Latest / The Atlantic Slave Trade: Empire Built on Human Suffering — Fexingo History / Dahomey's Female Warriors: The Agojie of West Africa
Transcript
- Lucas: We've talked in depth about the kingdoms that supplied captives and the European traders who bought them. But there's one kingdom that stood apart not just for its military power but for the sheer strangeness of its army — at least, strange to European eyes. I'm talking about Dahomey and its all-female warrior corps, the Agojie. Luna: The Amazons of Dahomey — I've heard that term. But I know it's a bit of a misnomer. Lucas: Exactly. The Greeks had no idea these women existed. The label 'Amazon' was slapped on by 18th-century French traders who saw them in action and reached for the closest classical reference. The Dahomeans themselves called them the Agojie — meaning 'the king's wives' in Fon — or sometimes Mino, 'our mothers'. And they were a very real, very deadly military unit. Lucas: The origins go back to the early 18th century under King Houegbadja, who reportedly formed a corps of female bodyguards — partly for prestige, partly because he didn't trust male guards near his wives. But it was under King Ghezo, who ruled from 1818 to 1858, that the Agojie became a full-blown standing army. At its peak, they numbered between 4,000 and 6,000 women. Luna: That's huge. What kind of training did they undergo? Lucas: Brutal. Recruits — often volunteered by their families or conscripted as tribute from conquered villages — had to pass a grueling regimen. They ran through thornbush mazes to build endurance, climbed walls of spikes, and practiced with muskets and machetes until their hands bled. But the real test was psychological: they had to execute a captive in front of the king without flinching. Failure meant death or expulsion. Luna: So the state invested heavily in them. Lucas: Absolutely. And they earned a fearsome reputation. European visitors described them as utterly fearless. One French trader, a fellow named Francisco Félix de Sousa — known as the Chacha, a major slave trader based in Ouidah — wrote that the Agojie were more disciplined than the male troops. They carried muskets with bayonets and short machetes, and they used them with brutal efficiency. Lucas: But here's where it gets uncomfortable: the Agojie were not just defenders of the kingdom. They were also the enforcers of Dahomey's slave-raiding economy. Dahomey was a major supplier of captives to the Atlantic trade, especially under Ghezo, who needed firearms to expand his territory. The Agojie led many of the raids that captured people for sale — they'd attack neighboring kingdoms like the Oyo Empire, the Mahi, and the Yoruba city-states. Luna: So they were simultaneously oppressed and oppressors. That's a hard duality. Lucas: It's essential to hold both truths. The Agojie were women in a patriarchal society who achieved extraordinary power and status — they were legal wives of the king, they had wealth and influence, and they could even take concubines. But their power came from participating in a system that devastated millions of lives. They burned villages, took captives, and marched them to the coast in chains. Lucas: The most famous royal patron of the Agojie was King Ghezo, but his son Behanzin, who fought the French in the 1890s, relied on them heavily. Behanzin is often remembered as a heroic resister of colonialism, but his kingdom was built on the slave trade. The French, for their part, portrayed the Agojie as savage anomalies to justify their conquest. Luna: What happened to them after the French took over? Lucas: The end came in 1894 after the Second Franco-Dahomean War. The Agojie fought ferociously — at the battle of Adegon, they charged French machine guns with machetes. Thousands died. The survivors were scattered, many executed or forced into exile. The French dismantled the corps, and the memory of the Agojie faded into legend — until recently, when historians and filmmakers began revisiting their story. Lucas: But we have to be careful not to romanticize them. The Agojie were not feminist icons in any modern sense — they were soldiers in a kingdom that traded in human beings. Their bravery is undeniable, but so is the suffering they inflicted. That tension is what makes their history so potent. Luna: It reminds me of the Zong case — how the commodification of people dehumanizes everyone involved. Lucas: Exactly. And Dahomey's economy was utterly dependent on that commodification. The king's palace itself was decorated with the skulls of defeated enemies. The Agojie were his most visible instrument. So when we look at them, we're looking at the slave trade from a different angle — not just the ships and the plantations, but the African states that were both victims and perpetrators.