As dawn breaks over Benin’s port city, Cotonou, shrill blasts from container-laden vessels coming to berth shatter the morning’s stillness. Long before the city’s yellow-colored zémidjans (motorcycle taxis) make it to the bustling streets, stevedores and cargo handlers are already in position to start unloading goods from distant shores.
For decades, the tiny West African state of Benin has served the region as a major transit hub. Cotonou handles around 90 merchant vessels a month, an average of 12.5 million tonnes of goods annually, from rice and grains to second-hand clothing and vehicles. Most end up in Nigeria, or Benin’s landlocked Sahel neighbours. But before it became a hub for commerce, Benin excelled at a different trade: as a transit hub for the trans-atlantic slave trade.
