"Allada - Ancestral Home of the Kings" Abomey Off The Beaten Path Tip by janiebaxter

Allada is in between Cotonou and Abomey, and is the ancestral home of the Abomey Kings. We stopped here briefly on route from Cotonou to Abomey. The original King was from Tadu in Togo and was said to be descended from a princess and a leopard. He travelled to Allada with his family and settled there in about 1600. The King had 3 sons and each son wanted a kingdom to rule so the oldest one stayed in Allada, and the others travelled to Porto Nuovo and Abomey to establish kingdoms there.
Allada is also said to be the ancestral home of the Haitians. There is a statue of Toussaint Louverture, the first president of Haiti here. He was a slave, descended from slaves taken from Allada, and he helped to organise the slave revolt that resulted in the slaves taking over Haiti for a short time in the 1790’s.