Benin

During the colonial period and at independence, the country was known as Dahomey. It was changed in to the People's Republic of Benin after the body of water on which the country lies, the Bight of Benin, which had in turn been named after the Benin Empire. Thus the country of Benin has no direct connection to Benin City in modern Nigeria, nor to the Benin bronzes.The new name was chosen for its neutrality. Dahomey was the name of the former Kingdom of Dahomey, which covered only the southern third of the present country and therefore did not represent the northwestern Atakora nor the kingdom of Borgu, which covered the northeastern third.


The kingdom of Dahomey formed from a mixture of ethnic groups on the Abomey plain. Historians theorized that the insecurity caused by slave trading may have contributed to mass migrations of groups to modern day Abomey, including some Aja, a Gbe people who are believed to have founded the city. Those Aja living in Abomey mingled with the local Fons, also a Gbe people, creating a new ethnic group known as Dahomey. The Gbe peoples are said to be descendents of a number of migrants from Wyo. Gangnihessou, a member of an Aja dynasty that in the th century along with the Ajay populace had come from Tadeo before settling and ruling separately in what is now Abominate, Allard, and Porto Novo, became the first ruler of the Dahomey Kingdom. Dahomey had a military culture aimed at securing and eventually expanding the borders of the small kingdom with its capital at modern day Abomey.
The Dahomey kingdom was known for its culture and traditions. Boys were often apprenticed to older soldiers at a young age, and learned about the kingdom's military customs until they were old enough to join the navy. Dahomey was also famous for instituting an elite female soldier corps, called Ahosi or "our mothers" in the Fongbe language, and known by many Europeans as the Dahomean Amazons. This emphasis on military preparation and achievement earned Dahomey the nickname of black Sparta from European observers and century explorers like Sir Richard Burton.

Though the leaders of Dahomey appeared initially to resist the slave trade, it flourished in the region of Dahomey for almost three hundred years, leading to the area being named "the Slave Coast". Court protocols, which demanded that a portion of war captives from the kingdom's many battles be decapitated, decreased the number of enslaved people exported from the area. The number went from per year at the beginning of the seventeenth century to at the beginning of the. The decline was partly due to the banning of the trans Atlantic trade by Britain and other countries. This decline continued until, when the last Portuguese slave ship departed from the coast of present day Benin Republic.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, Dahomey started to lose its status as the regional power. This enabled the French to take over the area in . In the French included land called Dahomey within the French West Africa colony. In France granted autonomy to the Republic of Dahomey, and full independence as of August . The president who led them to independence was Hubert Maga.For the next years, ethnic strife contributed to a period of turbulence. There were several coups and regime changes, with three figures dominating Sourou Apithy, Hubert Maga, and Justin Ahomadegbé each of them representing a different area and ethnicity of the country. These three agreed to form a presidential council after violence marred the elections.