The Agojie: Feminist models or victims of patriarchal society?

Introduction

Anyone who has read the story of the Agojie must have sat up at some stage and wondered if these women can be held up as beacons of feminism who lived those ideals long before the word became popular.

There is no easy answer. It is difficult to assess the Agojie’s place in history from both contemporaneous accounts when they achieved some of their biggest victories as well as from the distance of modern society shaped by other values, belies and customs. However, it is impossible to deny what they were: slaves, rejects, expendables and so-called ‘difficult women’ and ‘difficult girls’ thrown out of their homes by their spouses or parents who went on to become some of the most ferocious and fearsome fighters that the world has ever seen.  Many of them had no choice other than to become gladiators, killers and fighters that the Dahomey kings wanted them to be. There was no room for personal choices. Recruits who developed a conscience were hacked to death immediately.

In the end, the Agojie changed how Dahomean society viewed women. Girls walked tall and beamed with pride when they saw them. Men ran for the safety of bushes when bells sounded the warming that they were approaching.

Today, the Agojie continue to inspire and people who have never really had a close look at their story only see them as glorious, Hollywood-type warriors and beacons of feminism. However, it is also important to show just how much they were victimised, used and abused on their journey to the top. This essay attempts only a short summary of the Agojie history with more perspective that what is typically available on their history. There are no judgements here, or at least the idea is not to go one way or the other, but rather to give people the tools that they need to form a multidimensional image.

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How the Agojie army was created.

The Agojie (abbreviated from “agoo djie” or Agoledjié) were the female soldiers of Dahomey’s women-only battalions. They were also referred to as Mino or Minon (our mothers) by the male soldiers. When he came to power in 1645, King Houegbadja created a ceremonial army known as the Gbeto. The Gbeto were trained to hunt elephants and other big game. They were also given cool uniforms, and when foreign dignitaries came to the palace, the king would summon them to march and perform mock fights. Eventually, central West Africa’s elephants were hunted out of extinction and the Gbeto brigade was left only with the ceremonial palace duties.

Where were the men when the Gbeto were hunting elephants and performing mock battles? Dahomey was one of the most active African states in the slave trade. Dahomean kings were either always raiding neighbouring states for slaves or fighting rivals like the Oyo for dominion over the area. This meant that over time, there were fewer and fewer men to sell or throw into battles. In the book Dahomey and Dahomeans, Frederick Edwyn Forbes (1851) writes on the goings-on in the empire: “industry and agriculture are not encouraged. On the contrary, the king is aware, that if the enjoyments of home and the luxuries of health and domestic happiness, were once obtained, he would fail in volunteers for the annual slave hunts. The road to riches hitherto has laid in the number of retainers the noble or chief could send to war”.

French trader Pruneau de Pommegorge, who visited Dahomey during the reign of King Tègbéssou around 1740, further noted that the king’s wives wore military regalia and participated in military parades. He added that when there was war with neighbouring kingdoms some of them marched alongside the men. Clearly, over time, the bravery of some female soldiers was inspiring the Kings to believe that many more women could fight like the male soldiers.

The first written account of Agojie participation in active warfare comes from the traveller Charles Testefolle who noted that when King Agájà decided to go to battle against the coastal Kingdom of Ouidah in 1729 he was forced to send a large part of the mostly ceremonial women’s army into active combat because there were not enough men to fight. The thought of fighting against women alarmed the Ouidah soldiers who saw it as almost a curse to attack women, handing victory to the Dahomeans. The resounding victory against Ouidah inspired the Dahomean kings to invest more resources into the women’s’ battalion.

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From ordinary soldiers to elite force

When King Andadozan passed away some decades later, his brother Ghezo did not wait around for the state council to anoint the natural successor as dictated by the inheritance policies of Dahomey. With the help of the wealthiest and most connected businessperson in the area, the slave trader Francisco Felix de Souza, he staged a palace coup and installed himself on the throne. Naturally, once in power, Ghezo needed to protect himself against those who sided with Andadozan’s rightful heir and he needed to make some big moves to gain credibility. Importantly too, he also needed a lot of money to run the massive palace. This essentially meant helping de Souza get as many slaves as he could possibly sell or transport to the Americas.

For Ghezo, the most obvious choice for his protection was the female palace guards. He transformed them into killing machines. The Agojie unit was made up of volunteers, captives from other lands and others who were brought to the Palace by their parents. Some joined the force from a very early age. Some were brought to the palace by husbands who were not very happy with how independent their wife was behaving. Ghezo was happy to take them in and make them his wives. When one joined the female brigade, one was automatically labelled Ahosi, the king’s wife. The women were not necessarily required to share a home with the king. This was more a of a message that one now belonged to the king and therefore had to do everything to make sure that he remained healthy and alive.

That said, being married to the king, ceremonial marriage or not, it was completely forbidden for any man in the kingdom to sleep with them. The female soldiers were required to remain celibate. Men could not even look them in the eye when they went about the community. Whenever they ventured out of the Palace, a young girl would go before them ringing a bell to warn people to look away. European visitors to Dahomey wrote many accounts to the effect that more men were killed while trying to scale the palace wars than died during active combat with the kingdom’s armies. Obviously, there was always some illicit sexual activity but all parties knew the risks involved.

Once enrolled, future warriors underwent rigorous training to develop their strength, skill and resistance to pain. They trained non-stop. They learned hand-to-hand combat. They learned how to use swords. They Dahomeans even developed a special weapon for them. A short machete that could cut off a man’s head with one swing. They learned sharpshooting with muskets. Guns were flowing into the kingdom from Europe and Ghezo could not get enough of them. The Dutch explorer J Foa recounted that “While it takes a Dahomean soldier an average of 50 seconds to reload his rifle after firing, an "Amazon" does it in 30 seconds. European writers typically refer to the Agojie as ‘Amazons’, the mythical race of female warriors in Greek mythology.

Battle scenes were organises so that they could practice how to scale walls, run over thorns, and charge into warriors who were running in their direction with spears and machetes. To toughen up new recruits, they would be made to execute slaves or other people on the king’s orders. The French officer Jean Bayol witnessed the following incident in 1889 when a recruit was ordered to decapitate a condemned man: “ she swung her sword three times with both hands, then calmly cut the last flesh that attached the head to the trunk. … She then squeezed the blood off her weapon and swallowed it.” Although not many accounts have been written about this, the Agojie often performed some of their most daring feats under the influence of alcohol or some other substances. Dahomey imported a lot of gin in exchanged for slaves and some of this was allotted directly to Agojie battalions.  

After their education, the recruits could join one of three groups. The most loyal ones joined the Aligossi, I.e. the King’s palace guards who ensured his protection at all times. The second group went to the Djadokpo. This was the vanguard of the army, the battering ram, those who opened the way for the rest of the army to follow. The skilled archers and riflewomen went to this battalion. Right behind them in battle would be the Nyekplohento, or swordswomen. They fought with curved swords and short 100cm machetes, which opened and closed like giant penknives, for close hand-to-hand combat.

Exactly how many Agojie were there. In the beginning, it is hard to say. However, around the 1850s, there were about 5000 as this account from Frederick Edwyn Forbes’ Dahomey and Dahomeans shows:  “Ashantee sends tribute, and Yorihbah trembles when Ghezo proclaims his slave hunt. Owing to the ravages of its devastating wars, the population of the kingdom of Dahomey does not exceed 200,000 of both sexes; and Abomey, the capital, has not more than 30,000 inhabitants. Of the whole population not more than 20,000 are free, the remainder slaves. The regular army consists of about 12,000, and of these 5000 are amazons. When he goes to war, he levies in all about 24,000 men, and an equal number of commissariat followers. Thus, he moves on his war march with nearly 50,000 of both sexes, or one-fourth the whole population of his kingdom.”

There other accounts that show that the Agojie battalions numbered as many as 12000 female soldiers by 1890. However, at this stage, they were much less disciplined and desertions were numerous. When the Behanzin started his wars against the French, many of them vanished into neighbouring states or decamped to Togoville.

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A number of Key battles

When he was satisfied that the Agojie were as good enough soldiers as any, Ghezo unleashed them against the Yoruba state of Oyo to whom the Dahomeans had been paying tribute for many years. Oyo had recently sent people to collect the annual tribute, but Ghezo sent them away empty. The Oyo emissaries’ return home was soon followed by a Dahomean ambush led by Agojie soldiers. Oyo suffered a major defeat at the hands of the Agojie in 1821 and the female battalions were celebrated like never before.

They became the battering ram of the army and the King trusted them above the male soldiers to do the most difficult battles. Ghezo unleashed them on neighbouring tribes, which he raided for slaves, grain and women.

Later, Dahomeny fought two major battles against Abeokuta in the 1850s and 1870s. They suffered heavy losses. Abeokuta’s Yoruba allies had supplied them with more superior weapons, bought from the English. These were muskets that could use to take out the Agojie from a distance. Critically too, the English gave Abeokuta advance notice of Dahomey’s arrival.

Although Dahomey lost both wars against Abeokuta, the bravery of Agojie who scaled walls at unprecedented speeds and charged into bayonets with no care for their safety or wellbeing only reinforced their legend. The King’s poet or Kpalingan sang the praises of the bravest Minon. The songs spread into the communities and then was handed down from generation to generation. To this day in Dahomey, they still talk about Dimedji who broke her lance during a battle. She received a bullet to the chest as she recollected herself but still managed to charge forward and overpower the male soldier who had just shot her. They talk about Sedohongbe who fought in the great wars against Abeokuta. They talk about the new recruit Nawi who beheaded a slave during her initiation and then licked the blood from the machete. They still sing about the soldier Akpé who charged headfirst into a tree because she had failed to bring back an enemy king alive like she had promised the king.

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Gender equality

Unparalleled valour in battle transformed the fate of the Agojie women. The Agojie were allowed to have their own houses, with large quarters and, also, it has to be said, slaves. Their generals sat in the Kings Council when important matters were discussed. When they appeared on ceremonial duties, they wore gold horns on their heads, to symbolise the strength of buffalos.

When they trained, the Agojie sang songs mocking men in general and male soldiers in particular. According to Hélène d'Almeida-Topor (1984) many Agojie songs focus on unquestioning loyalty to the king and superiority over the male soldiers.

There is for example the following song dedicated to Dahomey, which the female battalion wanted to transform into the biggest empire in the world:

Dahomey, Dahomey!
The next war will be terrible;
We'll fight like the sharks of Cotonou.
We'll have to wear short skirts,
But you'll be master of the universe,
O Dahomey!
(...) The enemy will flee before us,
And we shall return victorious,
Bringing bloody heads,
To offer to the fetishes.
Dahomey, you will be master of the universe

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Another one went as follows:

We were created to defend,
Danhomè, this pot of honey,
The object of envy,
The country where so much courage blossoms
Can it abandon its wealth to foreigners?
We're alive and well, crazy people,
Who would try to impose their law

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The king of Dahomey would decorate the soldiers who has shown bravery in battle. Receiving the medal of valour was an opportunity that the Agojie were ready to give their lives for:

Dada has forged a metal
And sent it to Guilinsi
The king forged a metal
And sent it to Guilinsi
Ayato de Koja forged a metal
And sent it to Guilinsi

By way of congratulations
I'm no slacker
For Dada to deny me this metal
The king forged a metal
And sent it to Guilinsi.

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They sang their unquestioning loyalty to the king:

Lionesses are more terrible than lions
Because they have their cubs to defend.
And we Amazons have to defend
The king, our king and our God, ki-ni.
our God, ki-ni.

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There were many songs that spoke about the reversal of roles. The Agojie sang songs rejecting the roles that society expected them to play. They were leading the army from the front now and they demanded that men replace them in playing the female roles:

We tear out, turn over, tear out our hearts
Let men harvest cassava!
We tear out, turn over, tear out our hearts
Let men harvest cassava!

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The request for men to go and till the land, a role that the Dahomeans assigned strictly to women, was repeated in many chants. This must have been an earth-shattering call, an intimation so strong that it would not have left anyone indifferent in a society where women essentially had no rights:

Men, men, stay!
Let the men stay!
Let them grow maize
And grow the palm trees
As for us, we're off to war

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It would have been incredibly humiliating for men in general and the male soldiers in particular to hear these songs over and over again while the female soldiers were training – or even more humiliating - when the king was receiving a foreign dignitary. However, for many, anger and jealousy quickly turned to respect, because the men saw clearly that they simply could not do what the women were doing. This was one of the few societies where patriarchy was completely annihilated. The Agojie proves to the world that women could do anything.

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The Agojie and the slave trade

Although Hollywood has glamourised the Agojie, and indeed they were some of the most fearless and remarkable warriors that the world has ever seen, it is important to note that they participated actively in the slave trade. This is the fluid reality about slavery in many African societies. Many of the Agojie were themselves former slaves. However, when slaves were brought into the state, some of them became wives, some became soldiers and some were sent to work in the homes and palaces of the leading people in society.

The Agojie knew that selling slaves to Europeans was a bloody affair because they saw the type of chains that were used to drag them down to Ouidah. Even when slavery was abolished in Europe, Dahomey continued to profit from trade with illegal ships. However, perhaps their role in Dahomean society also helped women to see themselves differently. The fat is that although they knew about it, the Agojie could not do anything about it.

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The Agojie’s demise

The Agojie's bravery was eventually annihilated by modern technology at the beginning of the colonial era. They suffered heavy losses when Béhanzin decided to go to war against the French army at the port of Cotonou. Europe was taking over Africa and France was determined to have Dahomey. When French colonialism started, there were less than a thousand Agojie still alive.

Dozens of European missionaries, explorers and soldiers who fought against them recounted details about their discipline and fearlessness in battle. Nowhere had they ever met such ferocious opponents who, even when they had inferior weapons, would fight to the death rather than retreat.

French Captain Jouvelet, who fought against them, wrote in in his memoirs: "These Amazons are prodigies of valour, coming to be killed 30 meters from our squares". Like him, all the men who fought them were impressed, hailing the "extreme valour" and "indomitable audacity" of these female warriors. Through them, the legend of the Agojie left Africa’s shores and spread across the world. Operas were written about them. Movies, documentaries, books were written to tell of their exploits and the role that they had played in changing how women everywhere were viewed.

More research still needs to be conducted on the Agojie, how they lived, the songs they sang, the stories they told, where they had been taken and so on. The last known Agojie to have seen active combat, Nawi, passed away just over 40 years ago. Their children are still alive and the race is well and truly on to talk to them and if possible acquire and preserve some of the memories that were left behind so that we can tell a more complete story of the extraordinary lives that these women lived.  

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Further reading:

Arnaud Zohou, Histoires de Tasì Hangbé, Roissy-en-Brie, Cultures croisées, 2003

Alpern Stanley B., 1998, Amazons of Black Sparta, Hurst & Co, London (traduction française 2014 : Les Amazones de la Sparte noire, L’Harmattan, Paris, 340 p.).

Burton Capt. Richard, 1864, A Mission de Gelele, King of Dahome, Tinsley Brothers, London.

Chautard R. P., 1890, Le Dahomé, Emmanuel Vitte, Lyon.

Degbelo Amélie, 1979, Les Amazones du Daxome, mémoire de maîtrise non publié, Université du Bénin.

Edouard Foa,Edouard Levasseur. Le Dahomey

Frederick Edwyn Forbes. 1851. Dahomey and Dahomeans

Hélène d'Almeida-Topor, Les Amazones : une armée de femmes dans l'Afrique précoloniale, Paris, Rochevigne, 1984,

W. Peukert (1740–1797), Der Atlantische Sklavenhandel von Dahomey, Wiesbaden, 1978

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