Category: African History (Continental)

Hamilcar Barca or Barcas (Punic: c. 275–228 BC) was a Carthaginian general and statesman, leader of the Barcid family, and father of Hannibal, Hasdrubal and Mago. He was also father-in-law to…

Breffu was an Akwamu leader of the 1733 slave insurrection on St. John (then known as St. Jan) in Danish West Indies. She committed suicide with 23 other rebels to…

Moremi Ajasoro (Yoruba: Mọremí Àjàṣorò) was a legendary Yoruba queen and folk heroine in the Yorubaland region of present-day southwestern Nigeria who is fabled to have assisted in the liberation…

D mt (Ge’ez: ደዐመተ, DʿMT theoretically vocalized as ዳዓማት, Daʿamat or ዳዕማት, Daʿəmat) was a kingdom located in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia that existed during the 10th and 5th centuries BC. Few inscriptions by or about this kingdom survive and…

Béhanzin , born 1844 and died 10 December 1906 , in Blida , Algeria ), was the twelfth and last sovereign king of Dahomey , present-day Benin . He succeeded his father Glele (reign 1858 – 1889 ) and ruled between 1889 and 1894 . Since his signature was a shark and an egg, he was nicknamed “The…

The Dahomey Amazons (Fon:”Mino” or “Minon“) were a Fon all-female military regiment of the Kingdom of Dahomey which existed until 1904. They were so named by Western observers and historians due to their similarity to the…

Ras Prince Monolulu (26 October 1881 – 14 February 1965), whose real name was Peter Carl Mackay (or McKay), was a horse-racing tipster, and something of an institution on the…

Dido Elizabeth Belle (1761 – July 1804) was a British heiress and a member of the Lindsay family of Evelix. She was born into slavery and illegitimate; her mother, Maria…

Lucius Septimius Severus was Roman emperor from 193 to 211. He was born in Leptis Magna (present day Al-Khums, Libya) in the Roman province of Africa.  

Adrian, also spelled Hadrian (born before 637, died 710), was a North African scholar in Anglo-Saxon England and the abbot of Saint Peter’s and Saint Paul’s in Canterbury. He was…