The King Woman is an extraordinary film in many ways. It tells a historical episode of the Kingdom of Dahomey (now Benin) in its struggle against the Empire of Oyo (Nigeria) at the beginning of the 19th century. Specifically, it is about the Agojie, the first all-female African military unit, whose warriors aroused equal terror and admiration across the region. Dubbed the “Amazons” by European visitors for their resemblance to Greek mythology, the Agojie also inspired the film Black Panther’s Dora Milaje, the elite warrior unit protecting the king of imaginary Wakanda. In reality, the last battle of the Agojie took place in 1894 against the French colonizers.
As an archaeologist specializing in West Africa, it was with great enthusiasm that I went to the cinema to see The Woman King: the opportunity not only to imagine an African kingdom, but to see it displayed in all its splendor and complexity directly on the screen, not as an appendage added to history by clichés of poor and powerless “tribes” is something unusual. And in many respects, La Mujer Rey does not disappoint: the care that has gone into historically reconstructing the daily life of the Agojie, the clothing, objects and customs is exceptional.
There are small errors in the reconstruction that could easily have been corrected by consulting one of the archaeologists who have been digging at Dahomey for decades, but they are tolerable. In a world where the only African stories Hollywood presents to us are often about enslaved plantations or whitewashed versions of Pharaonic Egypt, a film that presents an African kingdom and its women as powerful leaders in their own history is a great one News.
For the same reason, the irresponsibility with which the film deals with the subject of slavery is very frustrating. In La Mujer Rey, Dahomey is portrayed as a kingdom that, after being forced to sell people to European traders in the past, decides to take the lead in the fight against human trafficking. Through powerful speeches in which Agojie leader Nanisca (Viola Davis) equates submission to the Oyo Empire with Atlantean trade, King Gezo (John Boyega) resolves to end human trafficking and focus on agricultural production.
In contrast, his enemies from the Oyo Empire are portrayed as professional slavers, violent villains without any complexity whose evil is defeated in battle by the virtue of Dahomey and the Agojie.
The reality was very different: not only was Dahomey not a proponent of abolitionism, but he was the most important slave owner in the region, far superior to the “evil” empire of Oyo. Between 1659 and 1863 nearly a million enslaved Africans left the port of Ouidah (which appears under European Oyo control in the film but was actually managed by Dahomey), making it the second largest supplier of slaves to the Atlantic trade behind Luanda in modern-day Angola.
More information:
It is true that during the reign of Gezo (1818-1859) the cultivation and sale of palm oil increased, but not because the trade had ceased, but because the UK’s abolition of slavery had reduced income and the oil increased supplement you contributed. In fact, after Dahomey’s victory over Oyo, the number of people sold at Ouidah port not only did not decrease, it increased.
For their part, the Agojie, far from championing the fight against slavery, took a direct part in the capture and sale of people, and their arrival instilled fear in the rural populace. Interviews with the last survivors of the Atlantic trade in the US, collected in the book Barracoon (2018), provide detailed testimonies of Agojie brutality and their slave raids.
In fact, actress Lupita Nyongo (who was originally set to play the role of Nawi in the film) left the project after interviewing descendants of slaves captured by the Agojie for a documentary. Nyongo, who originally envisioned the Agojie as Wakandas Dora Milaje, quickly realized that reality was far more complex than fiction.
La Mujer Rey is a fictional film based on true events and as such artistic license may be allowed. But turning a kingdom that has enslaved and sold tens of thousands of people into a vanguard of abolitionism is unacceptable.
Especially when it was unnecessary: a film could have been made that celebrates the power, bravery and sisterhood of the Agojie and the cultural and artistic complexities of Dahomey without hiding their role in human trafficking, but instead leaning towards other narrative threads focus. It’s not for lack of material: the Agojie fought the French colonizers and many other neighboring kingdoms, and the intrigues of the Dahomey court would make for several seasons of Game of Thrones.
I understand that we need role models and heroes to serve as example and inspiration in the real world, but this must not come at the expense of simplifying, flattening and sweetening a history that has traditionally been mistreated and marginalized, like African history. La Mujer Rey breaks taboos and proves it’s possible to make a woman-led film about African history and become a box-office hit. I hope it will be the first of many and that in the future we will also show African history the respect it deserves.
Syrian Canos Donay She is a CSIC archaeologist at the Institute of Heritage Sciences.
you can follow TOPIC on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, or sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits