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C H A P T E R S I X Lower Guinea: The Bight of Biafra The newly arrived [Igbo] find help, care, and example from those who have come before them. —Moreau de St.-Méry, Description topographique, physique, civile, politique, et historique de la partie française de l’isle de St. Domingue,  The Bight of Biafra is discussed here separately from the Ivory Coast, the Gold Coast, and the Slave Coast/Bight of Benin, the other regions also commonly considered part of Lower Guinea. Its geography, economy, and politics as well as the patterns of its transatlantic slave trade were distinct. The Bight of Biafra is located in the Niger delta and the Cross River valley. This region is now southeastern Nigeria. Extensive mangrove swamps made access by ocean-going vessels very difficult. Europeans did not get access to the interior until the mid-nineteenth century. Slaves were brought down to the coast by boats operating along creeks and lagoons. Well over  percent of the slaves from the Bight of Biafra were exported from three ports: Elem Kalabar (New Calabar), Calabar (Old Calabar) on the Cross River, and Bonny, which arose as the leading port during the eighteenth century. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database indicates that  percent of thevoyages were British.The ships left mainly from Bristol and later from Liverpool. Despite the escalation of the British slave trade from the Bight of Biafra after , only . percent (n = ) of these voyages arrived in South Carolina from this coast. The Atlantic slave trade from this region began early but got off to a slow start, rose during the late s and s, and escalated rapidly during the eighteenth century. It went from about , voyages a year during the first decade of the s to , during the s, , during the s, , during the s, and, at its peak, , during the s. It continued well into the nineteenth century long after it was outlawed, bringing significant numbers of slaves to Cuba. Other patterns were unique as well. An unusually high proportion of females were sent to the Americas as slaves. Gross ‘‘coastal figures’’ conceal the sharply contrasting gender proportions among ethnicities exported from this region. High proportions of females were character-  The Bight of Biafra  istic of the Igbo rather than of the other ethnicities—for example, Ibibio and Moko, who tended to be heavily male. There appears to be a consensus among scholars that the Igbo occupation of the Niger delta was quite ancient. There was no oral tradition of migration from another region. Their creation myths explain that they came from the earth.1 Archaeological evidence indicates more ancient human occupation and productive activities in Igboland than scholars have previously believed . A rock shelter at Afikpo revealed Stone Age tools and pottery some , years old. Yams were grown at least , years ago. Iron working is ancient, and bronze art is of the highest quality.2 The pioneer Nigerian historian Kenneth Dike convincingly argues that the Igbo were very heavily represented among slaves shipped across the Atlantic from the Bight of Biafra. He cites ‘‘scientific research’’ carried out by Captain John Adams between  and  and published in . Adams wrote, ‘‘This place [Bonny] is the wholesale market for slaves, as not fewer than , are annually sold here; , of whom are members of one nation, called Heebo [Ibo], so that this single nation . . . during the last  years [exported no less] than ,; and those of the same nation sold at New Calabar [a delta port], probably amounted, in the same period of time, to , more, making an aggregate amount of , Heebos. The remaining part of the above , is composed of the natives of the Brass country . . . and also of Ibbibbys [Ibibios] or Quaws.’’3 Dike points out an ongoing process of creolization among the peoples living near the Atlantic Coast, which encompassed diverse peoples speaking various languages. He comments: It is broadly true to say that owing to their numerical superiority and consequent land hunger the Ebo migrants (enforced or voluntary) formed the bulk of the Delta population during the nineteenth century. They bequeathed their language to most of the city-states—to Bonny, Okrika, Opobo, and to a certain extent influenced the language and institutions of Old and New Calabar. But the population, which evolved out of this mingling of peoples, was neither Benin, nor Efik, Ibo nor Ibibio. They were a people apart, the product of the clashing cultures of the tribal hinterland...

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