Friday 6 November 2009

WHEN WE WERE KINGS



















Béhanzin was the eleventh King of Dahomey (now Benin). He was a ruler who led the national resistance during the Dahomey War. He saw that the Europeans were gradually encroaching on his kingdom, and as a result attempted a foreign policy of isolating the Europeans. Eventually he was unsuccessfull and Dahomey became the last of the traditional African kingdoms to succumb to European colonization. The French were victorious in 1894 and Behanzin lived out the remainder of his life in exile in Martinique and Algeria with a handful of wives.

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