BENIN is named after the body of water on which is lies-the BRIGHT OF BENIN.Benin, officially the Republic of Benin and formerly Dahomey, is a country in West Africa. The country has long history with slave trade.he people of Benin are called as Beninese.Benin became independent from France on August 1, 1960.The capital region of the country and the area nearby was referred as ‘Slave Coast’ from as early as the 17^th century. During the trans-Atlantic slave trade, a large number of slaves were shipped to the New World. By about 1750, the Kingdom of Dahomey (a part of Benin) was earning an estimated £250,000 per year by selling Africans to the European slave-traders.The last ship of slaves departed from Dahomey for Brazil in 1885.The region was a French colony for 58 years between 1900 and 1958. Benin was the first country in the 1990s to make the transition from a dictatorship to a multiparty democracy.