Abomey Abomey Abomey is a city in the Zou Department of Benin. Abomey is also the former capital of the Kingdom of Dahomey ("c." 1600–1904), which would later become a French colony, then the Republic of Dahomey (1960–1975), and is the modern-day Republic of Benin. Abomey houses the Royal Palaces of Abomey, a collection of small traditional houses that were inhabited by the Kings of Dahomey from 1600 to 1900, and which were designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1985. The commune of Abomey covers an area of 142 square kilometres and as of 2012 had a population of
In Dahomey San Francisco. They were again supposed to occupy the African pavilion. Having learned of the use of people in exhibits at the fairs, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II wrote a song, "In Dahomey," for their 1927 musical, "Show Boat." Intended as the last number in Act II, Scene I, "In Dahomey" is performed by a purported group of African natives featured in an exhibit at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. The song begins with the "natives" chanting in what is supposedly an African language. After the watching crowd disperses, they switch to singing in an American dialect, revealing they