The “Woman King”Movie about the Amazon All Female Warriors. A slight distortion of the True History.

The movie “Woman King” with Viola Davis… Have you watched it yet?

This movie is about the Amazons All Females Warriors from the Kingdom of Dahomey… Actual Benin, West Africa.

From a cinematographic production perspective, the movie was well done, action packed, beautiful pictures, great direction, however from a historical perspective, much more work should have been invested in researching and depicting historical accuracies, the right context, nuances, subtleties and complexities that come with the story.

Where can I start? So many things to say, so many emotions…

But I’ll try to summarize.

1. The movie is based on a true story, but the story line is not entirely accurate. Written by two Caucasian American Women (one of them I know personally, and I have actually told the story to, but she never told me she was planning to make a movie from it…)

2. This story and these events actually occurred just 120, 130 years ago. It’s not that far. Things are still very clear in our memory and we, in Benin, in Dahomey, still have the story kept sacredly. It’s not as if it happened two thousand years ago. It’s very recent.

3. There are so many intentional distortions and manipulations.

4. The Amazons Female Warriors were originally put in place by my ancestor King Houessou Akaba over 400 years ago in what was known as the kingdom of Dahomey, the most powerful Military Kingdom West Africa has ever known, also the home of Vodoun, the most ancient cosmological belief system in Africa, even predating Hinduism and having its roots in ancient Kemetic (Egyptian) Cosmology.

5. The movie doesn’t do justice to the real story. The Amazons General in Chief did not convince the King of the time (my ancestor King Kondo Behanzin), to stop the slave trade, he decided that on his own as he wanted to break that vicious cycle that his father was conducting.

I understand the whole Women Empowerment thing, and trust me, I’m all for Women Empowerment, but let’s not discredit Men who did extraordinary things, for the sake of pleasing the American extremist's feminist's audience.

6. The actual King that was reigning during the epoch that the movie is supposed to represent, was called Kondo Behanzin, he ascended to the Throne following the Death of King Glele, his father, who was indeed selling Human Beings (mostly prisoners of War taken from the Oyo Kingdom in present day Nigeria) to provide as labour work force to Europeans in exchange for goods from Europe. So the character playing the King in the movie is not accurate. It was Behanzin, not Glele.

So to make things clear, even though this is not a justification or a denial that some of our ancestors participated in human trafficking, it was not as depicted in the European perspective of history or in the movie. Humans were provided as labour / work force, but their savage treatment on the ships and on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean was not something that our kings were aware of, supported, or condoned.

7. Glele was annexing our native lands and some people to the French and Portuguese slaves' ships owners, also, another ancestor from my mother side, King Toffa of Porto Novo (Hogbonou) was allowing French colonialists to take and occupy parts of our lands and create trade posts there for goods between West Africa and Western Europe, and to take human labour from Nigeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, towards North America, Brazil and the Caribbean.

8. But when King Behanzin came to power, he said STOP to annexing our lands and to “selling” our fellow people to those slave traders. King Behanzin even famously said to the French ruler at the time: “Do my people come to France to take parts of your land and annex it and declare it as their own? How would you feel if this was the case? So why should I allow your people to come to the land of my ancestors and declare parts of it as belonging to France? No longer will this happen. I refuse. “.

9. That was the trigger of the Dahomey — French War. Which lasted about 3 years and during which the Female Warriors the Amazons actually defeated the French army on numerous occasions using metaphysics, incredible battle techniques, the element of surprise and some weapons from our German friends… until one person within the circle of King Behanzin got corrupted by the French / Senegalese General Dodds and betrayed our King by giving critical information to the French so they could invade the royal compound and burn it down which they only partially succeeded.

10. There was never a case of romance between any of the Amazon warrior women and any of the French soldiers, that’s pure fiction. The Amazons actually beheaded the French soldiers and subsequently placed their heads in he ground below our Royal Throne which still exists today in our royal Palace of Agbomey.

11. The whole Black Panther movie is based on the history of our Kingdom, Dahomey, where I come from and where my bloodline is from.

12. As a result of these events, King Behanzin eventually surrendered on the condition that he would be taken to France to meet the French ruler and negotiate a peace deal, but he was instead manipulated and taken to the island of Martinique, in exile and eventually back to Africa but to Blida (Algeria) where he finished his last days in sorrow.

13. The Amazon female warriors army got dismantled, many fled Dahomey or committed suicide rather than serve the French invaders and some got back into normal society.

14. There are many living descendants of the Amazons today, especially in the city of Abomey, the region of Kpomassé in southern Benin, where my aunt and I have an NGO dedicated to Women Empowerment…. My aunt by the way is a living descendant of one of the Amazon Generals who led the war against the invaders.

15. This is what I don’t understand with some movie directors and storytellers in Hollywood: They have the opportunity to learn about the real authentic story, to come interview our people, one of which is my uncle who is the official historian of the Dahomey Kingdom and travels all around the world to educate people about our history.

There are living offspring of some of those magnificent and magical women still today who have the original story and who could have made the movie 10 times better and more realistic and historically accurate…. But instead, Hollywood, as usual, decided to rewrite history in its own ways and distort our stories from the truth.

16. The backlash and calls for boycott of the movie is well deserved. Maybe if they give us a voice, some damage control could still be done.

Having said all the above, credit must be given when it is due and I congratulate Mrs Viola Davis and her husband and other producers for taking this gamble and wanting to make an empowering “Black” Movie, I am sure it was challenging, but beautiful images and a good production should not be a replacement or an excuse for historical accuracy and truth.

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In the main photo above, myself and my aunt known as “Reine Mers” (Queen a of the Seas), a powerful Oracle based in Cotonou, Benin, direct descendant of an Amazon General.

Illustrations of a regiment of the Amazons Female Warriors of Dahomey.

The name “Dahomey” originally “Dan Xomé” means “in the womb of the** Serpent”. Or “in the belly of the Serpent”.

The History of the Kingdom of Dahomey and the Dahomey Amazons

The Woman King, starring Viola Davis, will explore a raging war from the perspective of a fearless and powerful…nerdist.com

Dahomey's Women Warriors

It is noon on a humid Saturday in the fall of 1861, and a missionary by the name of Francesco Borghero has been…www.smithsonianmag.com

The Woman King Movie | Official Website | Sony Pictures

The Woman King is the remarkable story of the Agojie, the all-female unit of warriors who protected the African Kingdom…www.thewomanking.movie