Paper Abstract:
The far hinterland of Calabar discussed in this paper is found in the upper
reaches of the Cross River up to the Cameroon Grassfields from where came a
huge bulk of the enslaved individuals who went through the Calabar port to
different parts of the Atlantic world. They came from varied ethnic entities of
this region of Cameroon and the Cross River provided the common highway through
which they got to Calabar. This highway channeled a tremendous number of
enslaved persons varied in ethnic origins from the far and near hinterlands to
Calabar. The Atlantic slave cargo from Calabar was usually one of the most
ethnically diverse among cargoes from West Africa. This paper shows how slaves from here were
not always Igbo slaves as it has been erroneously claimed. It argues that
importance of Calabar as slave trade port depended a lot on the cargo from its
far hinterlands especially from the Cameroons. And also that a clearer record
of the origins of the slaves from Calabar could help many persons of African
descent in the Atlantic Diaspora who want to reconstruct the history of their
origins from DNA and historical records.
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