Ouidah is the center of voodoo and here takes place the most important voodoo festival every year. The city is believed to have been founded by King Kpase of the Kingdom of Whydah towards the end of the XVI century. A legend says that during the Fon tribe invasion, the king ran into what is now the “Kpasse Sacred Forest”, filled with statues of voodoo gods, and turned into a tree. Most importantly, Ouidah has played a major role in the history of this region and it has been one of the most active ports in Africa for the slave trade. Initially, before the domination of the kingdom of Dahomey, troops used to venture into Africa and capture thousands of people through tribal wars, then sell them as slaves to Europeans and Arabs. Then, the port was the one to send the last recorded shipment of slaves to the United States after the prohibition of the transatlantic slave trade. Here there is a path that contains sculptures and murals meant to commemorate victims of the trade and is known as the Slave Route. The path starts from where the slaves were sold, in the market square, and reaches the sandy beaches of the Atlantic Ocean.