Today we're traveling back to the 1820s and the Kingdom of Dahomey with The Woman King! Join us as we learn about cowrie shells, Agojie weapons, the 1820s slave trade, King Ghezo, and more!

Sources:

Wendy Ide, "The Woman King review - a thunderously cinematic good time," The Observer (1 Oct 2022). https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/oct/01/the-woman-king-review-a-thunderously-cinematic-good-time-viola-davis-gina-prince-bythewood-sheila-atim   RT: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_woman_king  Robert Daniels, "The Woman King," (16 Sept 2022) https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-woman-king-movie-review-2022  ITV News, "Viola Davis defends new film The Woman King after Dahomey slave trade history backlash | ITV News," YouTube, https://youtu.be/ZxsvsSDvDcE   The Daily Show, "Thuso Mbedu - “The Woman King” & Social Impact with Paramount+ | The Daily Show," https://youtu.be/HAMULqA8cEw   Good Morning America, "Viola Davis talks new film, 'The Woman King' l GMA," YouTube https://youtu.be/fKGpMU2xSJk   Marion Johnson, "The Cowrie Currencies of West Africa, Part I," The Journal of African History 11, no.1 (1970): 17-49. https://www.jstor.org/stable/180215  Mahir Saul, "Money in Colonial Transition: Cowries and Francs in West Africa," American Anthropologist 106, no.1 (2004): 71-84. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3567443  "Cowrie Shells and Trade Power," National Museum of African American History & Culture, Smithsonian, https://nmaahc.si.edu/cowrie-shells-and-trade-power  Barbara J. Heath, "Cowrie Shells, Global Trade, and Local Exchange: Piecing Together the Evidence for Colonial Virginia," Historical Archaeology 50, no.2 (2016): 17-46. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24757075  Akinwumi Ogundiran, "Of Small Things Remembered: Beads, Cowries, and Cultural Translations of the Atlantic Experience in Yorubaland," The International Journal of African Historical Studies 35, no.2/3 (2002): 427-57. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3097620  Paul E. Lovejoy and David Richardson, "British Abolition and its Impact on Slave Prices Along the Atlantic Coast of Africa, 1783-1850," The Journal of Economic History 55, no.1 (1995): 98-119. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2123769  Peter Morton-Williams, "The Oyo Yoruba and the Atlantic Trade, 1670-1830," Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 3, no.1 (1964): 25-45. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41856687   Randy J. Sparks, "Blind Justice: The United States's Failure to Curb the Illegal Slave Trade," Law and History Review 35. no.1 (2017): 53-79. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26338410  Augustus A. Adeyinka, "King Gezo of Dahomey, 1818-1858: A Reassessment of a West African Monarch in the Nineteenth Century," African Studies Review 17, no.3 (1974): 541-48. https://www.jstor.org/stable/523800 

Group Portrait, Paris, 1891: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahomey_Amazons#/media/File:COLLECTIE_TROPENMUSEUM_Groepsportret_van_de_zogenaamde_'Amazones_uit_Dahomey'_tijdens_hun_verblijf_in_Parijs_TMnr_60038362.jpg Frederick Edwyn Forbes, "Dahomey and the Dahomans: Being the Journals of Two Missions to the Kingdom of Dahomey, and the residence at his capitol, 1849 and 1850," available at https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_ngLr7B6zBM8C/page/n41/mode/2up Maeve Adams, "The Amazon Warrior and the De/Construction of Gendered Imperial Authority in Nineteenth-Century Colonial Literature," Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies 6, 1 (2010) Augustus A. Adeyinka, "King Gezo of Dahomey, 1818-1858: A Reassessment of a West African Monarch in the Nineteenth Century," African Studies Review 17, 3 (1974) E.A. Soumonni and E.A. Soumoni, "Dahomean Economic Policy Under Ghezo, 1818-1858: A Reconsideration," Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 10, 2 (1980) Robin Law, "The Politics of Commercial Transition: Factional Conflict in Dahomey in the Context of Ending the Slave Trade," Journal of African History 38, 2 (1997)