The Dahomey were one of the most important contributors to the trans-Atlantic slave trade and literally founded their entire economy & culture on slavery, to boot. They tried to diversify said economy to exploit the palm oil trade under British pressure, but gave up because that didn't make them nearly as much money as the slave trade did. The guy played by John Boyega in The Woman King, Ghezo, literally gained power in a coup supported by a Brazilian slave trader, Francisco Felix de Sousa, who he rewarded by putting him in charge of a major Dahomey port. And the slaves they could neither sell nor use to work on their own plantations, they butchered in yearly human sacrifice rituals.

Oh, and they started BOTH of the wars with France which led to their kingdom's destruction by launching slaving raids on French protectorates (rival tribes that had basically become French vassals, precisely for protection from this sort of bullshit). Twice, in the span of two years. Really, West African countries should be sending the French yearly gift baskets for liberating them from the Dahomey's baleful presence.

I've seen people try to defend The Woman King by going 'whatabout Braveheart or The Patriot or 300' but 1) on top of being more entertaining, none of those other movies tried to pretend to be historically accurate or to have a relevant sociopolitical message and 2) 300 in particular is an in-universe case of 'unreliable narrator' (it's a story being told by David Wenham's character to hype up his fellow Spartans before the Battle of Plataea).

As well, The Woman King is on a whole other level as far as its historical negationism (I don't think 'inaccuracy' or 'revisionism' are strong enough words for what Viola Davis & company are trying to get away with here) compared to those other flicks goes. It's like a movie starring the SS as heroes who were attacked by the French and fought to free Alsatian Germans from French death camps, or the Soviets as heroes who had to fight the Winter War in self-defense after the baby-eating Finns shot first - oh wait, the latter is literally the Soviet account of what started the Winter War.

The Dahomey were one of the most important contributors to the trans-Atlantic slave trade and literally founded their entire economy & culture on slavery, to boot. They tried to diversify said economy to exploit the palm oil trade under British pressure, but gave up because that didn't make them nearly as much money as the slave trade did. The guy played by John Boyega in The Woman King, Ghezo, literally gained power in a coup supported by a Brazilian slave trader, Francisco Felix de Sousa, who he rewarded by putting him in charge of a major Dahomey port. And the slaves they could neither sell nor use to work on their own plantations, they butchered in yearly human sacrifice rituals.

Oh, and they started BOTH of the wars with France which led to their kingdom's destruction by launching slaving raids on French protectorates (rival tribes that had basically become French vassals, precisely for protection from this sort of bullshit). Twice, in the span of two years.

I've seen people try to defend The Woman King by going 'whatabout Braveheart or The Patriot or 300' but 1) on top of being more entertaining, none of those other movies tried to pretend to be historically accurate or to have a relevant sociopolitical message and 2) 300 in particular is an in-universe case of 'unreliable narrator' (it's a story being told by David Wenham's character to hype up his fellow Spartans before the Battle of Plataea).

As well, The Woman King is on a whole other level as far as its historical negationism (I don't think 'inaccuracy' or 'revisionism' are strong enough words for what Viola Davis & company are trying to get away with here) compared to those other flicks goes. It's like a movie starring the SS as heroes who were attacked by the French and fought to free Alsatian Germans from French death camps, or the Soviets as heroes who had to fight the Winter War in self-defense after the baby-eating Finns shot first - oh wait, the latter is literally the Soviet account of what started the Winter War.