Beninese women

Hangbe (or Hangbè, also Ahangbe or Na Hangbe) was a woman who served as the ruler of the Kingdom of Dahomey for a brief period before Agaja came to power in 1718. Oral traditions depict Hangbe variously as a regent or as a ruler in her own right. According to oral tradition, she became ruler upon the sudden death of King Akaba because his oldest son, Agbo Sassa, was not yet of age. The duration of her rule is unclear. She supported Agbo Sassa in a succession struggle against Agaja, who ultimately became king. Hangbe's legacy lives on in oral tradition, but little is known about her rule becaus

Seh-Dong-Hong-Beh (meaning, "God Speaks true") was a leader of the Dahomey Amazons. In 1851, she led an all-female army consisting of 6,000 warriors against the Egba fortress of Abeokuta, to obtain slaves from the Egba people for the Dahomey slave trade.

Redoshi ( 1848 – 1937) was a West African woman who was enslaved and smuggled to the U.S. state of Alabama as a girl in 1860. Until a later surviving claimant, Matilda McCrear, was announced in 2020, she was considered to have been the last surviving victim of the transatlantic slave trade. Taken captive in warfare at age 12 by the West African kingdom of Dahomey, she was sold to Americans and transported by ship to the United States in violation of U.S. law. She was sold again and enslaved on the upcountry plantation of the Washington M. Smith family in Dallas County, Alabama, where her