The Jacksonians versus the banks Book

A wonderful history of the African Kingdom of Dahomey using the role of women and showing how their roles reflected the prosperity, ascension and decline of the kingdom. It's a case study of a society not able to adjust to the changing world and the reasons why it couldn't and wouldn't.

It ends with the story of Gbehanzin (Behanzin to the West), his ascent to the top of a kingdom already breaking apart, and his forced departure from it.

As a descendant of one of the millions exported from the "Slave Coast" it was a difficult read but I couldn't put it down. If the Dahomeans hadn't existed they would've been created by the forces behind the trade of human beings.

It also shows how the already existing system of slavery in West Africa was perverted and became the monster the Atlantic trade became. You also see how the rise of Imperialism in the West turned the people the British, French and Portuguese had been dealing with for centuries into "others" a betrayal of not on the Dahomeans but all of the kingdoms that were in that part of the world.

I wish Ms Bay was doing a book on Gbehanzin in exile. I wonder what he thought about the life he'd condemned so many too.