Louis Hunkanrin

Louis Hunkanrin (25 December 1887 – 28 May 1964) was a Dahomeyan writer, educator, journalist, and politician. He was one of the earliest critics of French colonial power in his country, later renamed Benin.

Biography

Early life He was born in Porto-Novo on 25 December 1887. His father was jeweler to the kings of Porto Novo and his mother was descended from royalty. Hunkanrin was a member of the first graduating class of the Ecole William Ponty in Dakar in 1904. He returned to Ouidah in 1906 after receiving a teaching position. However, he was fired in 1910 after having a dispute with a colonial administrator over how his superior dealt with pupils. He edited the newspaper Le Messager du Dahomey with Paul Hazoumé during World War I. He also prepared articles from abroad criticizing French treatment of Dahomeyan recruits and founded a Dahomeyan branch of the League of Human Rights. In newspaper articles, he criticized the abuses of French colonialism and urged Africans to become educated, as it was the only way they could become equal with the French administrators. Despite not calling for decolonization, he became a great annoyance to the French. Hunkanrin lived in hiding, travelling between Senegal, Dahomey, and Nigeria, and only came out of hiding in 1918 when Blaise Diagne arranged for him to volunteer for the military.

Nonetheless, his military service resulted in several disputes, and he was court-marshalled in 1921 and served several months in a French prison. Hunkanrin broke off with Diagne, claiming he accepted bribes to find recruits for the army. The book received a mixed reception but generated an internal inquiry by French administrators. Lieutenant Governor Jean-Baptiste Victor Chazelas dismissed the tract as propaganda inspired by Hunkanrin's Communist friends in Paris, and criticized the way he received information from female slaves and prostitutes. While the tract is now seen as an important historical document of modern slavery, it is generally acknowledged that Hunkanrin committed some flaws, such as not distinguishing between harantin and slaves.

When he returned to Dahomey in 1933, he began studying traditional customs and seemed to have genuinely been changed by the exile. Nonetheless, in 1934 he co-authored two articles in La Voix du Dahomey along with Louis Ignacio-Pinto that were critical of French administrators. He served a brief jail sentence and moved out of the spotlight for a few years. When World War II broke out, he sided with Charles DeGaulle and his Free French forces. Hunkanrin found employment as a British spy and recruited soldiers to the war effort in Nigeria. He was arrested in 1941 for undermining the Vichy regime, and at his trial in Dakar he was sentenced to death. This was later commuted to eight years exile in Mali.

Freedom and later life When Hunkanrin was freed in 1947, he again became involved in politics and joined the Porto-Novo electoral committee in the years before a political party was formed in Dahomey. He was appointed the chairman of the important pressure group Union des Anciens du Dahomey in 1950. That year, he edited the L'Eveil newspaper in Porto-Novo. When Dahomey received its independence in 1960, Hunkanrin was deemed too old to serve in any full-time government position. Instead, he was a special consultant to both Hubert Maga and Sourou-Migan Apithy. Hunkanri died in Porto Novo on 28 May 1964, and was eulogized by French speakers for combating colonial abuses and for being the first nationalist in Dahomey. He was posthumously awarded the title of "Grande Officier de l'Ordre National du Dahomey".