Early Modern
Dahomey's Conquest of Ouidah (1727): King Agaja and the Coast
Dahomey annexed the kingdom of Hueda and took control of Ouidah, one of the busiest slave-trading ports in West Africa.
Region
Africa
Early Modern
Agojie: The Women Warriors of Dahomey (Dahomey Amazons)
The Agojie became a core part of Dahomey's army for over 150 years until the kingdom's defeat by France in 1892–1894.
Early Modern
Stono Rebellion (1739): Largest Slave Revolt in British America
The revolt was crushed within a day; about 21-25 colonists and at least 35-50 rebels died, and South Carolina passed the restrictive Negro Act of 1740.
Early Modern
Zemene Mesafint (1769-1855): Ethiopia's Era of the Princes
Imperial power collapsed into rule by regional warlords for over 80 years, until Kassa Hailu reunited Ethiopia as Tewodros II in 1855.
Early Modern
Goree Island and the House of Slaves: Senegal's Memorial Site
Gorée became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978 and a major memorial to the Atlantic slave trade, though historians debate its scale as a slave port.
Early Modern
First Cape Frontier War (1779–1781): Xhosa and Colonists Clash
A colonial commando drove Xhosa groups east of the Great Fish River in 1781, but the frontier remained unsettled and war resumed in 1789.
Early Modern
Zong Massacre (1781): Murder at Sea and the Insurance Case
About 130 or more Africans were killed; the owners' insurance claim was challenged in court, no one was prosecuted, and the case became a rallying point for abolitionists.
Early Modern
Province of Freedom (1787): The Sierra Leone Resettlement Scheme
The first settlement, Granville Town, failed, but the scheme led to the Sierra Leone Company and the founding of Freetown by Black Loyalists from Nova Scotia in 1792.
Early Modern
Olaudah Equiano and The Interesting Narrative (1789)
A bestselling first-person account of enslavement that strengthened the British campaign against the slave trade.
Modern Era
Sokoto Caliphate (1804): Usman dan Fodio's Fulani Jihad
The Hausa kingdoms were overthrown and replaced by the Sokoto Caliphate, a federation of emirates that lasted until the British conquest of 1903.
Modern Era
Napoleon on Saint Helena (1815–1821): Exile and Death
Napoleon spent the last five and a half years of his life as a British prisoner and died on the island on 5 May 1821; his remains were returned to Paris in 1840.
Modern Era
Wreck of the Medusa (1816): The Raft and Géricault's Painting
About 150 people were set adrift on a raft and only 15 were rescued alive; the scandal embarrassed the Bourbon government and inspired Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa.