Story of The Dahomey Amazons

From the 1700s through 1904, the Kingdom of Dahomey had an all-female military unit known as the Dahomey Amazons. They are now referred to by historians as mino, which in the native Fon language translates to “our moms.” They are the only all-female army known to exist in history. These machete-wielding, musket-carrying woman terminators were rightfully dreaded throughout Western Africa for more than 250 years because of their total refusal to back down or flee from any engagement unless specifically told to do so by their monarch. They were tough, ass-kicking ladies who were single-mindedly committed to honing themselves into vicious weapons of battlefield death.

HOW THEY STARTED

Dahomey’s male population suffered heavy losses in recurrent combat with neighboring West African powers, and Dahomey was compelled to yearly provide male slaves to the Oyo Empire, which led to the unprecedented formation of an all-female military unit. The monarchs of Dahomey probably enlisted women into the army due to a scarcity of men.

The Amazons were not initially intended to be frontal assault shock warriors thrown in to crush the enemy’s souls (and skulls) in a frenzy of bloodlust rage when they were first created around 1645 by the Dahomey King Ada Honzoo. Instead, they began as a tiny group of women who were experts at taking down elephants and went on planned, effective pachyderm hunts when the males were away engaged in combat. Ada Honzoo eventually promoted them to his personal bodyguard unit, increasing the unit’s size to 800 female warriors with spears, bows, and war clubs. The unit then increased in size to an elite military unit of over 4,000 warriors, possibly due to a lack of manpower or possibly because of their ruthless efficiency.

There were several methods used to gather the Amazons. The odd royal concubine who realized she was far more at ease sawing people in two for the King than she was creating male children for a man was one of these volunteers; other times, they were impoverished women seeking fame on the battlefield. However, much more spectacular than that was the fact that a woman’s father (or husband!) could approach the King and His Royal Highness would enlist her into the Amazons if she was “too misbehaved” to make a suitable wife for a lovely Dahoman man.

The Amazons underwent rigorous physical training that was considerably more difficult than anything the male troops were prepared to do. They engaged in excruciatingly lengthy runs, harsh calisthenics, fighting, and wrestling every day. The Amazons were renowned for their bravery, whether they were subduing nearby tribes or fighting off European invaders.

There are very few references to women in the royal records of Dahomey, one of the most powerful ancient African kingdoms that is now the Benin Republic and had fifteen successive monarchs. However, there were times when women stood out, and one of them even oversaw the entire country.

Although many European slave traffickers, missionaries, and colonialists documented their experiences with the courageous ladies, historical descriptions of the Amazons are infamously untrustworthy. A military practice in which hundreds of barefooted women ascended 120-meter-high prickly acacia trees without so much as a murmur was recounted by the Italian priest Francesco Borghero in 1861.

What is the Dahomey Amazons’ legacy?

As a result, King Ada Honzoo and his successors not only prevented their pathetically small tribe from being crushed by the strong enemy kingdoms that surrounded them, but they also brutally crushed them so that by the time the dust and blood spray cleared, the Kingdom of Dahomey was a vast empire spanning across Western Africa. This was all made possible by these crazy women and their unquenchable thirst for the warm blood of their recently-eviscerated enemies.

King Behanzin waged war on France in 1882 in an effort to defend his economic privileges. The Amazons sustained severe losses when a better-equipped French force confronted them. The Amazons are revered as a symbol of female independence despite perpetrating what would be considered war crimes today. After being ignored for years, they are now gradually being honored.

“Conquer or Die” was the slogan of the Dahomey Amazons. These women took an oath to die in the face of the enemy and were quite frankly not very tolerant of anyone who didn’t follow their obviously stringent standards (any Amazons who left a fight without the King himself ordering them to retreat were immediately killed on the spot). And they occasionally went a bit too far. For instance, the Dahomey Amazons would spend the following few days scurrying into the woods in search of enemy troops who had escaped the conflict while the King and his men were plundering and getting to know their new subjects after taking an enemy city.

They would pull the frightened warrior back by his hair if they were discovered. Then, after spending the following three days chopping off the man’s ears, gouging out his eyes, and amputating his fingers, they would mercifully drag him before the king, decapitate him, and then suck his blood off the weapon’s blade.

DISBANDMENT

When the kingdom became a protectorate of France, the forces were dissolved. According to historical sources, several of the remaining amazons hid in Abomey later and killed many French officers there.

While some of the ladies got married and had kids, others stayed single. The lives of over two dozen former Amazons were studied by a historian, who found that all the women had trouble transitioning to life after being warriors and frequently struggled to find new roles in their communities that gave them a sense of pride similar to their old lives.

Sources:

Cummins, Joseph. History’s Great Untold Stories. National Geographic, 2007.

Edgerton, Robert B. Warrior Women. Westview, 2000

first posted on Paradux Africa