[3] Hunkanrin found work at the Compagnie Francaise de l'Afrique Occidentale, but was arrested in 1912 due to insulting and threatening his boss.
[4] He edited the newspaper Le Messager du Dahomey with Paul Hazoumé during World War I.
[2] At his trial for his involvement, Hunkanrin cited an 1882 treaty between Porto-Novo and France, as well as the fact he was behind bars at the time.
[2] In 1931, he published a scathing expose of slavery in Mauritania, Un forfait colonial: I'esclavage en Mauritanie.
[7] Lieutenant Governor Jean-Baptiste Victor Chazelas dismissed the tract as propaganda inspired by Hunkanrin's Communist friends in Paris, and criticized the way he received information from female slaves and prostitutes.
[8] While the tract is now seen as an important historical document of modern slavery, it is generally acknowledged that Hunkanrin committed some flaws, such as not distinguishing between harantin and slaves.
Nonetheless, in 1934 he co-authored two articles in La Voix du Dahomey along with Louis Ignacio-Pinto that were critical of French administrators.
Hunkanrin found employment as a British spy and recruited soldiers to the war effort in Nigeria.
Hunkanri died in Porto Novo on 28 May 1964, and was eulogized by French speakers for combating colonial abuses and for being the first nationalist in Dahomey.
[5] He was posthumously awarded the title of "Grande Officier de l'Ordre National du Dahomey".