The debate over Agaja's motivations goes back to John Atkins' 1735 publication of "A Voyage to Guinea, Brazil, and the West Indies". In that book, Atkins argued that Allada and Whydah were known for regular slave raiding on the Abomey plateau and that Agaja's attacks on those kingdoms were primarily to release some of his people who had been captured. A key piece of evidence for Atkins was a letter purported to be from Agaja and carried by Bulfinch Lambe to England in 1731 which expressed the willingness of Agaja to establish agricultural exports to Great Britain as an alternative to the slave trade. The authenticity of this letter is disputed and it was widely used in abolition debates in Great Britain as a letter by a purported indigenous African abolitionist.