Published in 1789, this book is Robert Norris’s account of the West African kingdom of Dahomey (now part of Benin) during the reign of Tegbesu (1740-74). The work is notable for being one of the first serious attempts to write a history of a West African nation. However, Norris was an enslaver and, writing at a time of increasing agitation for abolition in Britain, distorted his history to justify the continuation of the enslavement and transportation of Africans to plantations in the Americas.