Thread by @marinamaral2

From daughters to soldiers, from wives to weaponized, they remain the only documented frontline female troops in modern warfare history. Foreign observers named them the Dahomey Amazons, while they called themselves N’Nonmiton, which means “our mothers”.

Protecting their king on the bloodiest of battlefields, they emerged as an elite fighting force in the Kingdom of Dahomey in, the present-day Republic of Benin. Swift decapitation was their trademark.

While they were also said to be the most feared women to walk the earth, they would also change how women were seen and respected in Africa and beyond.
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