View source for Akaba of Dahomey

==King of Dahomey==
Oral tradition records that Akaba was the eldest born child of Houegbadja with a twin sister named Hangbe.  In addition, Houegbadja also had a younger son named Dosu (the traditional name for the first male born after twins in [[Fon language|Fon]]) who would later take the name Agaja.  As the oldest son, Houegbadja named Akaba his heir before he died and Akaba assumed the throne in 1685 upon his father's deaths.<ref name=Bay-1998>{{cite book|last=Bay|first=Edna|title=Wives of the Leopard: Gender, Politics, and Culture in the Kingdom of Dahomey|year=1998|publisher=University of Virginia Press}}</ref>  In some versions, Akaba is the king who kills the chieftain ''Dan'' to establish the dominance of the Dahomey Kingdom over the Abomey plateau, rather than Houegbadja.<ref name=Monroe>{{cite journal|last=Monroe|first=J. Cameron|title=In the Belly of Dan: Space, History, and Power in Precolonial Dahomey|journal=Current Anthropology|year=2011|volume=52|issue=6|pages=769–798|doi=10.1086/662678|s2cid=142318205}}</ref>

Akaba's administration continued military expansion off the Abomey plateau and increasing centralization of the kingdom over the region.<ref name=Halcrow>{{cite book|last=Halcrow|first=Elizabeth M.|title=Canes and Chains: A Study of Sugar and Slavery|year=1982|publisher=Heinemann Educational Publishing|location=Oxford|isbn=9780435982232|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MMVF71JsLpEC}}</ref>  Some of his most significant military activity was in the [[Ouémé River]] valley.  During this campaign in around 1715–1716, Akaba died either of smallpox, poisoning, or in battle.<ref name=Bay-1998 /> Because his death was quite sudden, and his heir was still young, Edna Bay contends that his twin sister Hangbe became the ruler until [[Agaja]] forcibly replaced her and the oldest son of Akaba, Agbo Sassa, to take over the throne.<ref name=Bay-1998 />