Dahomey Amazons warriors are also the main focus and written about in Layon Gray's stage play "Black Sparta". The Dora Milaje, army/bodyguards to the "Black Panther", are based partially off the Dahomey Amazons. In Zora Neale Hurston’s "", 86 year old Cudjo Lewis, the last known survivor of the slaver Clotilda, describes his own capture by Dahomey Amazons when he was 19 years old. Dahomey Amazons The Dahomey Amazons or Mino, which means "our mothers," were a Fon all-female military regiment of the Kingdom of Dahomey in the present-day Republic of Benin which lasted until the end of the 19th century. They
History of the Kingdom of Dahomey the city. In 1730 the war with Oyo ended and Dahomey retained domestic control but became a tributary of the Oyo empire. By the end of Agaja's reign, the Kingdom of Dahomey occupied significant area, particularly the crucial coastal slave trade cities. At the same time, Agaja created much of the administrative apparatus of the kingdom and instituted the key ceremony of the Annual Customs, or "Xwetanu" in Fon. Following the death of Agaja in 1740, the empire was defined by significant political struggle (although limited largely to within the palace walls) and deepening engagement with the slave trade. There