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The modern republic of Benin, given that name only in 1975, is the
successor to one of west Africa's most interesting and long-lasting
kingdoms, that of Dahomey. The traditional date of the founding of the
local dynasty is1625, when three brothers of the Dahomey people rule
adjacent territories along the lower reaches of the Mono river. In the
early eighteenth century one member of the family defeats his cousins
and brings into a single kingdom the region known today as Benin.
There
are European trading stations on the Dahomey coast from the 17th
century. Europe is fascinated by news of the local customs, and in
particular Dahomey's famous Amazons.
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Women, trained to form the crack regiments of the king's army, are
given the place of honour in any military campaign. Richard Burton,
visiting Dahomey in 1862, sees some 2500 women setting off as if for
battle.
But in fact battle is what they are trained to avoid.
The slave trade is the king's major source of revenue, and the classic
Dahomey tactic is surprise. When still a few days away from an enemy
town, the invading army abandons the established tracks and melts into
the jungle. Strict silence is maintained. Fires are forbidden. Under
cover of darkness the town is surrounded. In a dawn raid the intention
is to capture everyone, with minimum loss of life, for the slave markets
on the coast.
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The only occasion on which Dahomey is profligate with life, again
mesmerizing European observers, is on the death of the king. In a custom
practised also in the earliest civilizations of Mesopotamia and China,
large numbers of people (said to be about 500 in a funeral ceremony in
1791) are sacrificed to provide the ruler with wives and attendants in
the next world.
Twice yearly there is a smaller number of
sacrifices, usually of prisoners of war, to make up any deficiencies
which may have developed in the dead king's retinue.
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The customs of Dahomey greatly offend the sensibilities of many
19th-century Europeans, in particular those trying to abolish the slave
trade. They also provide an excellent motive for colonial interference.
The
French have been the first in the region, with a fort established at
Ouidah in the 17th century, and it is they who launch a military
campaign into the interior in the 1890s. A French protectorate is
established in part of the kingdom in 1892. By the end of the decade the
entire region is under control. In 1899 Dahomey is included in the
newly established French West Africa, to begin sixty years under French colonial rule - until achieving independence in 1960.
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A turbulent independence: from1960
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Dahomey has a turbulent existence in its first decades of independence, from 1960, after the dissolution of French West Africa. Power changes hands in no fewer than six military coups between 1963 and 1972.
In
the last of these coups, in 1972, control of the state is seized by
Major Mathieu Kérékou. Pursuing a communist policy, he introduces a
measure of stability in the nation's life. As if to write a line under
the past he changes the name of the republic in 1975 from Dahomey to
Benin. (The historic Benin lies to the east, in Nigeria, but Dahomey's coastline is on the Bight of Benin.)
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Kérékou proves a rarity among politicians, a communist leader
capable of relinquishing power. He announces in 1989 that
Marxism-Leninism is no longer to be the political creed of Benin.
Instead there is to be a transition to democracy. A multiparty
presidential election is held in 1991 and Kérékou loses - to Nicéphore
Soglo.
Benin continues to prove during the 1990s that democracy
has arrived as a workable system, even in quite difficult circumstances.
Votes cast in the 1995 election to the national assembly give 49 seats
to opposition parties and only 32 seats to the party providing President
Soglo's power base (the PRB, or Benin Resistance Party).
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For a year Benin achieves the difficult feat of a president working
with an opposed assembly. Then, in the presidential election of 1996,
the voters of Benin provide another surprise.
The ex-Marxist
soldier Mathieu Kérékou, who has spent nearly twenty years running the
nation as a military dictatorship (followed by five in the political
wilderness), is voted back into power as a civilian president.
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