Dahomey

The Kingdom of Dahomey () was a West African kingdom located within present-day Benin that existed from approximately 1600 until 1904. It developed on the Abomey Plateau amongst the Fon people in the early 17th century and became a regional power in the 18th century by expanding south to conquer key cities like Whydah belonging to the Kingdom of Whydah on the Atlantic coast which granted it unhindered access to the tricontinental Atlantic Slave Trade.

For much of the middle 19th century, the Kingdom of Dahomey became a key regional state, after eventually ending tributary status to the Oyo Empire. European visitors extensively documented the kingdom, and it became one of the most familiar African nations known to Europeans. The Kingdom of Dahomey was an important regional power that had an organized domestic economy built on conquest and slave labor, significant international trade and diplomatic relations with Europeans, a centralized administration, taxation systems, and an organized military. Notable in the kingdom were significant artwork, an all-female military unit called the Dahomey Amazons by European observers, and the elaborate religious practices of Vodun.

The growth of Dahomey coincided with the growth of the Atlantic slave trade, and it became known to Europeans as a major supplier of slaves. Dahomey was a highly militaristic society constantly organised for warfare; it captured captives during wars and raids against neighboring societies and sold them into the Atlantic slave trade in exchange for European goods such as rifles, gunpowder, fabrics, cowrie shells, tobacco, pipes, and alcohol. Other captives became slaves in Dahomey, where they worked on royal plantations or were killed in human sacrifices during the festival celebrations known as the Annual Customs of Dahomey. The Annual Customs of Dahomey involved significant collection and distribution of gifts and tribute, religious Vodun ceremonies, military parades, and discussions by dignitaries about the future for the kingdom.

In the 1840s, Dahomey began to face decline with British pressure to abolish the slave trade, which included the anti-slavery blockade of Africa by the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron. Dahomey was also weakened after facing crushing defeats at the hands of Abeokuta, a Yoruba city-state which was founded by the Oyo Empire refugees migrating southward. Dahomey later began experiencing territorial disputes with France which led to the war in 1890 and part of the kingdom becoming a French protectorate. The kingdom fell four years later, when renewed fighting resulted in the last king, Béhanzin, to be overthrown and the country annexed into French West Africa.

French Dahomey would gain independence in 1960 as the Republic of Dahomey, which would rename itself Benin in 1975. Provided by Wikipedia