This episode examines the complex and multifaceted roles of women during the Atlantic slave trade period in West Africa. It profiles the Mino (Agojié), Dahomey’s all- female military regiment, and explores women’s positions as traders, political advisors, and warriors. It highlights three remarkable figures: Queen Agontimé, who rose from captivity to become a Candomblé priestess in Brazil; Queen Nzinga Mbande of Ndongo and Matamba, a diplomatic and military leader who resisted Portuguese colonization; and Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita, a religious visionary whose Antonianism movement challenged both church authority and the slave trade.

The episode also details the unique practice of woman-to-woman marriage in Dahomey, emphasizing how women navigated survival, power, and legacy in a society where they could be simultaneously victims, traders, and architects of their own destinies.

This episode explores how religion shaped the Atlantic slave trade. It traces the Church’s reinterpretation of the “Curse of Ham” as justification for slavery, contrasts it with biblical passages against enslavement, and highlights the complicity of popes and the Church of England. Alongside, it examines African spiritual traditions such as Vodou, their survival in the Americas, and the Church of England’s recent admission of its historic ties to slavery.

This episode explores Ouidah, Dahomey in 1685, a key West African trading port deeply involved in the Atlantic slave trade. It details the dynamics between European powers like the Royal African Company and African rulers. Key aspects include the trade of captives for weapons, the Tree of Oblivion ritual, and the extensive involvement of various European empires in the trade. The episode also touches on the symbolic depiction of Black figures in European art.