The Woman King
Syllabus

The syllabus is organized by themes below. It is by no means a complete bibliography of the themes we list. Following each entry, you will find arrowhead links that will bring you closer to the cited text. In many cases those links point to WorldCat, which lists libraries close to you that might have the item. In other cases, the link takes you to an open access copy of an article or chapter. Some links are to closed access materials, unfortunately. When you do find a citation behind a paywall, you may want to try using Unpaywall or 12ft Ladder to find it elsewhere — We do hope that these themes and entries will serve you as the basis for a robust plan of study.

History of Dahomey

  • Akinjogbin I. A. Dahomey and its Neighbours, 1708-1818. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967
    book English
  • Garcia Luc. Le Royaume du Dahomé face à la pénétration coloniale : Affrontements et incompréhension (1875-1894). Paris: Karthala 1988.
    book French
  • Herskovits, Melville J. Dahomey : An Ancient West African Kingdom. Evanston, IL. Northwestern University Press, 1967. 2 vols.
    book English
  • Monroe, Cameron. The Precolonial State in West Africa: Building Power in Dahomey. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
    book English
  • Soumonni, Elisée. "Trade and Politics in Dahomey, 1841-1892: With Particular Reference to the House of Regis." PhD dissertation, University of Ife, 1983.
    PhD dissertation English

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Agodjie, women warriors and Fon women

  • Almeida-Topor, Hélène.  Les Amazones: Une armée de femmes dans l’Afrique pré-coloniale. Paris. Rochevignes, 1984.
    book French
  • Alpern, Stanley B. “On the Origins of the Amazons of Dahomey.” History in Africa 25 (1998): 9-25.
    journal article English
  • Alpern, Stanley B. Amazons of Black Sparta. New York: New York University Press, 1998.
    book English
  • Araujo, Ana Lucia. “History, Memory and Imagination: Na Agontimé, a Dahomean Queen in Brazil.” In Beyond Tradition: African Women and their Cultural Spaces, edited by Toyin Falola and Sati U. Fwatshak, 45–68. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2011.
    chapter English
  • Bay, Edna G. Wives of the Leopard: Gender, Politics, and Culture in the Kingdom of Dahomey. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1998.
    book English
  • Blier, Suzanne Preston. “The Path of the Leopard: Motherhood and Majesty in Early Danhomè.” The Journal of African History 36, no. 3 (1995): 391-417.
    journal article English
  • Cox, Anna, director. Warrior Women. With Lupita Nyong’o, 2019.
    film English
  • Degbelo, Amélie. 'Les Amazones du Danxomè, 1645-1900." Master’s thesis, Université Nationale du Bénin, 1979.
    thesis French
  • Falen, Douglas J. Power and Paradox: Authority, Insecurity and Creativity in Fon Gender Relations. Trenton: Africa World Press, 2011.
    book English
  • Gleason Judith. Agõtĩme: Her Legend. Viking Press 1971.
    book English
  • Larsen, Lynne Ellsworth. "Wives and Warriors: The Royal Women of Dahomey as Representatives of the Kingdom"The Routledge Companion to Black Women's Cultural Histories, edited by Janell Hobson, 225-235. London and New York: Routledge, 2021.
    book chapter English
  • Law, Robin. “The ‘Amazons’ of Dahomey.” Paideuma: Mitteilungen zur Kulturkunde Bd. 39 (1993): 245-260.
    journal article English
  • Serbin Sylvia, et al. The Women Soldiers of Dahomey. Paris: UNESCO, Collins, 2015.
    book English

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Vodun religion

  • Blier, Suzanne Preston. African Vodun: Art, Psychology, and Power. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1995.
    book English
  • Blier, Suzanne Preston. Asen : Mémoires de fer forgé: Art vodun du Danhomè. Geneva: Musée Barbier-Mueller, 2018.
    book English
  • Brivio, Alessandra. Il vodu in Africa. Metamorfosi di un culto. Rome: Viella, 2012.
    book Italian
  • Falen, Douglas J. African Science: Witchcraft, Vodun, and Healing in Southern Benin. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2020.
    book English
  • Landry, Timothy. Vodún: Secrecy and the Search for Divine Power. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022.
    book English
  • Parés Luis Nicolau. O rei, o pai e a morte : A religião Vodum na antiga Costa dos escravos na África Ocidental. São Paulo: Companhia Das Letras 2016.
    book Portuguese
  • Rush, Dana. Vodun in Coastal Bénin : Unfinished, Open-Ended, Global. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press 2013.
    book English
  • Tall, Emmanuelle Kadya. "De la démocratie et des cultes voduns au Bénin." Cahiers d'études africaines, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1995, 137 (35/1), pp.195-208.
    journal article French
  • Verger, Pierre. “Le culte des vodoun d’Abomey aurait-il été apporté à Saint Louis de Maranhão par la mère du roi Ghèzo?” Études Dahoméennes 8 (1952): 19–24.
    journal article French
  • Verger, Pierre. “Uma rainha africana mãe de santo em São Luís.” Revista da USP (1990): 151-158.
    journal article Portuguese

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Dahomey and the Atlantic Slave Trade

  • Araujo, Ana Lucia. "La correspondance du Roi Adandozan avec la couronne portugaise: petite histoire d'une grande amitié." In Africains et Européens dans le monde atlantique XVe-XIXe siècle, edited by Guy Saupin, 129-151. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2014.
    chapter French
  • Araujo, Ana Lucia. “Dahomey, Portugal, and Bahia: King Adandozan and the Atlantic Slave Trade.” Slavery and Abolition 3, no. 1 (2011): 1–19.
    journal article English
  • Bako-Arifari, Nassirou. “La mémoire de la traite négrière dans le débat politique au Bénin dans les années 1990.” Journal des Africanistes 70, no. 1–2 (2000): 221–231.
    journal article French
  • Chatwin, Bruce. The Viceroy of Ouidah. London: Penguin, 1980.
    book English
  • Ciarcia, Gaetano. Le revers de l'oubli: mémoires et commémorations de l'esclavage au Bénin. Paris: Karthala, 2016.
    book French
  • Deslauriers, Guy, director. Passage du milieu. 2000.
    film French
  • Diouf, Sylviane A. Dreams of Africa in Alabama. New York: Oxford University Press 2009.
    book English
  • Eltis David and David Richardson. Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Yale University Press 2011.
    book English
  • Fuglestad, Finn. Slave Traders by Invitation : West Africa's Slave Coast in the Precolonial Era. London: Hurst and Company, 2018.
    book English
  • Herzog, Werner. Cobra Verde. 1987.
    film German
  • Law, Robin, ed. From Slave Trade to "Legitimate" Commerce : The Commercial Transition in Nineteenth-Century West Africa : Papers from a Conference of the Centre of Commonwealth Studies University of Stirling. Cambridge University Press 1995.
    book English
  • Law, Robin. Ouidah: The Social History of a West African Slaving Port 1727-1892. Ohio University Press 2005.
    book English
  • Manning, Patrick. Slavery, Colonialism and Economic Growth in Dahomey, 1640–1960. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
    book English
  • Silva Jr., Carlos da, "Enslaving Commodities: Tobacco, Gold, Cowry Trade, and Trans-Imperial Networks in the Bight of Benin (c. 1690s–c. 1790s)." African Economic History 49, no.2 (2021): 1-30
    journal article English
  • Silva Jr., Carlos da, "Interações atlânticas entre Salvador e Porto Novo (Costa da Mina) no século XVIII." Revista de História, no. 176 (2017)
    journal article English
  • Slavery Images
    website English

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Afro-Brazilians in the Bight of Benin

  • Du Brésil au Bénin : contribution à l'étude des patrimoines familiaux aguda au Bénin
    book French
  • Amos, Alcione M. Os Que Voltaram : A história dos retornados afro-brasileiros aa África Ocidental no século XIX. Belo Horizonte: Tradição Planalto 2007.
    book Portuguese
  • Araujo, Ana Lucia. "Aquele que salva a mãe e o filho." Tempo 15, no. 29, "Patrimônio e memória da escravidão atlântica: História e Política," special issue edited by Hebe Maria Mattos (2010): 43-66.
    journal article Portuguese
  • Araujo, Ana Lucia. “Enjeux politiques de la mémoire de l’esclavage dans l’Atlantique Sud: La reconstruction de la biographie de Francisco Félix de Souza,” Lusotopie XVI, no. 2, 107–131.
    journal article French
  • Araujo, Ana Lucia. “Forgetting and Remembering the Atlantic Slave Trade: The Legacy of Brazilian Slave Merchant Francisco Felix de Souza.” In Crossing Memories: Slavery and African Diaspora, edited by Ana Lucia Araujo, Mariana P. Candido and Paul Lovejoy, 79–103. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2011.
    chapter English
  • Barbieri, Renato, director. Atlântico negro: Na Rota dos orixás, 1998
    film Portuguese
  • Castillo, Lisa Earl . “Mapping the Nineteenth-Century Brazilian Returnee Movement: Demographics Life Stories and the Question of Slavery.” Atlantic Studies (2016): 55–52.
    journal article English
  • Castillo, Lisa Earl. "Em busca dos agudás da Bahia: trajetórias individuais e mudanças demográficas no século XIX." Afro-Ásia, Salvador, n. 55 (2016):111-147.
    journal article English
  • Guran Milton. Agudás : Os "Brasileiros" Do Benim. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Nova Fronteira : Editora Gama Filho 1999.
    book Portuguese
  • Holanda, Lula Buarque de, director. Pierre Fatumbi Verger: Um mensageiro entre dois mundos. 2000.
    film Portuguese
  • Lindsay, Lisa. “‘To Return to the Bosom of Their Fatherland’: Brazilian Immigrants in Nineteenth‐Century Lagos.” Slavery & Abolition 1994 pp. 22–50.
    journal article English
  • Mann, Kristin. Slavery and the Birth of an African City : Lagos 1760-1900. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007
    book English
  • Matory, J. Lorand. Black Atlantic Religion: Tradition, Transnationalism, and Matriarchy in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005.
    book English
  • Pierre Verger Foundation (Gallery of photographs)
    website Portuguese
  • Silva, Alberto da Costa e. Francisco Félix De Souza, mercador de escravos. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira 2004.
    book Portuguese
  • Soumonni, Elisée. "Some Reflections on the Brazilian Legacy in Dahomey." Slavery and Abolition 22, no. 1 (2001): 42-60.
    journal article English
  • Verger, Pierre. Flux et reflux de la traite des nègres entre le Golfe de Bénin et Bahia de Todos os Santos, du XVIIe au XIXe siècle Paris: Mouton, 1969.
    book French
  • Yai, Olabiyi Babalola. "The Identity, Contributions, and Ideology of the Aguda (Afro-Brazilians) of the Gulf of Benin: A Reinterpretation. Slavery and Abolition 22, no. 1 (2001): 61-71.
    journal article English

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African women in the era of the Atlantic slave trade

  • Achebe Nwando. The Female King of Colonial Nigeria : Ahebi Ugbabe. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011.
    book English
  • Achebe, Nwando. Female Monarchs and Merchant Queens in Africa. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2020.
    book English
  • Candido, Mariana and Adam Jones, ed. African Women in the Atlantic World : Property Vulnerability & Mobility 1660-1880. James Currey in Association with The Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts College of Arts and Letters University of Notre Dame, 2020.
    book English
  • Heywood, Linda M. Njinga of Angola : Africa's Warrior Queen. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2017.
    book English
  • Ipsen, Pernille. Daughters of the Trade : Atlantic Slavers and Interracial Marriage on the Gold Coast. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.
    book English
  • Johnson, Jessica Marie. Wicked Flesh : Black Women Intimacy and Freedom in the Atlantic World. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 2020.
    book English
  • Jones, Hilary. The Métis of Senegal : Urban Life and Politics in French West Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013.
    book English
  • Konadu, Kwasi. Many Black Women of This Fortress : Graça Mónica and Adwoa Three Enslaved Women of Portugal's African Empire. London: Hurst, 2022.
    book English
  • Morgan, Jennifer L. Reckoning with Slavery : Gender Kinship and Capitalism in the Early Black Atlantic. Durham: Duke University Press 2021.
    book English
  • Semley, Lorelle D. Mother Is Gold Father Is Glass : Gender and Colonialism in a Yoruba Town. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010.
    book English

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Art, artifacts, human remains

  • A Victorian white metal mounted human skull, fitted as a dish and cover, the mounts dated 1864
    website English
  • Adandé, Joseph. “Les grandes Tentures et les Bas-Reliefs du Musée D'Agbome.” MA thesis, Université Nationale du Bénin, 1976.
    MA thesis French
  • Adandé, Joseph. “Les sièges des rois d'Agbome et le siège Akan : Analyse d'un contexte de civilisation à partir de la culture matérielle et artistique (1625-1890).” PhD dissertation, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, 1984.
    PhD thesis French
  • Adandé, Joseph. La toile appliquée : Ou l'art de faire voir des sons de couleur chez les Fon de la République du Bénin. Legon: Presses du Centre for Linguistic and Historical Studies by Oral Tradition, 2016.
    book French
  • Bay, Edna G. Asen Ancestors and Vodun : Tracing Change in African Art. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008.
    book English
  • Beaujean, Gaëlle. L’art de la cour d’Abomey : Le sens des objets. Dijon: Presses du Réel, 2019.
    book French
  • Blier, Suzanne Preston. "Meeting the Amazons”. In Human Zoos: Science and Spectacle in the Age of Colonial Empires, edited by Pascal Blanchard et al. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. 2008.
    book chapter English
  • Cousin, Saskia, Sara Tassi, and Madina Yêhouétomé, « Les bo des Agoojiée / Les amulettes des amazones. Le retour d’un matrimoine oublié ? » Politique africaine, 2022/1 (n° 165): 187-220.
    journal article French
  • Metropolitan Museum of Art
    website English
  • Quai Branly Museum
    website French
  • Soares, Mariza de Carvalho. A coleção Adandozan do Museu Nacional : Brasil-Daomé 1818-2018. Rio de Janeiro: Maud X, 2022.
    book Portuguese

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Heritage sites

  • Abomey Royal Palaces (UNESCO World Heritage site)
    website English
  • Larsen, Lynne Ann Ellsworth. “The Royal Palace of Dahomey: Symbol of a Transforming Nation.” PhD dissertation, University of Iowa, 2014.
    thesis English
  • Piqué, Francesca and Leslie H. Rainer. Palace Sculptures of Abomey: A History Told on Walls. Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute and the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1999.
    book English

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Oyo empire, Kingdom of Oyo

  • Barcia, Manuel. West African Warfare in Bahia and Cuba : Soldier Slaves in the Atlantic World 1807-1844. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2014.
    book English
  • Law, Robin. “A West African Cavalry State: The Kingdom of Oyo.” The Journal of African History 1975 pp. 1–15.
    journal article English
  • Law, Robin. “A West African Cavalry State: The Kingdom of Oyo.” The Journal of African History 1975 pp. 1–15.
    journal article English
  • Law, Robin. The Oyo Empire C.1600-C.1836 : A West African Imperialism in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Clarendon Press 1977.
    book English
  • Lovejoy, Henry B. “Old Oyo Influences on the Transformation of Lucumí Identity in Colonial Cuba.” University of California Los Angeles University of California Los Angeles 2012.
    thesis English
  • Reis João José, Flavio dos Santos Gomes, Marcus J. M. de Carvalho, and Sabrina Gledhill. The Story of Rufino : Slavery Freedom and Islam in the Black Atlantic. New York: Oxford University Press 2020.
    book English
  • Reis, João José. Slave Rebellion in Brazil : The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
    book English

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Primary sources (printed)

  • Baquaqua, Mahommah Gardo, Lovejoy, Paul E. and Robin Law, ed. The Biography of Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua : His Passage from Slavery to Freedom in Africa and America. Revised and expanded second ed. Markus Wiener 2007.
    book English
  • Beecroft, John and Robin Law. Consul John Beecroft's Journal of His Mission to Dahomey 1850. Oxford: British Academy by Oxford University Press, 2019.
    book English
  • Coates, Tim and Stationery Office (Great Britain). King Guezo of Dahomey 1850-52 : The Abolition of the Slave Trade on the West Coast of Africa. Stationery Office 2001.
    book English
  • Dalzel, Archibald. The History of Dahomy an Inland Kingdom of Africa; Compiled from Authentic Memoirs by Archibald Dalzel. 1st ed. 2nd impression with a new introduction ed. Cass 1967.
    book English
  • Forbes, Frederick E. Dahomey and the Dahomans; Being the Journals of Two Missions to the King of Dahomey and Residence at His Capital in the Years 1849 and 1850. [1st ed. new impression] ed. Cass 1966.
    book English
  • Fraser, Louis et al. Dahomey and the Ending of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade : The Journals and Correspondence of Vice-Consul Louis Fraser 1851-1852. Oxford: British Academy by Oxford University Press, 2012.
    book English
  • Hurston Zora Neale et al. Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo. New York: HarperCollins, 2018.
    book English
  • Parés, Luiz Nicolau. "Cartas do Daomé." Afro-Ásia, no. 47 (2013): 295-395.
    journal article Portuguese
  • Souza, Francisco Alves de and Mariza de Carvalho Soares. Dialogos Makii de Francisco Alves de Souza : Manuscrito de uma congregação católica de africanos Mina 1786. Chão 2019.
    book Portuguese

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Academics on The Woman King

  • Hobson, Janell. "When Women Were King." Ms. magazine, August 30, 2022.
    journal article French
  • Araujo, Ana Lucia and Suzanne Preston Blier. “What ‘The Woman King’ gets wrong — and right — about Dahomey’s warriors.” Made by History, Washington Post. September 20, 2022
    website English
  • Araujo, Ana Lucia. “The Woman King Softens the Truth of the Slave Trade.” Slate. September 16, 2022.
    website English
  • Blain, Keisha. “Why ‘The Woman King’ is a story that Americans need to see.” MSNBC, September 16, 2022.
    website English
  • Burton, Nsenga K. "What the calls to boycott ‘The Woman King’ are really saying," CNN, September 22, 2022
    website English
  • Patton, Stacey. "Was It Necessary To Rape ‘The Woman King’?, Newsone, September 25, 2022
    website English

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A #slaveryarchive production