Benin travel guide

For centuries, much of the area now called Benin was inhabited by small tribes. The more fertile south has always been the more densely populated region, and the two dominant kingdoms here were Allada, dating back to around the 1200s, and Whydah – now known as Ouidah.

Benin hosted one of Africa’s most powerful kingdoms, Dahomey, from around 1600 AD, until the region was fully colonised by France almost three centuries later. The Dahomey Kingdom’s capital, Abomey, still exists to this day, and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site filled with artefacts from this period. The kingdom was established by the Fon people, still Benin’s most populous group, and was incredibly well organised – with a central administration, taxes and considerable military power. This included an all-female regiment, nicknamed ‘Dahomey Amazons’ by European travellers, but they referred to themselves as N'Nonmiton: our mothers.

Palm oil was traded, and gold – but the main force behind the Dahomey Kingdom’s power was the slave trade. Benin’s shoreline was known as the Slave Coast, and the Fon, along with the Allada and another kingdom centred on modern-day Porto Novo carried out raids, capturing men, women and children which they then sold as slaves to the Portuguese, Dutch and British. The kings of these empires would be presented with lavish gifts from the European traders: thrones, crowns and ships filled with cargo. Without the raids carried out by the African tribes there would be no slaves, and the Kingdom of Dahomey was responsible for supplying around one in five of all the slaves shipped to the Americas. By 1750, it is estimated that the Dahomey King, Tegbesu, was earning around a quarter of a million pounds’ worth of goods per year. The Europeans bought Africans in exchange for iron, brass, copper, gunpowder and textiles. Even after Britain attempted to ban the slave trade in the early 1800s, the Dahomey rulers continued to sell slaves directly to Brazil.

By the latter half of the 19th century, the French had established themselves as the dominant European power along the Slave Coast. They established missions and – now that they no longer needed the Dahomey rulers to carry out raids – attacked the kingdom in three military campaigns. They defeated them in 1894 when King Behanzin finally surrendered. Dahomey became a French West African colony in 1904, and life for the Fon changed dramatically. They were ruled by a central administration, were treated little better than the exported slaves and heavily taxed. They were also forced to fight on France’s behalf in both World Wars. But the Africans rebelled and the colonial powers became weaker as the economy failed.

In 1958, after 54 year under French rule, Dahomey voted for independence, and became independent in 1960 following the success of nearby Ghana, which was the first sub-Saharan nation to achieve independence from colonial rule. However, the newly independent country also followed in Ghana’s footsteps with political unrest ensuing in both countries following their independence. Hubert Maga was the first elected president of this new nation – but was overthrown by a military coup just three years later. Five more coups would take place in the next decade.

By the 1970s, the Kérékou regime was established, and managed to bring relative stability to Benin through socialist policies and Marxist-Leninist ideologies. The country was renamed the Republic of Benin in 1975, but under socialist rule, voodoo – the most widely followed religion in Benin – was suppressed. The challenge was to create a sense of national identity to a population fragmented by language, tribal culture and geography. The more urbanised south still contrasts wildly with northern Benin – home to Somba mountain villages and semi-nomadic Fulani pastoralists, who have little in common with their counterparts in sprawling, coastal Cotonou. There was a bumpy transition to democracy beginning in the early 1990s, but peace has been maintained and democratic elections have been held ever since. Today, Benin is a largely agricultural economy, with cotton, cashews and shea butter taking over from the gold and slaves that lured traders here in the past.