It forms part of the territory formerly distinguished as the Slave Coast and was annexed by Germany in 1884.
The king and his brother the duke of York (James II.), who were largely interested in the slave-trading Guinea Company, were eager to remove the Dutch ports from the slave coast.
The Yoruba-speaking peoples generalized the spirits of mountain and hill into Oke, god of heights; and the multitude of local sea-gods on the western half of the slave coast was fused into one god of the Ocean, Olokun.
On the narrow spit of land between the lagoons and the sea are Bagida and Porto Segurothe last named one of the oldest towns on the Slave Coast and the port of Togo town - and, close to the eastern frontier, Little Popo, called by the Germans Anecho.
