Politics and society in South Eastern Nigeria 1841-1906:
Date
1972
Authors
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Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
England: 67 Great Russell Street, London WCIB 3BT, Frank Cass and Company Limited,
Abstract
Structural organization of Calabar society; Social change, 1841-56; Internal politics & external factors, 1841-58; Economic stress: the 1860s; Lineage rivalries: the 1870s & 1880s; The new structure of power, 1885-1906; The new economic forces, 1885-1906; The primacy of internal factors.
Description
Historical interest in old Calabar is a product of various factors. For nearly 500 years from the first visit of the early Portuguese missionaries, Calabar has had one of the longest unbroken contacts with Europe of any port on the West African coast. It was a flourishing emporium of trade and one of the first ports on the Nigerian coast to make the transition from slave to palm oil trade. Its people, in particular the Efik, were famous in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries among the trading people of the Oil Rivers. Calabar was the first site of Christian missionary endeavour on the Bight of Biafra. In time it rose to become the first headquarters of the British consul on the Bights of Benin and Biafra and the first capital of the Oil Rivers Protectorate. The history of Calabar has, however, not hitherto received any special attention; historians interested in the trade and politics of Southern Nigeria have focused their attention on Lagos, Benin, Itsekiri, Brass, Kalahari and Bonny. The present work attempts modestly to sketch the outlines of political and social development of Calabar during one of the most crucial periods of its history. It does not pretend to do more than fill a vacuum in our knowledge and understanding of the southern Nigerian coast.