The Dahomey Amazons -- Real-Life Dora Milaje

From Wikipedia --

The Dahomey Amazons . . . [were an] all-female military regiment of the Kingdom of Dahomey which existed [from the 1700s] until 1904. They were so named by Western observers and historians due to their similarity to the mythical Amazons of ancient Anatolia and the Black Sea. This unusual emergence of an all-female military regiment was the result of Dahomey's male population facing high casualties in frequent warfare with neighboring West African states, as well as Dahomey being forced to annually give male slaves to the Oyo Empire. The lack of men likely led the kings of Dahomey to recruit women into the army.

[All photos and remaining quotations taken from Meet the Most Feared Women in History by MessyNessy (March18, 2016). Full article found here] --

From daughters to soldiers, from wives to weaponized, they remain the only documented frontline female troops in modern warfare history. A sub-saharan band of female terminators who left their European colonisers shaking in their boots, foreign observers named them the Dahomey Amazons while they called themselves N’Nonmiton, which means “our mothers”. Protecting their king on the bloodiest of battlefields, they emerged as an elite fighting force in the Kingdom of Dahomey in, the present-day Republic of Benin. Described as untouchable, sworn in as virgins, swift decapitation was their trademark.

In the Spring of 1863, the British explorer Richard Burton arrived in the West African coastal nation of Dahomey on a mission for the British government, trying to make peace with the Dahomey people. The Dahomey were a warring nation who actively participated in the slave trade, turning it to their advantage as they captured and sold their enemies. But it was the elite ranks of Dahomey female warriors that amazed Burton.

Despite the brutal training they were to endure as the King’s soldiers, for many women, it was a chance to escape lives of forced domestic drudgery. Serving in the N’Nonmiton offered women the opportunity to “rise to positions of command and influence”, taking prominent roles in the Grand Council, debating the policy of the kingdom. They could even become wealthy as single independent women, living in the King’s compound of course but surrounded with supplies, tobacco and alcohol at their disposal. They all had slaves too. Stanley Alpern, author of the only full-length English-language study of them, wrote “when Amazons walked out of the palace, they were preceded by a slave girl carrying a bell. The sound told every male to get out of their path, retire a certain distance, and look the other way.”