Dahomey

Dahomey (/dəˈhoʊmi/) was an African kingdom (located in the area of the present-day country of Benin) that existed from about 1600 until 1894, when the last chief, Behanzin, was defeated by the French, and the country was annexed into the French colonial empire. Dahomey developed on the Abomey Plateau amongst the Fon people in the early 17th century and became a regional power in the 18th century by conquering key cities on the Atlantic coast. For much of the 18th and 19th centuries, the Kingdom of Dahomey was a key regional state, eventually ending tributary status to the Oyo Empire. The Kingdom of Dahomey was an important regional power that had an organized domestic economy built on conquest and slave labor, significant international trade with European powers, a centralized administration, taxation systems, and an organized military. Notable in the kingdom were significant artwork, an all-female military unit known as the Dahomey Amazons, and the elaborate religious practices of Vodun with the large festival of the Annual Customs of Dahomey.