Dahomey

Dahomey was an African kingdom in the present-day Republic of Benin which lasted from 1600 until 1900. Dahomey developed on the Abomey Plateau in the early 1600s and became a regional power in the 1700s by conquering key cities on the Atlantic coast. For much of the 18th and 19th centuries, the Kingdom of Dahomey was a key regional state, eventually ending tributary status to the Oyo empire and being a major location for the Atlantic slave trade, possibly supplying up to 20% of the slaves to Europe and the Americas. In 1894, the kingdom became part of French West Africa as part of the territory of French Dahomey (which also included Porto-Novo and a large area to the north of Dahomey). French rule lased until 1960 when the independent country took the name Republic of Dahomey, to be changed to Benin in 1975.