Dahomey was an African kingdom (in the present-day country of Benin) which lasted from about 1600 until 1900. Dahomey developed on the Abomey Plateau amongst the Fon people in the early 1600s and became a regional power in the 1700s by conquering key cities on the Atlantic coast. For much of the 18th and 19th centuries, the Kingdom of Dahomey was a key regional state, eventually ending tributary status to the Oyo Empire and being a major location for the Atlantic slave trade, possibly supplying up to 20% of the slaves to Europe and the Americas. The Kingdom of Dahomey was an important regional power that had an organized domestic economy, significant international trade with European powers, a centralized administration, significant taxation systems, and an organized military. Notable in the kingdom were significant artwork, all-female military units known as the Dahomey Amazons, and elaborate religious practices of Vodun with the large festival of the Annual Customs of Dahomey. The Kingdom of Dahomey serves as the context for a number of works of fiction dealing with West African ideas and the slave trade.In 1894, the Kingdom was colonized by France and made part of French West Africa, as part of the territory of French Dahomey (which also included Porto-Novo and a large area to the north of Dahomey). French rule lasted until 1960, after which the again-independent nation became Republic of Dahomey, and later Benin in 1975.