6/4/2023 0 Comments Sister mother warrior![]() ![]() ![]() The group of female warriors was referred to as Mino, meaning "Our Mothers" in the Fon language, by the male army of Dahomey. According to tradition, her brother and successor King Agaja successfully used them in Dahomey's defeat of the neighbouring kingdom of Savi in 1727. European merchants recorded their presence. Houegbadja's daughter Queen Hangbe (ruling from 1716 to 1718) established a female bodyguard. King Houegbadja (who ruled from 1645 to 1685), the third King of Dahomey, is said to have originally started the group which would later become the Mino as a corps of elephant hunters called the gbeto. The lack of men likely led the kings of Dahomey to recruit women into the army. This led to Dahomey being one of the leading states in the slave trade with the Oyo Empire, which used slaves for commodity exchange in West Africa until the slave trade in the region ended. The emergence of an all-female military regiment was the result of Dahomey's male population facing high casualties in the increasingly frequent violence and warfare with neighbouring West African states. They were named Amazons by Western Europeans who encountered them, due to the story of the female warriors of Amazons in Greek mythology. They were the only female army in modern history. The Dahomey Amazons ( Fon: Agojie, Agoji, Mino, or Minon) were a Fon all-female military regiment of the Kingdom of Dahomey (in today's Benin, West Africa) that existed from the 17th century until the late 19th century. ![]()
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