The only thoroughly documented Amazons in world history are the women
warriors of Dahomey, an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Western
African kingdom. Once dubbed a 'small black Sparta, ' residents of
Dahomey shared with the Spartans an intense militarism and sense of
collectivism. Moreover, the women of both kingdoms prided themselves on
bodies hardened from childhood by rigorous physical exercise. But
Spartan women kept in shape to breed male warriors, Dahomean Amazons to
kill them. Originally palace guards, the Amazons had evolved by the
1760s into professional troops armed mainly with muskets, machetes and
clubs. By the 1840s their numbers had grown to 6,000. The Amazons served
under female officers and had their own bands, flags and insignia: they
outdrilled, outshot and outfought men, became frontline troops and
fought tenaciously and with great valor till the kingdom's defeat by
France in 1892.
Updated with a new preface by the author, Amazons of Black Sparta is the
product of meticulous archival research and Alpern's gift for narrative.
It will stand as the most comprehensive and accessible account of the
woman warriors of Dahomey.