Benin is the seat of ancient and brilliant civilizations, which were built around kingdoms centered on city-states. The Republic of Benin (formerly Dahomey) is located on the Gulf of Guinea. Protectorate in 1884, then the French colony of Dahomey, Benin gained complete independence on 1 August 1960, under the denomination of the Republic of Dahomey, before taking its current name in 1975.
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According to legend, the dynasties of the kingdoms of the south of the Republic of Benin originate in Tado, city of the present Togo and were born of a mythical couple: Princess Aligbonon de Tado and a panther. In the 17th century, two of their descendants, Ganyé Hessou and Dako Donou, laid the foundations for a new kingdom: Danhome. Houégbadja (1645-1685) laid down the legal bases and the main operating principles: rules of succession, political missions of sovereigns, and so on. At that time, the kingdom was limited to the plateau of Abomey.

In the 18th century, King Agadja (1708-1740) extended the borders of Danhome to the Atlantic coast by conquering the kingdoms of Allada and Savi. From now on, Danhome is fully and directly involved in the slave trade through the port of Ouidah, the capital of Savi. It is enriched considerably. The kingdom reached its apogee in the nineteenth century under King Guézo (1818-1858). Constrained by anti-slavery movements, Guézo develops agriculture and converts the Danhome economy, which now less openly exports slaves and more agricultural products (maize, palm nuts ...). His son Badohoun, who took the name of Glele, is traditionally the eleventh king of Abomey. He succeeded his father, Ghézo, and reigned between 1858 and 1889. Glèlè pursued the policy of military expeditions, partly to avenge his father's death, and also with the aim of capturing slaves. Glele, by a treaty signed on May 19, 1868, ceded Cotonou to the French. He died on 29 December 1889 and was replaced by his son Kondo, who took the name of Gbehanzin. At the end of the 19th century, despite the fierce resistance of King Gbêhanzin (1889-1894) to European penetration, the kingdom lost its independence and dissolved in the French colony of Dahomey.

 

The three main kingdoms (created by the Fon) were Allada, founded in the 16th century, that of Abomey in 1625, and that of Porto-Novo, then called Adjacè, then Hogbonou in the 17th century. These well-structured political entities had functional urban centers. They had developed a local trade, based since the 17th century, among others, on the slave trade and then on that of the oil palm after the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. This milking economy favored the installation, Along the coast (known as the "coast of slaves"), trading posts controlled by the English, Danes, Portuguese and French.

The south and the center of the country followed the destiny of the peoples of the Gulf of Guinea while the north, bordering the Niger and Burkina Faso, was subdued by the people of the savannah. According to oral tradition, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Adjas left the city of Tado, located on the banks of the Mono River in Togo, to settle in Savè and Allada in the south. In the following century, a split among the heirs of the kingdom of Allada resulted in the formation of the kingdom of Ajacè in the south-east, and further north, under the direction of Hougbadja (1645-1689), the kingdom of Dahomey, From Abomey, which became the capital of the kingdom. Dahomey became the dominant power of the region, thanks to the slave trade, the kingdom acting as an intermediary with the European coastal factories. Around 1775, the Portuguese constituted, from the kingdom of Ajacè, the slave kingdom of Porto-Novo.
In the first half of the 19th century, King Guézo of Dahomey gave other foundations to the wealth of his kingdom, developing oil palm growing to meet European demand and introducing new crops (maize, tomato, peanut , Tobacco ...) in the country.

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COLONIZATION

In 1851, France signed a treaty of commerce and friendship with the chief of Porto-Novo, vassal of King Glele of Dahomey. In 1861, the British took Dahomey the city of Lagos. By the treaties of 1868 and 1878, the region of Cotonou, situated between Ouidah, a French trading post, and Porto-Novo, was ceded to France. In 1883, the King of Porto-Novo, wishing to protect himself from the expansionist aims of the King of Dahomey, signed a treaty of protectorate with France. Gbêhanzin, Glèlè's successor, tried to reconquer the region occupied by the French, but in 1892 he was routed. On March 30, 1894, Gbêhanzin was deported by the colonial authorities on the island of Martinique and the French settlements were grouped within the colony of Dahomey.
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In the north, the bariba kingdom, which reached its peak in the eighteenth century, faced expansionism