The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness
Africa

An African country reckons with its history of selling slaves

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January 29, 2018 at 3:24 p.m. EST
In Ouidah, Benin, a man walks past a statue of Francisco Félix de Souza, a major slave merchant who worked in the 18th and 19th centuries in what is now Benin and is considered the father of the city. The statue is covered with lights. (Jane Hahn/For The Washington Post)

OUIDAH, Benin — Less than a mile from what was once West Africa's biggest slave port, the departure point for more than a million people in chains, stands a statue of Francisco Félix de Souza, a man regarded as the father of this city.

There's a museum devoted to his family and a plaza in his name. Every few decades, his descendants proudly bestow his nickname — "Chacha" — on a de Souza who is appointed the clan's new patriarch.