Benin was the seat of one of the great medieval African kingdoms which known as Dahomey. Europeans began arriving in the area in the 18th century, as the kingdom of Dahomey was expanding its territory. The Portuguese, the French, and the Dutch accomplished trading posts along the coast, and traded weapons for slaves. Slave trade ended in 1848. Then, the French signed treaties with Kings of gift to establish French protectorates in the main cities and ports. King Behanzin fought the French determine which cost him deportation to Martinique. As of 1900, the territory became a French colony governed by a French Governor. Expansion continued to the North, up to the border with former Upper Volta. On December 4, 1958, it became the République du Dahomey, self-governing within the French community, and on August 1, 1960, the Republic of Benin gained full freedom from France.

Some time before 1600 it is thought that the Adja people migrated from the town of Tado on the Mono River, settling at Allada, where they mixed with the Fon and founded a kingdom. In the early 17th century a dynastic dispute resulted in the establishment of two rival states at Abomey and Porto-Novo. The first of these grew into the Kingdom of Dahomey, which controlled the area until the 19th century.

As a political unit, Benin was created by the French colonial conquest at the end of the 19th century. In the precolonial time, the territory comprised a multiplicity of independent states, differing in language and culture. The south was occupied mainly by Ewe-speaking peoples, who traced their orthodox origins to the town of Tado. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the most powerful state in this area was the kingdom of Allada, but in the 18th and 19th centuries its place was taken by Dahomey. In the north, the largest group was the Bariba, the most valuable state being the kingdom of Nikki, which formed part of a confederacy including other Bariba states located in what is today Nigeria.