African Warriors at the Oscars
- Kingdom of Dahomey (present Benin), 1724. The army made up of women participated in the war against Allada.
Three years later, in the conquest of Savi, the capital of the kingdom of Whydah, the minos also acted (“our mothers” in the Fon language). From then on, women formed a permanent battalion reaching 6,000 members.
The Yorubas of the kingdom of Dahomey maintained a long war with the peoples around it, and in order to maintain the economic prosperity that the slave trade brought to the country, they faced demographic decline. A. R. For example, the English merchant Wilmot noted that the disproportion between men and women in the streets of the capital, Abomey, was very pronounced. Thus, the group of women elephant hunters (gbeto) created by King Agadja (1708-1732), his father Houegbadja, began to be used first as a personal guard and then to prepare and use them for the struggle.
Warriors were recruited in adolescence and had a hard training process: they learned to use spears, knives, mazas, swords and some European firearms, even in hand-to-hand struggle. And also as executioners, to get used to death and drive away compassion. In return, they had many privileges: they lived in the royal palace and had at their disposal all the levels of alcohol, tobacco and slaves they wanted, such as R. As the explorer Burton wrote in 1860.
The number and fame of the miners increased in the struggle with neighbouring countries, but when they began to face the European colonizers, specifically against the French, they surpassed the technologies. Some French soldiers claimed to have poor and outdated firearms that were not used with correctness. The enemies underlined the courage of the miners and their superiority in the face-to-face struggle, but that was not enough. In 1892, 434 minos were sent to a battle against the French, only 17 survivors. Before the end of the century, Africa's almost last independent kingdom became the French colony.
Black Panther has six nominations at the Academy Awards that will be delivered next Monday, and this is the first time a superhero movie is presented as a candidate for the best movie of the year. Dora Milaje, a fictional warrior of the Wakanda kingdom, is one of the protagonists of the film. A film full of fantasy and incredible actions therefore has a real historical source: Ayo, Okoye, Xoliswa and the other warriors of the film are based on the minos of Dahomey.
The Centre Tricontinental has described the historical resistance of the Congolese in the dossier The Congolese Fight for Their Own Wealth (the Congolese people struggle for their wealth) (July 2024, No. 77). During the colonialism, the panic among the peasants by the Force... [+]
New York, 1960. At a UN meeting, Nigeria’s Foreign Minister and UN ambassador Jaja Wachucu slept. Nigeria had just achieved independence on 1 October. Therefore, Wachuku became the first UN representative in Nigeria and had just taken office.
In contradiction to the... [+]
Washington (EE.UU. ), 1807. The US Constitution banned transatlantic slave trade. This does not mean that slavery has been abolished, but that the main source of the slaves has been interrupted. Thus, slave women became the only way to “produce” new slaves.
So in 1845, in... [+]
It is no coincidence that Columbus Day, that of the Civil Guard and the Virgen del Pilar coincided on that date. The three represent oppressive structures (statue, army and church). On the other hand, there is indigenous resistance and population that the Spanish State... [+]
The name of the Txagos Archipelago is commonly known by crossword fans, and by very few more. If you mention the largest of these islands, Diego García, we would be a little more what we have said: the fame – not sweet – that has achieved the US military base that is there,... [+]
From the Mountain of Navarre, thousands of people took to America in the 19th century to survive in grazing or other activities. Historian Raquel Idoate recovers in her thesis the history of some 4,000 of them: how the trip was made, how they were invested in, roles about... [+]