Romuald Hazoumè (born 1962, Porto Novo, Republic of Dahomey) is a Yoruba artist and sculptor, from the Republic of Bénin.
He is best known for his work La Bouche du Roi, a reworking of the 1789 image of the slave ship Brookes. La Bouche du Roi was widely exhibited in the United Kingdom as part of the centenary remembrance of the Slave Trade Act 1807 by Parliament. He only uses recycled materials to create his works.
French Dahomey, officially the Colony of Dahomey and Dependencies (French: Colonie du Dahomey et dépendances), was a French colony and part of French West Africa from 1894 to 1958. After World War II, by the establishment of the French Fourth Republic in 1947, Dahomey became part of the French Union with increased autonomy. On 4 October 1958 the French Fifth Republic was established, and the French Union became the French Community. The colony became the self-governing Republic of Dahomey within the Community, and two years later on 1 August 1960, it gained full independence, renamed to Benin in 1975.
The Forte de São João Baptista de Ajudá (in English: Fort St. John the Baptist of Ouidah) is a small restored fort in Ouidah, Benin. Built in 1721, it was the last of three European forts built in that town to tap the slave trade of the Slave Coast. Following the legal abolition of the slave trade early in the 19th century, the Portuguese fort lay abandoned most of the time until it was permanently reoccupied in 1865.
In the aftermath of the creation of the French colony of Dahomey in the 1890s, the French authorities recognized Portuguese sovereignty over the fort due to the adamant insistence of Portugal. The fort was garrisoned by a small detachment of troops from Portuguese São Tomé and Príncipe until 1911. After that, only the residente (governor), his assistant and their families inhabited the fort. Portuguese sovereignty was maintained until the fort was seized by the authorities of the newly independent Republic of Dahomey (now Benin) in August 1961.
The People's Republic of Benin (French: République populaire du Bénin; sometimes translated literally as the Benin Popular Republic or Popular Republic of Benin) was a communist state located in the Gulf of Guinea on the African continent, which became present-day Benin in 1990. The People's Republic was established on 30 November 1975, after the 1972 coup d'état in the Republic of Dahomey. It effectively lasted until 1 March 1990, with the adoption of a new constitution, and the abolition of Marxism–Leninism in the nation in 1989.