evidence: As a political unit, Benin was created by the French colonial conquest at the end of the 19th century. In the precolonial period, 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 traditional origins to the town of Tado (in modern Togo). During the 16th and 17th centuries, the most powerful state in this area was the kingdom of Allada (Ardra), but in the 18th and 19th centuries its place was taken by Dahomey. In the north, the largest group was the Bariba, the most important state being the kingdom of Nikki, which formed part of a confederacy including other Bariba states located in what is today Nigeria. The Somba, in the northwest, did not form a kingdom.