern tradition were a row of horseman in traditional regalia gallop for 700 feet and then fire old style muskets toward the heavens. If you are of the Bariba people of northern Dahomey/Benin, what a great way to remember when Persian King Kisra might have passed through. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

As practiced on this stamp, a fantasia might lose some of it’s magic. The row is only two and one is a woman, notice the closest is riding side saddle. Also the muskets are replaced by spears, so you will lose as well the heavenly directed booms at the end. The Bariba people  are divided between modern Nigeria and Benin/Dahomey and don’t have much political power, so perhaps this is a way to not let them get too full of themselves.

Todays stamp is issue A57, a 2 Franc stamp issued by independant Dahomey on August 24th, 1970. It was a six stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used. There are later overstampted versions showing the country’s later name Benin and currency devaluations.

There are several versions of the Kisra legend. One is that he was Persian King Kosrough who after being defeated in Egypt by the Byzantines around 600 AD was unable to return to Persia and so his army wondered west Africa. The other is that Kisra is a translation  of Christ who lead an army of Arabs against Mohammed and was defeated and his army wondered west Africa. Gosh even in their own legends, armies wondering west Africa are losers.

If Kisra is a Persian King. This was his coin from Persia

As Kisra’s army wondered, they attracted many Africans. He in turn would name them chiefs of their area. One of these was Sero who Kisra named King of the city if Nikki in modern Benin. He previously been his horse groom. Sero’s son, Sabi Simi took a wife from each of the five area Bariba people clans and through those wives created 5 Royal Dynasties that united the Bariba people. Stickler’s will note that the Kisra legend is unproven and it is currently thought that the Bariba people had arrived in the area from the east 600 years later than Kisra.

This is more like it. A horse fantasia as practiced in Algeria

Nothing wrong with a good legend though and every year there is a Gaani Festival presided over by the would be Emperor of Nikki. There is a lot of dressing up and sacred trumpets and drums. Of course there is also a horse fantasia.

Well my drink is empty. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting

 

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Togo 1916, in the first British shots of the war, Germany loses Togo

I often make the point of how important contact with the home country was to a colonial outpost in darkest Africa. I think that is why you see the home country Royal or in Germany’s case his yacht on the stamps. You hope they are remembering what you are up to so far from home. When Togo was attacked against pre war conventions, Germans made their stand not in the trading post of Lome but in the mountains at Kamina where there was a radio facility to call home. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This stamp starts as a French colony of Dahomey stamp showing an Ewe tribesman climbing a palm tree to extract palm oil and coconuts. This was the new industry after the colonials had banned the slave trade that the Ewe were a big part of. So this image makes sense whether we are talking about Ewe people in French Dahomey, German Togoland or the British Gold Coast. Europe than intrudes more with an Overprint announcing Togo was now under joint French and English occupation. Most of the military work against the Germans was British but notice the postal service became French.

Todays stamp is issue A5, a 15 Centimes stamp issued for use in Togo during the joint French and British occupation of the former German Togoland. It was a 17 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 70 cents.

The area of Togo was in the area of west Africa known as the slave or guinea coast. The Ewa and Ashanti would raid each other and capture slaves that they would sell on. In the 19th century Europeans tried to end this practice both by not buying and trying to bring the tribes under their control. First the coastal village of Lome was obtained by Germany and then at the Berlin Conference of 1885 German claims were recognized as extending inland. The European powers further agreed that their colonies in Africa would cooperate to control unruly natives, which all of the nations  realized as the biggest threat. There was a further provision of the treaty that if there was war in Europe, colonies in Africa would remain neutral.

Germany relied on this provision a great deal and their colonies were very lightly defended, This was to lower the cost in the hope that giving merchants more of a free hand could generate a profit from the colony. In fact there were no German Army units stationed in Togo just a few officers and 300 part time German reservists called polizetruppen. When word of World War I breaking out in Europe in 1914, the German Governor sent telegrams to his counterparts in neighboring French Dahomey and the British Gold Coast suggesting  neutrality as per the Berlin Conference of 1885. The British reply was a demand for German surrender and both France and Britain prepared to invade using their larger troop presence.

The German plan for defense was to immediately get their people out of Lome and withdraw inland along their railway toward Kamina in the mountains where the radio transmitters were that were the colonies connection to Germany. The British found Lome abandoned and on fire as the natives had begun the looting. The French had no military plan beyond Lome as they did not know about Kamina. The British force turned inland to pursue the Germans. During the pursuit an Askari soldier from the Gold Coast Regiment, Private Alhaji Grunshi fired the first British shot of World War I.

Later Sargent Major Alhaji Grunshi. The first British soldier to fire a shot in World War I. That got him a mention in dispatches from the front.

The German governor decided to send 300 men to  delay the British  when they tried to cross the Chra river. They successfully stopped the British though most of the Askari troops on both sides went awol  when the shooting started.  The German Governor had received word from Germany to give up after blowing bridges, rail cars, and the radio towers. No help was coming from Germany.  The Allied casualties were 123 and the Germans lost 41.

After the war German Togoland was divided into separate colonies of French and British Togo. Modern Togo is only the French part. British Togo voted to join the Gold Coast as it became the independent country of Ghana. In the 1970s, independent Dahomey renamed itself Benin.

Well my drink is empty and I wonder if it provoked any thought among African colonists of other nations when Germany decided to not mount a recovery force for their colonies. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Dahomey 1963, enjoying the last French African Friendship Games as the French African community splinters

The French had governed their African spheres with large tribally diverse regions. Near the time of independence they were broken into much smaller entities. The hope was that the local politician could well represent his community and tribe while the broader area could still exist in a French community. It did not work out that way. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This stamp shows boxers at the last French Friendship Games in Dakar in 1963. When given a fair election in the last days of colony most of the countries including Dahomey chose more autonomy but still close association with France. Instead full independence came and aspects of a common French African community could not be sustained.

Todays stamp is issue A21, a 50 Centimes stamp issued by independent Dahomey on April 11th 1963. It was a six stamp issue celebrating the French African Friendship Games held that year for the last time in Dakar, Senegal. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused.

While Dahomey was a small country it had three distinct regions with peoples of the old African Kingdoms of Dahomey, Peorto Novo, and Aboney. France picked a politician Hubert Maga from the North and the Dahomey Kingdom ethnicity but had converted to Christianity as practiced in the South. He was the best hope to unite the factions and France pressed him to share with other groups in the government patronage. By now however French President De Galle had tired of the work of nation building in Africa. In 1959 Dahomey and most of the other French African states got full independence. President Maga quickly tried to consolidate power and create a one party state. The French cut assistance and many of the French keeping the infrastructure intact departed.

The Dahomey Army them forced Maga to resign and tried to have the three areas be represented on a council that included Maga. He then plotted to have the Army chief of staff killed. He was placed under house arrest but his former foreign minister Chabi Mama broke him out. He went on to serve in various short term versions or the Army tribal council. In the 1970s Dahomey found a stronger dictator for life and changed the name of the country to Benin after the Atlantic Ocean Bay off the coast. This was a way to paper over differences of heritage.

Dahomey Foreign Minister Chabi Mama. When a Dictator is relying on him to come to the rescue, it is a great sign France has given up on the place.

 

The French founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre De Coubertin proposed  separate African games back in 1923, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/02/07/1924-paris-olympics-the-last-of-the-modern-olympics-that-paid-homage-to-the-ancient-greeks/   . Olympics were thought of then as for the aristacracy so African colonials had no place. The French African colonies administration did not think the natives were capable and no games happened during colonial times. De Coubertan did convince De Galle however that African games were possible and France paid for the Friendship Games in the newly independant countries of French Africa. There were three games in Tarrative in 1960, in Abijan in 1961, and the Dakar games in 1963. 11 French African countries participated along with France. The new nations than asked that France invite English speaking African nations to future games. France withdrew support and there were no further Friendship Games. The name was late recycled for games held by the Eastern Bloc in 1984 that were boycoting the Los Angelas Olympics.

Well my drink is empty and the people of Dahomey/Benin must have felt they were taking as many blows as the boxers on the stamp. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

 

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Benin 1988, the chameleon Kerekou embraces old King Behanzin and his Amazons

The King of the old Dahomey would seem an odd person to celebrate for a Marxist dictator that had even changed the areas name in order to claim a fresh start. Mathieu Kerekou was all about starting anew though and that was how he stayed around from 1972-2006. Or maybe it was voodoo? Too bad none of his fresh starts was the way out of the misery. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

I really like this stamp for two reasons. One is showing the old African leader King Behanzin as part of the continuum of Benin/Dahomey  history.  The second thing is that it is not some elaborate fake looking stamp just meant for topical stamp collectors. This is a small stamp ready to serve the needs of bulk mail. The reality, or at least ambition, that there will be bulk mail implies a functioning country. Benin was not really there yet in 1986, but it is a nice piece of optimism that it could be.

Todays stamp is issue A194, a 220 Franc stamp issued by the Peoples Republic of Benin in 1988. It was a six stamp issue in various denominations issued over 2 years reflecting the rapidly depreciating currency. There were even later overprints into the 1990s. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.25 used.

There are two versions of old Dahomey King Behanzin’s story, one African and one French. The African story is that the French sent Porto-Nova administrator Jean-Marie Bayol to demand concessions from the inland African Kingdom of Dahomey and the King cleverly refused to meet with him and the insulted French then trumped up charges of slavery and savagery and brutally massacred his female Amazon warrior army. See https://the-philatelist.com/2019/03/07/dahomey-1941-never-mind-the-canoe-watch-out-for-the-dahomey-amazons/   . The French claim that Bayol was sent to discuss slave raids and was then held prisoner and forced to sign over rights to Porto-Novo. After escaping, Bayol was obliged to return with French troops. In both cases the reality was King Behanzin was easily defeated and went to exile in the French Caribbean.

Jean-Marie Bayol

In 1972 independent Dahomey was not doing well despite finding some oil resources. A successful coup put in military officer Mathieu Kerekou. After a few years of lackluster rule he refashioned Dahomey as Benin and himself as a Marxist. In retrospect, this allowed him to blame the lack of progress on the French and reach out to the eastern bloc for aid. Kerekou, a Catholic, in 1980 converted to Islam with a temporary new first name in an attempt to gain aid from Libya under Kaddafi. When that aid faded so did his conversion. By 1990, after surviving many attempted coups, and his Marxism looking rather dated, Kerekou appeared on tv with the local Catholic Bishop. He elaborately confessed the sins of his government and pledged to go forth and sin no more. An election was held the next year and repentance was not enough and Kerekou lost. The next fellow proved no better and Kerekou returned in 1996 for 10 more years until they managed to term limit him out. Practitioners of voodoo in Benin thought Kerekou must have had powers to survive so many twists and turns and die of old age in his country. Perhaps?

Benin President KereKou near the end of his rule in 2006

Benin has not been able to cope with the population growth of the country. The population is over 5 times what it was at independence. Thus even has the economy has showed signs of life from debt forgiveness and cotton exports, it has not kept up with the population growth.

Well, my drink is empty, and I will pour another to toast Jean-Marie Bayol for making it out of Dahomey with his head. Against all odds, there is still a plaza named for him in the capital Porto-Novo. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting

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Dahomey 1941, never mind the canoe, watch out for the Dahomey Amazons

Traditional Africa seems strange. Dahomey  was conquered by the French to end the slave trade. To do that, they had to defeat the Dahomey Kingdom’s army of female Amazon warriors. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This stamp issue from Dahomey during it’s French period show National Geographic style views of Dahomey. In doing so, I think they make the point that it is not an important place to the French. It was perhaps a little to foreign.

The stamp today is issue A7, a 2 Centime stamp issued by French Dahomey in 1941. It was part of 22 stamp issue in various denominations. There are further issues that lack this stamps RF. These are considered fake and were issued by the German puppet Vichy government but not sold for postage in Dahomey. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether it is mint or used.

Dahomey was a kingdom in west Africa in modern day Benin. The King employed an all female army. To European armies that encountered them, they were known as Dahomey Amazons. Locally the female warriors were known as ahosi, which means King’s wives. The main industry was the slave trade and the army was used for slave raids. In the 1850s, the British tried to get Dahomey away from the slave trade and get them to stop raiding nearby outposts in Nigeria looking for slaves. They tried to get the King to get involved in the palm oil trade. When Dahomey refused to end their participation in the trade, Britain eventually blockaded Dahomey’s ports.

Dahomey than reached out to the French who got the British blockade lifted in exchange for trade concessions. The French than built a new port but at this point the Dahomey tax system was still in place and the Dahomey army was still raiding for slaves. In the 1890s, the French decided to bring Dahomey under control directly  and 2 wars were fought with the Dahomey army. At first the French refused to fire on the female warriors who only had bayonets and no guns. The hesitation allowed the Amazons to aggressively attack French officers. Eventually in 1892 the Amazon warriors were engaged in a Bayonet charge where 500 were killed at the loss of only 6 French. The King was captured soon afterwards and the once 6000 strong Amazons officially disbanded, although French colonial officials were attacked repeatedly by knife wielding females throughout the colonial era. The last female veteran of the Kingdom of Dahomey died in 1979 at over a hundred years old.

A 1908 reunion of Dahomey Amazon female warriors

By then Dahomey had been independent for 18 years and had renamed itself the Peoples Republic of Benin. There are two current pretenders to the old Throne of Dahomey. The modern Benin armed forces is only about 4000 and has no all female units.

Well my drink is empty and I am rendered speechless by this previously unknown to me history. Thirsty, but still speechless. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.