Benin Slavery: West Africa-

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The kings of Dahomey sold their war captives into transatlantic slavery.[22] They had a practice of killing war captives in a ceremony known as the Annual Customs. By about 1750, the King of Dahomey was earning an estimated £250,000 per year by selling African captives to European slave-traders.[23] The area was named the "Slave Coast" because of a flourishing slave trade. Court protocols which demanded that a portion of war captives from the kingdom's battles be decapitated, decreased the number of enslaved people exported from the area. The number went from 102,000 people per decade in the 1780s to 24,000 per decade by the 1860s.[24] The decline was partly due to the Slave Trade Act 1807 banning the trans-Atlantic slave trade by Britain in 1808, followed by other countries.[23] This decline continued until 1885 when the last slave ship departed from the coast of the modern Benin Republic bound for Brazil in South America, which had yet to abolish slavery. The capital's name Porto-Novo is of Portuguese origin, meaning "New Port". It was originally developed as a port for the slave trade. King Agaja (1718-1740) further centralized the ceremonies under the king and the royal dynasty. Under Agaja, the Annual customs became the central religious ceremony in the kingdom, wide participation by most of the population was required, all family lineages were expected to provide gifts and tribute (sometimes considered taxes) to the ruler, and aspects of animal and human sacrifice were added to the practice.[4] The traditional family lineage ceremonies were not allowed in the kingdom until after the royal ceremony was completed.[2] After Agaja the ceremony grew larger, longer and more lavish by future kings. In 1999, Presidente Kérékou issued a national apology for the substantial role that Africans had played in the Atlantic slave trade.[38] (No reparations offered)!