On November 17, 1892, Colonel Alfred- Amédée Dodds of the French Army raided the palace complex of Abomey, capital of the Kingdom of Danxomè, with a force of 2, 164 Marines, engineers, sharpshooters, artillery units, Foreign Legionnaires, Senegalese light cavalry, and volunteers from the neighboring kingdom of Xogbónù (Alpern 1998: 193). Having conducted successful colonial campaigns in Réunion, Senegal, and French Indochina, Dodds sought to bring the Danxomèan Kingdom under French control amid Europe's manic scramble for Africa. Facing Dodds was King Gbéhanzin, a fearsome ruler and cunning military strategist, who had resisted French depredations since his enthronement in 1889.
Anticipating Dodd's attack on Abomey, Gbéhanzin torched the city's palaces and retreated northward. Despite armed resistance and sporadic incursions mounted by Gbéhanzin over the next two years, Dodds's taking of Abomey spelled the end of the second Franco-Danxomèan War (July 4, 1892-Jan- uary 29, 1894), and with it, three centuries...