Ghezo replaced his brother Adandozan (who ruled from 1797 to 1818) as king through a coup with the assistance of the Brazilian slave trader Francisco Félix de Sousa.

He ruled over the kingdom during a tumultuous period, punctuated by the British blockade of the ports of Dahomey in order to stop the Atlantic slave trade.

[1] Information about the final years of Adandozan's administration is very limited, providing only a partial understanding of the situation that resulted in Ghezo's rule.

With the help, reportedly, of Nicola d'Olveira, the son of the Afro-Dutch wife of Agonglo, de Sousa escaped from imprisonment and relocated to Grand-Popo.

The fight resulted in a fire that burned part of a palace and killed Dakpo, making Ghezo the clear king of Dahomey.

In addition to the military victories, domestic dissent, and slave trade, Ghezo is also credited with expanding the arts significantly and giving royal status to many artisans to move to the capital of Abomey.

[6] With the further reduction of Oyo power in the region, Ghezo was more able to expand militarily against the Mahi and the Gbe people to the southwest of Dahomey after the mid-1820s.

[1] Following victories in these areas, Ghezo focused the military power on a region which had been between the Oyo empire and Dahomey and had been the target of significant slave raiding.

After some significant victories in this area by Dahomey, the city of Abeokuta was founded as a safe-haven for people to be free of slave raiding in an easily defended location.

[9] Historian Edna Bay contends that this may have been a result of a need to gain the support of the female palace guard after they had opposed Ghezo's coup against Adandozan.

Ghezo did this by raising the status of the female guards, providing them uniforms, giving them additional weapons, and making them a crucial part of war policy.

Although he had initially presented himself as able to restore militaristic practices to Dahomey, which he argued Adandozan was unable to do, the early losses in his reign to the Mahi made him very unpopular.

[6] As a symbolic strike against Adandozan's legacy, Ghezo appointed Agontime his Kpojito (or queen-mother, an important post in the Kingdom of Dahomey).

Agontime was a wife of Agonglo, sometimes claimed to be the mother of Ghezo, who was sold into slavery when Adandozan came to power because she supported a rival to the throne.

[3] When ending the slave trade became the crucial issue in the 1840s and 1850s, there developed two distinct factions which historian John C. Yoder has called the Elephant and the Fly parties.

[1] When King Ghezo ascended the throne in 1818, he was confronted by two immediate obstacles: the Kingdom of Dahomey was in political turmoil, and it was financially unstable.

King Ghezo implemented new military strategies, which allowed them to take a physical stand against the Oyo, who were also a major competitor in the slave trade.

It is the source and the glory of their wealth…the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery[13][14] He additionally explained to the British that the entire region had become dependent on the trans-Atlantic slave trade for profit, so ending it in one day would destabilize his kingdom and lead to anarchy.

By 1850, King Ghezo was on the verge of war with the Egbas of Abeokuta, the new Yoruba capital that arose after the Oyo Empire dissolved.

[11] Jealous of the attention and goods that the Egba were received from the British and fearful of what it would mean for Dahomey, King Ghezo decided to act.

He significantly reduced the wars and slave raids by the kingdom and in 1853 told the British that he reduced the practice of human sacrifice at the Annual Customs (possibly ending sacrifice of war captives completely and only sacrificing convicted criminals)[6] However, these positions were reversed dramatically in 1857 and 1858 as Ghezo became hostile to the British; he revived slave trade through the port of Whydah, and in 1858, Dahomey attacked Abeokuta.

[1] Many of the reforms attempted by Ghezo were partially undermined by Glele, who began slave trading, warfare, and human sacrifice to some extent.

King Gezo is mentioned in Anni Dominguez’s 2021 novel Breaking the Maafa Chain, in which the Royal Navy rescues a young slave from sacrifice in his kingdom.

Actor John Boyega portrays a fictionalized Ghezo in the 2022 American historical epic film The Woman King.