The Aja are a group of people living in Benin (former Dahomey). Dahomey was an African kingdom situated in what is now Benin. ...

According to tradition [1], the Aja migrated to southern Benin in the 12th or 13th centuries from Tado on the Mono River and in the early 17th century, three brothers, Kokpon, Do-Aklin, and Te-Agdanlin, fought for the kingdom, dividing it amongst themselves. Kokpon took the thriving capital city of Great Ardra, Alada. Do-Aklin founded Abomey and Te-Agdanlin founded Little Ardra, also known as Ajatche and Porto Novo by Portuguese traders. Tado (formerly Ezame) is a village in south east Togo, near the border with Benin. ... The Mono River is the major river of eastern Togo. ... Alada (Alada Empresa de Transportes Aereos) is an airline based in Luanda, Angola. ... Abomey is a town in Benin, formerly the capital of the ancient kingdom of Dahomey. ... Porto-Novo, population 179,138 (1992), is the official capital of Benin. ...

Those Aja living in Abomey mingled with the local tribe, thus creating a new people known as the Fon, or "Dahomey" ethnic group. This group is now the largest in Benin. Another source [2] claims the Aja were the rulers of Dahomey (Benin) until 1893, when the French conquered them. Currently, there are approximately 500,000 Ajas in an area straddling the border between Benin and Togo, thirty miles long and twenty miles wide. Fon is a major West African ethnic and linguistic group in the country of Benin or Dahomey, and southwest Nigeria, made up of more than 2,000,000 people. ... 1893 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ...

The Aja speak a language known as Aja-Gbe, or simply 'Aja'; only 1-5% are literate in their native tongue. According to one source, voodoo originated with the Aja. There are three dialects: Tàgóbé (in Togo only), Dògóbè (in Benin only), and Hwègbè (in both countries). They are bilingual in Éwé and French. Aja is a Nilo-Saharan language of the Central Sudanic subgroup, spoken in the southern Sudanese province of Bahr el Ghazal and along the Sudanese border in the Central African Republic. ... Ewe (pronounced /eβe/) is a Kwa language spoken in Ghana and Togo by approximately three million people (Capo 1991). ...