Viola Davis’ “The Woman King” is about the all-female warriors from the Kingdom of Dahomey in Africa.
I’ve been reading “Born in Blackness” slowly and in spurts. I searched for information on the Dahomey Kingdom and was happy to find:
“With competition already stiff among Europeans on the Gold Coast, the outsiders then stepped up their prospecting efforts immediately to the east, turning trade in the region into a free-for-all. In the space of a few decades, beginning at the start of the eighteenth century, the Slave Coast rapidly went from new entrant to nearly dominant in this trade. The commerce in slaves in this region was driven not by tiny statelets, but by a series of powerful kingdoms. The first of these to make its mark was Allada, or Ardra, which was then followed and then joined in rivalry by a nearby coastal state, Whydah, before the two of them were eclipsed by a larger and even more successful kingdom based in the interior named Dahomey.”
– Howard W. French, “Born in Blackness”
I look forward to watching the movie and finishing this book.