from Dahomey and Oyo ports, forcing the Europeans to trade with their ports. Kpengla believed that this situation would result in the Oyo moving their trade from rival ports like Porto-Novo into the Dahomey port of Whydah. As a result, Kpengla destroyed Epe in 1782 and Badagry in 1784. Having fulfilled his part of the agreement, Kpengla grew angry when Oyo and Porto-Novo continued to trade actively as a rival port to Whydah. As a result, Kpengla reformed trade policy to ban all trade in slaves with Oyo in 1786. The next year, he created a royal monopoly over trade at Whydah, controlling all English and French imports (except for Brazilian tobacco). In addition, he set price controls significantly decreasing the price of slaves into the kingdom. Traders who attempted to work around the price controls were executed or sold as slaves themselves. Traders resisted this and decided not to sell slaves at all. Kpengla responded by forcing sale by the traders. These policies resulted in significant movement of trade away from Dahomey and to other ports and so in 1788, he began slave raiding once again. Construction Kpengla was crucial in significant amount of construction in Abomey and the kingdom. Kpengla may have been the king to establish the royal road of Dahomey, a wide road from Whydah to Cana and then to Abomey. This width of this road and its maintenance were unique in West Africa for the time and the Cana to Abomey stretch was maintained and impressed European visitors for the next century. Lionel Abson, head of the English fort at Whydah, first reported of the project in the 18th century. According to Abson, in 1779 the king; Death Kpengla died in 1789 from smallpox and his son Agonglo became the new king after a violent struggle in the palace that resulted in hundreds of deaths. Agonglo largely ended Kpengla's slave trade restrictions and allowed slave traders to set their own rate. See also History of the Kingdom of Dahomey References Kings of Dahomey 1735 births 1789 deaths Deaths from smallpox 18th-century monarchs in Africa 18th century in the Kingdom of Dahomey