Dahomey’s palm-oil economy and disciplined army resisted French conquest until 1892

Evidence

Dahomey, earlier an active participant in the Atlantic slave trade, had converted to palm oil production in the second half of the nineteenth century. Large, efficiently run plantations worked by slaves had impressed the Europeans who traded there; Dahomey boasted a superbly disciplined army as well. Not surprisingly, Dahomey’s monarch, Behanzin, had refused French “protection” when first offered it in 1890. The French army finally subdued him in 1892. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 118