In 1807, the British Parliament passed the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act, banning British ships and British subjects from participating in the transatlantic slave trade. Slavery itself within the British Empire continued until the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, but 1807 marked a decisive legal break. Britain moved from being one of the largest carriers in the Atlantic slave system to a state that increasingly used naval force and diplomacy to suppress the trade.
Along the coast of southern Nigeria, the change was profound but gradual. Commerce did not stop. Instead, it evolved. Slave exports declined unevenly across decades, while palm oil and other commodities expanded in scale and importance. Over time, this economic shift altered political authority, trade networks, and the balance of power along the Niger Delta.
Southern Nigerian Ports in the Atlantic Slave System
For more than two centuries before 1807, coastal centres in what is now southern Nigeria, including Bonny, Old Calabar, Brass, and later Lagos, were connected to the Atlantic slave economy. Enslaved captives reached the coast through inland systems shaped by warfare, political rivalries, punishment, debt, and raiding. Coastal merchant houses negotiated with European traders, who transported captives across the Atlantic to plantation societies in the Americas.
These ports were dynamic commercial hubs, integrated into global markets. Their importance shifted across time, but by the late eighteenth century, the Niger Delta and neighbouring coastal regions were deeply embedded in Atlantic trading circuits.
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Naval Suppression and a Gradual Decline
After 1807, Britain began enforcing its anti slave trade policy at sea. In 1808, the Royal Navy established the West Africa Squadron to intercept slave ships along the African coast. Britain also negotiated treaties and applied diplomatic pressure to reduce participation in the trade.
Slave exports from southern Nigerian ports did not end immediately. Demand remained strong in parts of the Americas, particularly in Brazil and Cuba. Traders adapted by changing routes and flying foreign flags. As a result, slave exports continued at varying levels into the mid nineteenth century. The pace of decline differed from port to port, shaped by local politics, Atlantic demand, and Britain’s growing enforcement capacity.
By the 1840s and early 1850s, sustained naval patrols and diplomatic pressure had significantly reduced the trade from many coastal centres.
Lagos and the Politics of Intervention
Lagos became a critical site where anti slave trade enforcement merged with political intervention. In 1851, British naval forces bombarded Lagos and removed Oba Kosoko, who resisted British demands. Oba Akitoye, who was more aligned with British commercial and diplomatic expectations, was restored.
Suppression of the slave trade was central to British justification, but commercial and strategic concerns also shaped policy. In 1861, Lagos was annexed as a British Crown Colony through the Treaty of Cession. From that point, British authority in the area moved from influence to formal rule.
Palm Oil and the Expansion of “Legitimate Commerce”
As Atlantic slave exports declined, commodity trade expanded. British officials promoted what they termed “legitimate commerce,” referring to exports of goods rather than people. In the Niger Delta, palm oil became the most significant of these goods.
Palm oil was in growing demand in Britain for soap production and as an industrial lubricant. From the 1820s through the mid nineteenth century, exports increased substantially. Delta merchants reorganised river transport, storage, and trade networks around palm oil and later palm kernels. Established merchant elites adjusted to new market realities, often maintaining economic influence despite the shift in commodities.
The rise of palm oil was not an overnight transformation. For decades, slave exports and commodity exports overlapped. Gradually, palm oil became dominant in coastal trade, linking Niger Delta producers to British manufacturers and global markets.
Continuities of Labour and Power
The decline of Atlantic slave exports did not eliminate systems of unfree labour within West Africa. Domestic slavery, pawnship, and other coercive labour structures persisted in various forms. Economic transition reshaped markets, but it did not immediately dismantle entrenched hierarchies.
British naval patrols and treaty enforcement also disrupted local authority. Intervention could alter succession, intensify rivalries, and redefine access to trade. The language of suppression operated alongside expanding commercial influence, strengthening Britain’s foothold along the coast.
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From Trade to Chartered Rule
By the late nineteenth century, British involvement extended inland. The Royal Niger Company, chartered in 1886, consolidated commercial and political authority across large parts of the Niger basin through treaties and monopoly control. What had begun as coastal trade and anti slave trade enforcement gradually evolved into structured imperial administration.
Economic transformation, diplomatic agreements, naval force, and corporate power combined to reshape the region. The transition from slave exports to palm oil commerce was part of a broader reordering that laid foundations for colonial rule in what would become Nigeria.
Conclusion
Britain’s abolition of the slave trade in 1807 altered Atlantic law and policy, but change along the southern Nigerian coast unfolded over decades. Slave exports declined gradually. Palm oil rose to prominence. Coastal merchants adapted. British patrols expanded into political intervention, and commercial influence deepened into formal rule.
The result was not silence along the coast, but transformation. Markets shifted, authority realigned, and the structures of empire slowly took root in the spaces once defined by the Atlantic slave trade.
Author’s Note
The end of Britain’s participation in the slave trade did not instantly free southern Nigeria from Atlantic entanglement. Instead, it redirected trade, strengthened British leverage, and reshaped coastal economies around palm oil and treaties. The deeper story is one of gradual change, where economic opportunity, naval power, and political ambition intertwined, leaving a legacy that extended far beyond the abolition law itself.
References
Drescher, Seymour. Abolition, A History of Slavery and Antislavery. Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Law, Robin. From Slave Trade to ‘Legitimate’ Commerce, The Commercial Transition in Nineteenth Century West Africa. Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Falola, Toyin and Heaton, Matthew. A History of Nigeria. Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Lovejoy, Paul E. Transformations in Slavery, A History of Slavery in Africa. Cambridge University Press, 2011.
