Amazons of Black Sparta : The Women Warriors of Dahomey - Softcover

Stanley B. Alpern

3.65

115 ratings by Goodreads

9780814706787: Amazons of Black Sparta : The Women Warriors of Dahomey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0814706789 ISBN 13: 9780814706787

Publisher: New York Univ Pr, 1999

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History is rife with tales of fighting women. More often than not, these stories prove more legend than history. Dating back to the amazons of ancient Asia Minor, myths of fierce, autonomous women of martial excellence abound.

And yet, the only thoroughly documented amazons in world history are the women warriors of Dahomy, an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Western African kingdom. Once dubbed a "small black Sparta," residents of Dahomy 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 a praetorian guard, the Dahomeans developed into a force 6,000 strong and were granted semi-sacred status. They lusted for battle, fighting with fury and valor until the kingdom's final defeat by France in 1892.

Stanley B. Alpern has chronicled this remarkable history in depth for the first time. The product of meticulous archival research, Amazons of Black Sparta is defined by Alpern's gift for narrative and will stand as the most comprehensive and accessible account of the woman warriors of Dahomy.

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Review:

Alpern does very well in assembling most of the evidence about these intimidating women whose courage impressed even the Foreign Legion. He produces a very detailed picture from a wide variety of European and African sources. -Richard Rathbone, "The Times""

Today they [the Amazons] exist as no more than footnotes to history. Only one scholarly work has been written about these women, "Amazons of Black Sparta" by Stanley B. Alpern and yet they made up a force that was the equal of every contemporary body of male elite soldiers from among the colonial powers. -Stieg Larsson, author of "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet s Nest""

-Today they [the Amazons] exist as no more than footnotes to history. Only one scholarly work has been written about these women, Amazons of Black Sparta by Stanley B. Alpern...and yet they made up a force that was the equal of every contemporary body of male elite soldiers from among the colonial powers.--Stieg Larsson, author of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

-Alpern does very well in assembling most of the evidence about these intimidating women whose courage impressed even the Foreign Legion. He produces a very detailed picture from a wide variety of European and African sources.--Richard Rathbone, The Times

"Today they [the Amazons] exist as no more than footnotes to history. Only one scholarly work has been written about these women, Amazons of Black Sparta by Stanley B. Alpern...and yet they made up a force that was the equal of every contemporary body of male elite soldiers from among the colonial powers."-Stieg Larsson, author of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

"Alpern does very well in assembling most of the evidence about these intimidating women whose courage impressed even the Foreign Legion. He produces a very detailed picture from a wide variety of European and African sources."-Richard Rathbone, The Times

From the Author:

History's only thoroughly documented amazons were African.
Amazons of Black Sparta is the first book ever published in English on the only thoroughly documented amazons in world history. They were the elite troops of the West African kingdom of Dahomey in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. No other group of women warriors, including those the Greeks dubbed amazons for their alleged lack of one breast, has ever been more than a myth.

Curiously, the female soldiers of Dahomey resembled those of Greek legend in many ways. The basic aim of both was to make war. From an early age, both groups were trained to handle weapons, to be strong and swift and hardy, to withstand suffering. They lusted for battle, rushed into it with blood-curdling yells, reveled in it, and fought with fury and valor, seemingly immune to fear. They terrified their neighbors. Men regarded them as worthy, implacable foes. In victory they were pitiless.

Besides fighting, both groups of women hunted, danced and played musical instruments.

But there were significant differences. The amazons of Dahomey never rode horses which, in fact, couldn't last very long there because of the presence of the tsetse fly. Instead of bows, spears and axes, the main weapons of the black warrioresses were muskets, machetes and clubs, and they rarely used shields.

Their breasts were intact -- there was no thought that removal of the right one would make it easier to shoot arrows or hurl javelins.

Unlike the amazons of Greek myth, they were vowed to celibacy (as nominal wives of the king) and so did not produce their own replacements.

They lived by themselves like their legendary counterparts, but in royal palaces, not off somewhere autonomously.

They had their own officers but fought in an army with a male majority (whom they always strove to outshine) and were ultimately ruled by men. They were completely devoted to their king, and would die for him, as many did.

After obscure origins in the eighteenth century, when the amazons of Dahomey paraded and fought topless, they evolved into a uniformed standing force, the shock troops of one of Africa's most powerful states. They reached their maximum strength around 1850, when they numbered between four and six thousand.

They fought to the bitter end against the French invaders of their country in 1892, and the last surviving amazon veteran died in the 1970s.

A word about the title of my book. Dahomey has been called Black Sparta because of its militarism and subordination of the individual to the state. Sparta did not have female troops, but its women did practice sports and do other physical training like the amazons of Dahomey. The difference was that Spartan women kept in shape to breed male warriors, Dahomey's amazons to kill them.

Amazons of Black Sparta came out first in England and has been praised by three leading British Africanists. John Fage rated the book "excellent, full of quite fascinating detail." Paul Hair called it "a definitive study of this fascinating social phenomenon." Christopher Fyfe said "Stanley Alpern...has written an impressively comprehensive study covering all aspects of this extraordinary military force...He has made an important scholarly contribution to the history of nineteenth century West Africa in which the Amazon achievement has until now been scarcely mentioned."

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