THE KING WHO TRADED HIS KINGDOM FOR A TOILET

Sit down, child, and stop fidgeting. Let me tell you about Oba Ewedo II of Iwure—a man whose eyes were bigger than his brain, and whose story is a lesson in why you never, *ever* do business with a man who looks like he’s about to shit his own breeches.

This was in the 1680s, you see. The Dutch had shown up, as they tended to do, smelling of cheese and economic exploitation. They wanted palm oil, they wanted ivory, they wanted—oh, who cares what they wanted. What matters is what *they had*. And what jejich kapitein, a pinched-face little man named Mynheer Visser, had was a spectacular case of the screaming belly-shits. To survive the trip, he’d brought his personal chamber pot. And my goodness, what a pot. It wasn’t some cheap clay bowl. This was Delftware. Gleaming, brilliant white porcelain, painted with serene blue windmills and little Dutch milkmaids who looked entirely too happy for people standing in a country that’s mostly underwater. It had a lid. It had a handle. It was, to a man who’d only ever seen brass and wood, the most beautiful object on Earth.

Oba Ewedo took one look at this… this gleaming white basin… and his ancestors just left the building. He didn’t see a toilet. How could he? He saw a soup tureen for a giant. A baptismal font for a god. A *crown*. He pointed a trembling finger. “That,” he announced, to the horror of his translator. “I want that.” Mynheer Visser, who was at this point sweating, clenching, and having a religious experience in his lower intestine, would have agreed to anything. He thought the Oba was just admiring his taste in portable latrines. The Oba’s ministers pleaded. The Dutch traders shrugged. Ewedo was insistent. He offered ivory tusks. Visser shook his head, desperate to get back to his ship. Ewedo offered gold dust. Visser, now pale and swaying, waved a dismissive hand. Finally, in a fit of royal pique, the Oba yelled, “Take it all! The whole damn kingdom! Just give me the shiny hat!”

A treaty was drafted by a clerk who was probably paid by the word and loved his job. It was a masterpiece of legal fuckery, ceding all land, mineral, and trade rights for the glorious Kingdom of Iwure to the Dutch West India Company. In exchange for what? And I quote the actual document, which I saw in a museum in The Hague once: “One (1) Blue-Painted Porcelain Sanitary Vessel, with Lid.” Visser signed, the Oba made his mark, and the deal was done. Visser, finally able to relieve himself of both his diplomatic duties and about six pounds of liquid regret, handed over the pot and fled.

For one week, Oba Ewedo was the happiest man in West Africa. He held a feast and drank palm wine from the holy vessel. He paraded through the capital wearing it as a helmet, the lid rattling against his head. He made it the centerpiece of his throne room. Then, Mynheer Visser came back with three galleons, two hundred soldiers, and a small army of accountants. Ewedo was no longer Oba of Iwure. He was the Resident Landlord of the Dutch Protectorate of Pottyville, and his rent was due. His descendants still tell the story—though they call him Oba Onígbọ̀nsẹ̀. Ewedo, Lord of the Latrine. So you see? Some treasures are not what they appear. Now, pass me that bottle. All this talk of bad deals has made me thirsty.