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Abstract
This paper examines the growth and development of Vlekete Slave Market in Badagry from the time it was established to its eclipse towards the close of the nineteenth century. It also gives an account of the foundation and peopling of Badagry by the Ogu people who were predominantly of Aja extraction. The paper was able to establish how the slave trade started in the town, which invariably gave rise to the establishment of the Vlekete market.
The Vlekete Shrine grew in importance and became a market perhaps on account of the ritual functions it performed before the slaves began their ordeals to the new world. The abolition and cessation of the slave trade towards the end of the nineteenth century signalled the eclipse of the market as an important slave emporium in West Africa. Nevertheless, it left an enduring legacy which succeeding generations in Badagry still ponder over.
Introduction
Enshrined in the tradition of origin and peopling of the ancient town of Badagry is the history of the Vlekete Shrine situated at Posuko Quarters in the ancient town. Badagry, situated within the Slave Coast, was a major centre of the iniquitous trans-Atlantic slave trading activities throughout the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries (Fage, 1969). During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the West African Coast was divided into Upper and Lower Guinea. The lower Guinea, which stretches from Sierra Leone to the Cameroun, is divided into four sections each named after a principal export; the Grain Coast, which corresponds to the coast of modern Liberia, the Ivory and the Gold Coast; and the Slave Coast which lies between River Volta and the Niger Delta (Fage, 1969). The ancient town is located on the north bank of the Badagry Lagoon around Latitude 61/2o north of the Equator and Longitude 31/4o east of the Greenwich meridian. It is bounded on the south by the Atlantic Ocean which was separated by a wide creek and a few kilometre long sand belt that served as a buffer between the town and the sea. The Egbado territory is situated to the north. The town is hemmed in by the swampy water of Lagos to the east and on the west by the Republic of Benin otherwise known as Dahomey...