Old Calabar, encompassing Duke Town, Creek Town, and Henshaw Town along the Cross River, was one of the principal trading centres of the Bight of Biafra from the late seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. The Efik people built a commercial civilisation grounded in maritime trade, ritual authority, and evolving social institutions. Merchant houses directed external commerce; the Ekpe society enforced law and custom; and European missionaries later brought schooling and Christianity. Over three centuries, Old Calabar transformed from a hub of the transatlantic slave trade into a centre for palm-oil exports and early colonial administration.
Merchant Houses and Coastal Commerce
Efik society organised trade through lineage-based merchant houses that functioned both as business corporations and extended families. Each house was headed by a chief trader who controlled access to European ships and maintained networks with inland suppliers. These houses bore names that became dynastic, Duke, Cobham, Henshaw, and Eyamba.
European traders, mostly British, paid customary duties (comey) to Efik chiefs for trading privileges. The comey system asserted Efik sovereignty over river access and set the terms of exchange. Before abolition, these networks channelled enslaved Africans from inland regions to the coast for Atlantic export. When abolition and British naval patrols curtailed the trade in the early nineteenth century, the same merchant houses pivoted to legitimate exports, palm oil and kernels, retaining their organisational sophistication and credit systems.
The Ekpe Fraternity and Social Regulation
The Ekpe (Egbo) society was a secret fraternity central to Efik social order. It had graded ranks, initiation rites, and judicial authority. Ekpe officials adjudicated disputes, enforced commercial debts, and sanctioned moral and contractual breaches through ritual authority.
Drums, masks, and symbolic scripts known as Nsibidi were used to communicate decrees. Scholars regard Ekpe as both a court of law and a moral regulator that stabilised competition among merchant elites. Its influence extended beyond the Efik homeland into other Cross River societies, promoting regional cohesion.
From Slaves to Palm Oil
Old Calabar’s prosperity during the eighteenth century depended on the transatlantic slave trade. European records, including the logs of Liverpool ships, show that tens of thousands of enslaved Africans were shipped annually from the Calabar River.
By the early nineteenth century, however, British abolition (1807) and naval blockades forced a commercial realignment. The Efik redirected their networks toward “legitimate commerce”, particularly palm oil, which Britain now demanded for industrial lubrication and soap production.
This transition maintained continuity in trade patterns but transformed labour systems, domestic slavery persisted locally even as export slavery declined. The merchant houses adapted, financing inland oil collection and maintaining their dominance over trade revenues.
Missionaries, Literacy, and Schooling
Missionaries of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland arrived in Calabar in the 1840s. They established churches, schools, and printing presses, translating the Bible and hymns into Efik. The Hope Waddell Training Institute, founded in 1895 at Duke Town, became one of West Africa’s earliest technical and secondary schools.
Through missionary education, literacy spread rapidly among Efik elites. Graduates of the institute became teachers, clerks, and early nationalists, bridging African and European worldviews. These missions also documented Efik language and customs, producing some of the earliest written ethnographies of the region.
Political Negotiation and Colonial Incorporation
Throughout the nineteenth century, Efik chiefs negotiated treaties with European powers. By the 1840s–1880s, Britain’s growing naval and diplomatic presence gradually absorbed Calabar into the Oil Rivers Protectorate, later renamed the Niger Coast Protectorate (1884).
Although chiefs retained ceremonial authority, British officials restricted their external diplomacy and regulated trade under new tariffs. The Obong of Calabar, a chiefly office adapted to colonial administration, became the recognised native authority. This model foreshadowed Britain’s later indirect rule system in Southern Nigeria.
Culture, Ritual, and Continuity
Despite missionary influence, traditional ceremonies persisted. Ekpe masquerades, ancestral festivals, and the use of Nsibidi writing continued alongside Christian worship. Over time, Efik culture absorbed Christian practices without losing its indigenous identity.
Modern Calabar preserves this layered history through festivals such as the Calabar Carnival and heritage institutions like the Duke Town Presbyterian Church and Old Residency Museum. These sites embody a blend of Efik, missionary, and colonial legacies.
Legacy and Historical Lessons
Old Calabar’s trajectory illustrates the adaptability of African polities under global economic pressure. Its merchant houses, ritual institutions, and missionary encounters show how local agency mediated world systems. The Efik experience bridges the histories of the Atlantic slave trade, colonial capitalism, and cultural hybridisation.
Today, the legacy of Old Calabar endures in language, religion, and identity, an enduring testament to how African societies navigated profound transformation without erasing their indigenous structures.
Author’s Note
This article synthesises verified scholarship to present Old Calabar as a maritime polity transformed by commerce, secret societies, and education. It highlights institutional continuity amid economic and colonial change, portraying Efik civilisation as both adaptive and authoritative in shaping its destiny.
References
Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Efik People” and “Old Calabar” entries.
Lovejoy, Paul E., The Institutional Foundations of the Old Calabar Slave Trade, JSTOR, 1978.
Cambridge University Press, African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade, 2013.
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