COUNTRY	POPULATION	SIZE (square miles)	POPULATION DENSITY (# of people per square mile)
USA	301,129,947	9,631,420	85
BENIN	7,900,000	43,484	182

In the early 1600’s, the European traders were visiting western Africa. They reported a new warlike kingdom called Dahomey (what the French called it), was ruling the southern regions of Benin and fighting for the rest of Benin.                                                 

The Kings of Dahomey sold the African women, men, and children that were captured to slave traders, and then sold indigenous people into slavery in America.

The slavery lasted until the 1900’s, but in Benin, it only lasted until the 1830’s because the kings of Dahomey wanted different things from Benin, like palm oil, used to make soap. The Dahomey kings signed a trade treaty with France to protect them from Britain, another European country trying to take over land in Africa. Soon the Dahomey kings got tired of the French being on their land. They tried to get them out, but the French fought back, and it caused a revolution.           

Colonization didn’t help the indigenous people at all. They didn’t like how they were having to be slaves. They didn’t think this was very fair at all. They wanted to be free.

After many years of France ruling Dahomey, Dahomey won its independence, and the country was named Benin in the 1960’s.