‘The Woman King’ and the Real History of Dahomey

Ahead of its debut in theaters today, The Woman King has been advertised as “the remarkable true story of a fierce, all-female unit known as the Agojie, who protected the west African kingdom of Dahomey in the 1800s. Set in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the film will chart how this military force protected the interests of this powerful African state, fighting the French and neighbouring tribes who enslaved their people and violated their honour.”

Well, I guess that is one way to tell the story of the kingdom of Dahomey and its cadre of female warriors. Hollywood can take all the dramatic license it wants with history in order to tell a good story, and it often does. But if this is what the film shows, it will be a preposterously misleading history of Dahomey and its “Amazons,” as Westerners of the day called those warriors.

About the Author

Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review Online and a fellow at National Review Institute.

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Ahead of its debut in theaters today, The Woman King has been advertised as “the remarkable true story of a fierce, all-female unit known as the Agojie, who protected the west African kingdom of Dahomey in the 1800s. Set in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the film will chart how this military force protected the interests of this powerful African state, fighting the French and neighbouring tribes who enslaved their people and violated their honour.”

Well, I guess that is one way to tell the story of the kingdom of Dahomey and its cadre of female warriors. Hollywood can take all the dramatic license it wants with history in order to tell a good story, and it often does. But if this is what the film shows, it will be a preposterously misleading history of Dahomey and its “Amazons,” as Westerners of the day called those warriors.