IN TOUCH WITH Cultural and Familial Heritage

Written by
Betty Miller Buttram
FWIS Contributing Writer

I have recently delved into our historical heritage in Africa that was inspired by the movie “The Woman King,” and a familiar African American experience here in the southern part of the United States as told by a fictional story, “Jazzman’s Blues,” now playing on Netflix.  Our ancestral history has been available for our knowledge for years and some of our familial history has been known but closeted away in secrecy and not talked about in our families.

When the movie, “The Woman King,” was released for distribution, a few critics were negative about the movie not depicting in more detail about the African country of Dahomey’s involvement in slave trading in the storyline.  The movie is a fictional storytelling based on the facts about women warriors in Dahomey. In my curiosity about the criticism, I did some research about Dahomey, and you can do the same fact-checking on the Internet.

The Kingdom of Dahomey was a West African kingdom located within the present-day Benin that existed from approximately 1600 until 1904. Notable in the kingdom was an all-female military unit called the Dahomey Amazons, so named by European observers.  The origin of the group started with the third ruler, King Houegbadja (who ruled from 1645-1685). From the time of King Ghezo, the 10th ruler (ruling from 1818-1858), Dahomey became increasingly militaristic.  It was constantly organized for warfare.  It engaged in wars and raids against neighboring societies and sold captives into the Atlantic slave trade in exchange for European goods such as rifles, gunpower, fabrics, cowrie shells, tobacco, pipes, and alcohol.  Other remaining captives became slaves in Dahomey where they worked on royal plantations.  Dahomey’s male population faced high casualties fighting with neighboring West African states and these losses eventually led to the recruitment of all-female military regiment.

Some women became soldiers voluntarily while others were involuntarily enrolled if their husbands or fathers complained to the king about them.  These Women Warriors endured intense physical military exercises.  They learned survival skills, indifference to pain and death, and discipline was emphasized.  By the mid-19th century, they numbered between 1,000 and 6,000 women which was about a third of the entire Dahomey army, The Women Warriors consisted of several regiments:  huntresses, riflewomen, reapers, archers, and gunners.  Each regiment had different uniforms, weapons, and commanders.

The Kingdom of Dahomey had two wars with France and by the end of the Second War with France, Dahomey lost, and the kingdom became a French protectorate in 1894 and the Women Warriors were no longer needed, and the regiments were disbanded.

The “Woman King” is about the Women Warriors and the slave trading was factually included in the story, but the focus is on the women.  It is too late to point the finger at who is to blame for our ancestors becoming enslaved in America while other countries also profited from these wars.

Back here on American soil, the Netflix movie, “The Jazzman’s Blues,” takes place during the Jim Crow era in the state of Georgia.  It begins with a determined grandmother who in 1987 decides it is time for that secret locked in the closet for 50 years to be exposed.

If you get a chance to watch this movie, you will see that this is not a new story.  You will see what is coming because you will be familiar with the story as it unfolds.  This is one of many stories that we might know about in our own families that might have been eventually passed down by an elder or someone outside the family who tells you the secret and you wish they had kept it to themselves.  That secret may require action on your part, or you can put it back in the closet.  It is your choice to see what purpose it will serve.  That is the dilemma facing the last character standing in this movie.

Heritage, be it cultural or familial, is always good to know. Because these two things let us know who we are and where we are from.