This article contains spoilers for The woman king
In a relatively slow September has been one of the most popular movies The woman king. It debuted on an opening weekend of $19 million, almost double what was expected. Even more impressive, however, is the critical response. It currently ranks 94% from critics and 99% from viewers on RottenTomatoes.
The woman king is a very rare thing in Hollywood: a historical epic set in Africa. And, believe it or not, it’s not about white Europeans conquering the lands of Africa and mining their riches. Quite the opposite. It is about the people of an African nation who, led by an all-female regiment of soldiers, fight against the slave trade. It’s an incredible and inspiring story, but how much of it is historically correct?
How historically accurate is the plot?
The plot revolves around the kingdom of Dahomey in West Africa, where King Ghezo employs an all-female unit of soldiers, the Agojie. However, they are forced to pay tribute to the neighboring Oyo Empire. All this is based on facts. Dahomey was a real country – today the nation of Benin – while the Agojie, King Ghezo and the Oyo were real too. The Oyo Empire was a historically important empire controlled by the Yoruba ethnic group. In the 17th and 18th centuries it was one of the most important military forces in all of West Africa and was known for its strong administrative structure and powerful cavalry.
By the time of The woman kingSet in the 1820s, Dahomey had been a tributary of the Oyo Empire for nearly a century. In 1823, they had really small battles with the Oyo and eventually won their independence, which is depicted in the film. As we can see, the most basic historical outline of the time period and the countries involved in the film is quite accurate. However, the particulars of the characters and the role of slavery in Dahomey are not.
Are the characters based on real people?
While most of the basic historical framework is fairly accurate, many of the characters are not. The only one obviously based on a real person is King Ghezo. However, Ghezo is not the great leader and wise man who makes the film of him. He was the son of Dahomey’s king Agonglo, who passed the throne to Ghezo’s older brother Adandozan after his death in 1797. In 1818, Ghezo staged a coup to overthrow his brother and establish himself as king.
The exact details of what happened during the coup are unknown, as Ghezo rewrote history while on the throne, passing on an oral tradition that glowed suspiciously about his reign. Historians generally regard Ghezo as a cruel king who traded ruthlessly in the slave trade, although he also won Dahomey’s independence from the Oyo. He died in 1859 by murder.
As mentioned, the Agojie’s female soldiers were absolutely real, but many of the specific characters in the film are fictional. General Nanisca (Viola Davis) is not based on a specific person, but History vs Hollywood speculates that her name could have come from the diaries of French naval officer Jean Bayol, who described a young Agojie recruit named Nanisca. However, this real Nanisca was only a teenager and a new initiate, who bore almost no resemblance to the Nanisca in the film. Additional inspiration may have been taken from one of the Agojie’s generals, who were all female, of course, but there is no apparent one-to-one correlation.
The other main character, Nawi (Thuso Mbedu), could also be very loosely inspired by a real person. Like History vs. Hollywood writes, the last remaining Agojie in history was a woman named Nawi, who was interviewed in 1978 at age 100. However, it doesn’t seem much more than her name was used by the character in The woman king. The real Nawi was born in 1879, more than two decades after Ghezo died.
Other than the Oyo troops, the film’s main antagonist is the Portuguese slave trader Santo Ferreira (played by Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Ralph Fiennes’ cousin). Portugal was indeed one of the strongest colonial powers at the time and participated heavily in the enslavement of African peoples. Ferreira itself is perhaps very loosely based on the Brazilian slave trader Francisco Félix de Sousa. In fact, De Sousa was not an enemy of Dahomey, but a close friend and powerful ally of King Ghezo, who played a major role in the coup that brought Ghezo to power.
The final protagonist is Malik, the Brazilian son of a slave who travels to Dahomey to see the land where his mother was born. While Malik does not appear to be based on any specific historical figure, it is true that Brazil was a major colony of Portugal and a frequent destination of enslaved Africans, who were used to exploit and conserve the country’s rich natural resources. to steal. Brazil actually has the largest black population from any country outside Africa. While there is some debate about what is considered black or mixed race in the country, as many as half of Brazil’s entire population can be considered black.
Was Dahomey against slavery?
As mentioned earlier, the main historical inaccuracy in The woman king is Dahomey’s relationship to slavery. In the film, Nanisca and Ghezo are passionately opposed to the slave trade and vow to end the practice. In reality, King Ghezo was one of the most brutal slave traders in all of West Africa. He ordered frequent military raids on villages to kidnap innocent people whom he could trade as slaves to the Portuguese. Slavery was the main source of Dahomey’s wealth and power.
Not only did King Ghezo never try to end the slave trade, he even fought explicitly to preserve it. In the 1850s, he faced heavy pressure from the British Empire (which had outlawed slavery in 1833) to end his participation in the slave trade, and he even fought several unsuccessful battles to keep it. He eventually gave up and agreed to end his slave attacks, but continued them in secret until his death a few years later.
It should be noted that Britain’s aggressive practice of fighting to end the slave trade in Africa was not entirely altruistic. Many European countries used the end of slavery as an excuse to invade, conquer and colonize large parts of Africa in the second half of the 19th century. This resulted in what is called the Scramble for Africa, and it was during this period that Europe colonized almost the entire continent.