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→‎Political role: Yoder's work did not indicate that the Mino, as a whole, supported these issues for reasons as shown by the change. More broadly, the implication that any Mino member supported trade in palm oil over enslaved peoples by Yoder's research has been widely disputed by Dahomey scholarship, most notably by Robin Law and David Ross.
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== Political role ==
== Political role ==


The ''Mino'' took a prominent role in the Grand Council, debating the policy of the kingdom. From the 1840s to 1870s (when the opposing party collapsed), they generally supported peace with [[Abeokuta]] and stronger commercial relations with England, favouring the trade in [[palm oil]] above that in slaves. This set them at odds with their male military colleagues.{{sfn|Yoder|1974}}
The ''Mino'' took a prominent role in the Grand Council, debating the policy of the kingdom. From the 1840s to 1870s (when the opposing party collapsed), individual members of the ''Mino'' generally supported peace with [[Abeokuta]] and stronger commercial relations with England, favouring the trade in [[palm oil]] above that in slaves. This set them at odds with their male military colleagues and other ''Mino'' members.{{sfn|Yoder|1974}} Yoder's research, however, bases this conclusion on reports of only two mino speakers that testified before the Grand Council who advocated for slave raids against smaller military targets instead of its main enemy at the time, Abeokuta, with one of the mino reportedly stating, "If we go to war, we cannot come back empty-handed; if we fail to catch elephants, let us be content with flies." In the same research, Yoder refers to a larger mino population that advocated for attacking Abeokuta, citing a mino with an opposing position: "I am the king's daughter, under his protection; he gave me to the late Da Souza: death seized him: I now belong to Antoine: my name is Ahgaesee; and all I want is to go to war on Abeahkeata." <ref>{{Cite journal |last=Yoder |first=John C. |date=1974-07 |title=Fly and Elephant parties: Political polarization in Dahomey, 1840–1870 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-african-history/article/abs/fly-and-elephant-parties-political-polarization-in-dahomey-18401870/5181B9D988ECF69AAB3545BA3D6BC6F1 |journal=The Journal of African History |language=en |volume=15 |issue=3 |pages=417–432 |doi=10.1017/S0021853700013566 |issn=1469-5138}}</ref>


Apart from the council, the [[Annual Customs of Dahomey]] included a parade and reviewing of the troops, and the troops swearing of an oath to the king. The celebrations on the 27th day of the Annual Customs consisted of a mock battle in which the Amazons attacked a "fort" and "captured" the slaves within,{{sfn|Yoder|1974}} a custom recorded by the priest Francesco Borghero in his diaries.{{sfn|Dash|2011}}
Apart from the council, the [[Annual Customs of Dahomey]] included a parade and reviewing of the troops, and the troops swearing of an oath to the king. The celebrations on the 27th day of the Annual Customs consisted of a mock battle in which the Amazons attacked a "fort" and "captured" the slaves within,{{sfn|Yoder|1974}} a custom recorded by the priest Francesco Borghero in his diaries.{{sfn|Dash|2011}}

Revision as of 17:54, 15 September 2022

The Dahomey Amazons around 1890

The Dahomey Amazons (Fon: "Agojie", "Agoji", "Mino", or "Minon") were a Fon all-female military regiment of the Kingdom of Dahomey which existed from the 1600s until 1904. There are few accounts of all female military regiments.[1][2] They were named Amazons by Western Europeans who encountered them, due to the story of the female warriors or Amazons in Greek mythology. This unusual emergence of an all-female military regiment was the result of Dahomey's male population facing high casualties in the increasingly frequent violence and warfare with neighbouring West African states, which led to Dahomey being forced to annually give male slaves to particularly the Oyo Empire, which used that for commodity exchange as part of the growing phenomenon of slave trade in West Africa during the Age of Discovery. The lack of men likely led the kings of Dahomey to recruit women into the army.[3]

Origin

King Houegbadja (who ruled from 1645 to 1685), the third King of Dahomey, is said to have originally started the group which would later become the Amazons, as a corps of elephant hunters called the gbeto. [4]

Houegbadja's daughter Queen Hangbe (ruling from 1716 to 1718) established a female bodyguard. European merchants recorded their presence. According to tradition, her brother and successor King Agaja successfully used them in Dahomey's defeat of the neighbouring kingdom of Savi in 1727.[5] The group of female warriors was referred to as Mino, meaning "Our Mothers" in the Fon language, by the male army of Dahomey.[6] Other sources contest the claim that King Agaja's older sister Queen Hangbe was the ruler to establish the units, some even going so far as to question whether or not Queen Hangbe actually existed.[7]

From the time of King Ghezo (ruling from 1818 to 1858), Dahomey became increasingly militaristic. Ghezo placed great importance on the army, increasing its budget and formalizing its structure from ceremonial to a serious military. While European narratives refer to the women soldiers as "Amazons", they called themselves ahosi (king's wives) or Mino (our mothers).[5]

Recruitment

Seh-Dong-Hong-Beh, a leader of the Amazons, drawing by Frederick Edwyn Forbes, 1851

Ghezo recruited both men and women as soldiers from foreign captives. Female soldiers were also recruited from free Dahomean women, with some enrolled from as young as 8 years old.[5] Other accounts indicate that the Mino were recruited from among the ahosi ("king's wives"), of which there were often hundreds.[8] Some women in Fon society became soldiers voluntarily, while others were involuntarily enrolled if their husbands or fathers complained to the king about their behaviour.[9]

Membership among the Mino was supposed to hone any aggressive character traits for the purpose of war. During their membership they were not allowed to have children or be part of married life (though they were legally married to the king). Many of them were virgins. The regiment had a semi-sacred status, which was intertwined with the Fon belief in Vodun.

The Mino trained with intense physical exercise. They learned survival skills and indifference to pain and death, storming acacia-thorn defenses in military exercises and executing prisoners.[10] Discipline was emphasised.

Serving in the Mino offered women the opportunity to "rise to positions of command and influence" in an environment structured for individual empowerment.[5] The Mino were also wealthy and held high status.[10]

Political role

The Mino took a prominent role in the Grand Council, debating the policy of the kingdom. From the 1840s to 1870s (when the opposing party collapsed), individual members of the Mino generally supported peace with Abeokuta and stronger commercial relations with England, favouring the trade in palm oil above that in slaves. This set them at odds with their male military colleagues and other Mino members.[11] Yoder's research, however, bases this conclusion on reports of only two mino speakers that testified before the Grand Council who advocated for slave raids against smaller military targets instead of its main enemy at the time, Abeokuta, with one of the mino reportedly stating, "If we go to war, we cannot come back empty-handed; if we fail to catch elephants, let us be content with flies." In the same research, Yoder refers to a larger mino population that advocated for attacking Abeokuta, citing a mino with an opposing position: "I am the king's daughter, under his protection; he gave me to the late Da Souza: death seized him: I now belong to Antoine: my name is Ahgaesee; and all I want is to go to war on Abeahkeata." [12]

Apart from the council, the Annual Customs of Dahomey included a parade and reviewing of the troops, and the troops swearing of an oath to the king. The celebrations on the 27th day of the Annual Customs consisted of a mock battle in which the Amazons attacked a "fort" and "captured" the slaves within,[11] a custom recorded by the priest Francesco Borghero in his diaries.[10]

Combat and structure

The women soldiers were rigorously trained and given uniforms.[citation needed] By the mid-19th century, they numbered between 1,000 and 6,000 women, about a third of the entire Dahomey army, according to reports written by visitors. The reports also noted variously that the women soldiers suffered several defeats, but that the women soldiers were consistently judged to be superior to the male soldiers in effectiveness and bravery.[5]

The women soldiers were said to be structured in parallel with the army as a whole, with a center wing (the king's bodyguards) flanked on both sides, each under separate commanders. Some accounts note that each male soldier had a mino counterpart.[5] In one mid-19th century account by an English observer, it was documented that the women that had three stripes of whitewash around each leg were honored with marks of distinction.[13]

The women's army consisted of a number of regiments: huntresses, riflewomen, reapers, archers and gunners. Each regiment had different uniforms, weapons and commanders.[3]

In the latter period, the Dahomean female warriors were armed with Winchester rifles, clubs and knives. Units were under female command. An 1851 published translation of a war chant of the women claims the warriors would chant, "a[s] the blacksmith takes an iron bar and by fire changes its fashion so have we changed our nature. We are no longer women, we are men."[14] This indicates a belief that women cannot be combatants and that a woman who becomes a fighter becomes a man.

Conflict with neighbouring kingdoms

The Dahomey kingdom was often at war with its neighbors, and captives were needed for the slave trade. The Dahomey women soldiers fought in slave raids, as referenced in the Zora Neale Hurston non-fiction work Barracoon,[15] and in the unsuccessful wars against Abeokuta.[16]

Conflict with France

First Franco-Dahomean War

Main article: First Franco-Dahomean War

European encroachment into West Africa gained pace during the latter half of the 19th century, and in 1890 King Béhanzin started fighting French forces in the course of the First Franco-Dahomean War. European observers noted that the women "handled admirably" in hand-to-hand combat, but fired their flintlocks from the hip rather than firing from the shoulder.[10]

The Amazons participated in one major battle: Cotonou, where thousands of Dahomey (including many Amazons) charged the French lines and engaged the defenders in hand-to-hand combat. The Amazons were decisively crushed, with several hundred Dahomey troops being gunned down. Reportedly 129 Dahomey were killed in melee combat within the French lines.[17]

Second Franco-Dahomean War

Main article: Second Franco-Dahomean War

By the end of the Second Franco-Dahomean War, special units of the Amazons were being assigned specifically to target French officers.[18] After several battles, the French prevailed in the Second Franco-Dahomean War and put an end to the independent Dahomean kingdom. French soldiers, particularly of the French Foreign Legion, were impressed by the boldness of the Amazons and later wrote about their "incredible courage and audacity" in combat.[11]

Against a military unit with decidedly superior weaponry and a longer bayonet, however, the Dahomey Amazons could not prevail.[11] During a battle with French soldiers at Adegon on 6 October during the second war, the bulk of the Amazon corps were wiped out in a matter of hours in hand-to-hand combat after the French engaged them with a bayonet charge.[19] The Dahomey lost 86 regulars and 417 Dahomey Amazons, with nearly all of those deaths being inflicted by bayonets; the French lost 6 soldiers.[20]

A group portrait of the so-called "Amazons from Dahomey" during their stay in Paris, 1891

Disbandment and legacy

Veterans at the annual meeting in Abomey in 1908

The troops were disbanded when the kingdom became a French protectorate.[21] Oral tradition states that some surviving amazons secretly remained in Abomey afterwards, where they quietly assassinated a number of French officers. Other stories say the women pledged their services in protection of Agoli-Agbo, the brother of Béhanzin, disguising themselves as his wives in order to guard him.[22]

Some of the women married and had children, while others remained single. According to a historian who traced the lives of almost two dozen ex-amazons, all the women displayed difficulties adjusting to life as retired warriors, often struggling to find new roles in their communities that gave them a sense of pride comparable to their former lives. Many displayed a tendency to start fights or arguments that frightened their neighbours and relatives.[22]

Between 1934 and 1942, several British travellers in Abomey recorded encounters with ex-amazons, now old women who spun cotton or idled around courtyards.[23] An unknown number of women are said to have trained with the members of the Dahomey Amazons after they were disbanded, in effect continuing the tradition. They never saw combat. Around 2019, Lupita Nyong'o interviewed one of these who was still alive.[24][citation needed]

Nawi, the last Dahomey Amazon

The last survivor of the Dahomey Amazons is thought to have been a woman named Nawi. In a 1978 interview in the village of Kinta, a Beninese historian met Nawi, who claimed to have fought the French in 1892.[10] Nawi died in November 1979, aged well over 100.[10]

Dahomey Amazons were represented in the 1987 film Cobra Verde by German director Werner Herzog.

Ghezo's Amazons play a significant role in the novel Flash for Freedom! by George MacDonald Fraser.

The warriors are also the main focus and written about in Layon Gray's stage play The Dahomey Warriors.[25]

The Dora Milaje, warriors and bodyguards of the Marvel Comics character Black Panther, are partially based on the Dahomey Amazons.[26]

In Age of Empires II: The African Kingdoms and Age of Empires III: The African Royals there is a female unit named Gbeto that is influenced by and named after Dahomey Amazons.

In Empire: Total War you can recruit Dahomey Amazon units if you have conquered certain regions in North Africa.

In the Lovecraft Country episode "I Am", Hippolyta is transported to a world where she becomes a Dahomey warrior.

In 2015, UNESCO published the comic novel The Women Soldiers of Dahomey as part of their UNESCO Series on Women in African History.[27][3] As an artistic and visual interpretation intended for private or public use in classrooms,[28] it tells the story of the Amazons in connection with European colonial rule in Africa and ends with their legacy for the present-day Republic of Benin: "In addition to the imprint that they have left on the collective memory, the women soldiers bequeathed to the Republic of Benin dances that are performed to this day in Abomey, songs and legends. There are many women soldiers in Benin’s armed forces today. They keep the memory of the women soldiers of the Kingdom of Dahomey alive."[29]

"The Last Amazon of Dahomey" is a play in the Booker Prize-winning novel of 2019 called Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo.

The Dahomey Amazons are the subject of the 2022 American historical epic film The Woman King. Its cast includes Viola Davis, Thuso Mbedu, Lashana Lynch, Sheila Atim, and John Boyega. Mbedu plays Nawi and Boyega plays King Ghezo. The film is scheduled to be released on September 16, 2022.[30][31]

See also

Sources

 This article incorporates text from a free content work. Licensed under C-BY-SA 3.0 IGO. Text taken from The women soldiers of Dahomey​, UNESCO.

References

  1. ^ https://www.historyhit.com/10-great-female-warriors-of-the-ancient-world/ https://www.history.com/.amp/news/dna-proves-viking-women-were-powerful-warriors
  2. ^ "They were the world's only all-female army. Their descendants are fighting to recapture their humanity". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2022-07-26.
  3. ^ a b c Serbin, Sylvia; Masioni, Pat; Joubeaud, Edouard; Adande, Joseph C. E.; UNESCO (2015). The women soldiers of Dahomey (PDF). UNESCO Women in African History. Paris: UNESCO. ISBN 978-92-3-100115-4. Retrieved October 31, 2018.
  4. ^ Alpern 1998, p. 20.
  5. ^ a b c d e f Law 1993.
  6. ^ Alpern 1998, p. 44.
  7. ^ Macdonald, Fleur (August 26, 2018). "The legend of Benin's fearless female warriors". BBC. Retrieved August 26, 2018.
  8. ^ Alpern 1998, p. 38.
  9. ^ BAMIDELE, MICHAEL (2020-06-14). "The Story Of The Fearless Women Warriors Of Dahomey". The Guardian Nigeria News - Nigeria and World News. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  10. ^ a b c d e f Dash 2011.
  11. ^ a b c d Yoder 1974. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFYoder1974 (help)
  12. ^ Yoder, John C. (1974-07). "Fly and Elephant parties: Political polarization in Dahomey, 1840–1870". The Journal of African History. 15 (3): 417–432. doi:10.1017/S0021853700013566. ISSN 1469-5138. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  13. ^ Forbes, Frederick (2010). Dahomey And The Dahomans: Being The Journals Of Two Missions To The King Of Dahomey And Residence At His Capital 1849 To 1850. Kessinger Publishing LLC. ISBN 978-1163235027.
  14. ^ Adams, Maeve (Spring 2010). "The Amazon Warrior Women and the De/construction of Gendered Imperial Authority in Nineteenth-Century Colonial Literature" (PDF). Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies. 6. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-08-30. Retrieved 2018-08-29.
  15. ^ "Zora Neale Hurston's Lost Interview With One of America's Last Living Slaves". Vulture. April 29, 2018. Retrieved September 2, 2021.
  16. ^ "What role did women play in the kingdom of Dahomey? – Roadlesstraveledstore". www.roadlesstraveledstore.com. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  17. ^ Alpern 1998, p. 195.
  18. ^ Alpern 1998, p. 205.
  19. ^ "The Dahomey Amazon Women, a story". African American Registry. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  20. ^ Alpern, p. 203.
  21. ^ Historical Museum of Abomey.
  22. ^ a b Alpern 1998, pp. 208–209.
  23. ^ Alpern 1998, pp. 210–211.
  24. ^ "Warrior Women with Lupita Nyong'o, 2019", IMDb.
  25. ^ Clodfelter 2017.
  26. ^ Johnson 2018.
  27. ^ "Women in African History - How to Use this Website". en.unesco.org. Archived from the original on 2015-06-07. Retrieved October 29, 2021.
  28. ^ UNESCO. "The women soldiers of Dahomey pedagogical unit". en.unesco.org. Archived from the original on 2015-06-07. Retrieved October 29, 2021.
  29. ^ UNESCO The women soldiers of Dahomey, p. 21
  30. ^ Kroll, Justin (April 28, 2021). "Underground Railroad's Thuso Mbedu To Star Opposite Viola Davis In The Woman King". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on April 28, 2021. Retrieved December 2, 2021.
  31. ^ D'Alessandro, Anthony (November 5, 2021). "Sony Dates TriStar Viola Davis Pic The Woman King; Moves Affirm's George Foreman Biopic To 2023". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on November 9, 2021. Retrieved December 2, 2021.

Bibliography

Further reading

  • Richard Burton, A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahome. London, 1864
  • Holmes R. Acts of War: the behavior of men in battle. New York, Free Press, 1985
  • Frederick E. Forbes. Dahomey and the Dahomans, Being the Journals of Two Missions to the King of Dahomey and the Residence at his Capital in the Years 1849 and 1850. Kessinger Publishing. 2010 ISBN 978-1163235027
  • W. Peukert. Der Atlantische Sklavenhandel von Dahomey, 1740–1797, Wiesbaden, 1978 (in German)
  • Grossman D. On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning To Kill in War and Society. New York, Back Bay Books / Little, Brown and Company, 1995 ISBN 0-316-33011-6 pp. 175
  • D’Almeida-Topor, Hélène. Les Amazones, Une armée de femmes dans l’Afrique précoloniale. Paris, Editions Rochevignes, 1984.
  • Robert B. Edgerton. Warrior Women: The Amazons of Dahomey and the Nature of War. Boulder: Westview Press, 2000
  • Edna G. Bay. Wives of the Leopard: Gender, Culture, and Politics in the Kingdom of Dahomey. Charlottesville, 1998
  • Tim Newark and Angus McBride. Women Warlords: An Illustrated Military History of Female Warriors. Blandford Press, 1989 ISBN 0-7137-1965-6
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