The area now known as Benin, formerly the Kingdom of Dahomey and surrounding regions, served as a major departure point in the transatlantic slave trade. It was a key part of the Bight of Benin, one of West Africa’s most significant slave-exporting zones. From around the 1600s to the 1800s, large numbers of enslaved Africans were taken from this region to the Americas.

Ouidah (Whydah) was one of West Africa’s most important slave ports and remains central to remembrance efforts. The memorial route features the Tree of Forgetfulness, mass burial sites, and the symbolic Door of No Return. The Kingdom of Dahomey played a major role in the trade, often capturing and selling prisoners of war and inland inhabitants. Enslaved individuals from this area were mainly sent to Brazil, the Caribbean, and North America.

The cultural influence persists today in Afro-Brazilian and Afro-Caribbean religious practices, music, and language. Historians consider the Bight of Benin — covering present-day Benin and parts of neighboring countries — as one of the largest sources of slaves in the transatlantic trade, alongside Nigeria’s Bight of Biafra, Angola and the Congo region, and Ghana.