Firearms and warfare on the Gold and Slave Coasts from the sixteenth to the ninteenth centuries

Abstract

According to Egharevba, firearms arrived in the Benin Kingdom in the latter part of the fifteenth century, and they were first employed in Benin campaigns during the reign of Oba Esigie. Another writer states that ‘the Ekiti had encountered firearms as early as the sixteenth century, when Benin soldiers, armed with guns, supported the Ikerre in a war against the Ado’. The view that Benin military prowess in the sixteenth century derived from a monopoly in the use of firearms is current in several publications; however, the role of guns in sixteenth century Benin military history has been overestimated, for although some Portuguese arquebusiers accompanied Benin armies on expeditions and assisted the Benin rulers in their military affairs, the Benin troops did not possess the new weapons.