Trust, pawnship, and Atlantic history: The institutional foundations of the Old Calabar slave trade

American Historical Review

Volumn 104, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 333-355

  Lovejoy, Paul E ^a,b   Richardson, David ^c,d  

^a YORK UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

^b Royal Society of Canada   (Canada)

^c Department of Economic History ^*

^d UNIVERSITY OF HULL   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; CAUCASIAN; ECONOMICS; EDUCATION; ETHNIC GROUP; ETHNOLOGY; HISTORY; HUMAN; LEGAL ASPECT; MINORITY GROUP; MINORITY HEALTH; NEGRO; NIGERIA; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; SOCIAL CONTROL; SOCIAL PROBLEM; SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY; SOCIAL STATUS; UNITED KINGDOM;

AFRICAN CONTINENTAL ANCESTRY GROUP; ECONOMICS; ETHNIC GROUPS; EUROPEAN CONTINENTAL ANCESTRY GROUP; GREAT BRITAIN; HISTORY, 18TH CENTURY; HUMANS; MINORITY GROUPS; MINORITY HEALTH; NIGERIA; PREJUDICE; RACE RELATIONS; SOCIAL CONDITIONS; SOCIAL CONTROL POLICIES; SOCIAL PROBLEMS;

EID: 85045784404     PISSN: 00028762     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2650369     Document Type: Review

References (190)

1. Public Record Office (hereafter, PRO), Chancery Masters' Exhibits, C 107/12, July 20, 1788, Richard Rogers to James Rogers.
2. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations [1776] (London, 1900), 282.
3. Russell R. Menard, "Transport Costs and Long-Range Trade, 1300-1800: Was There a European 'Transport Revolution' in the Early Modern Era?" in James D. Tracy, ed., The Political Economy of Merchant Empires: State Power and World Trade 1350-1750 (Cambridge, 1997), 252.
4. Jacob Price, "Credit in the Slave Trade and Plantation Economies," in Barbara L. Solow, ed., Slavery and the Rise of the Atlantic System (Cambridge, 1991), 313-17.
5. Richard B. Sheridan, "The Commercial and Financial Organisation of the British Slave Trade, 1750-1807," Economic History Review 11 (1958-59): 249-63.
6. Malachy Postlethwayt, The African Trade, the Great Pillar and Support of the British Plantation Trade in America (London, 1745).
7. David Eltis, David Richardson, Stephen D. Behrendt, and Herbert S. Klein, eds., The Atlantic Slave Trade 1527-1867: A Database (Cambridge, 1999).
8. For specific examples of credit in the slave trade in Africa, see Ray A. Kea, Settlements, Trade and Politics in the Seventeenth-Century Gold Coast (Baltimore, Md., 1982), 240;
9. Philip D. Curtin, Economic Change in Pre-Colonial Africa: Senegambia in the Era of the Slave Trade (Madison, Wis., 1975), 303-04;
10. Marion Johnson, "The Ounce in Eighteenth-Century West African Trade," Journal of African History 7 (1966): 197-214.
11. Joseph C. Miller suggests that European credit was at "the core of the complex forces that fuelled the transport and distribution sectors of western central Africa's eighteenth century political economy"; see Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730-1830 (Madison, 1988), 187.
12. See Price, "Credit in the Slave Trade," 335-36.
13. For a survey of the ports of western Africa involved in the export slave trade, see David Eltis, Paul E. Lovejoy, and David Richardson, "Ports of the Slave Trade: An Atlantic-Wide Perspective," in Robin Law, ed., The Ports of the Slave Trade (Bights of Benin and Biafra) (Stirling, forthcoming).
14. There is often confusion over "Calabar," "New Calabar," and "Old Calabar" and by extension to the ethnic designation "Calabari" and "Calabali" for enslaved Africans in the Americas who came from the interior of the Bight of Biafra. The confusion arises from the fact that Elem Kalabari in the Niger delta was often called "New Calabar" to distinguish it from Old Calabar, located on a tributary of the Cross River, the Calabar River, which has no connection with Elem Kalabari. For Old Calabar, see A. J. H. Latham, Old Calabar, 1600-1891: The Impact of the International Economy upon a Traditional Society (Oxford, 1973);
15. Kannan K. Nair, Politics and Society in South Eastern Nigeria, 1841-1906 (London, 1972);
16. Monday Efiongh Noah, Old Calabar: The City States and the Europeans 1800-1885 (Uyo, Nigeria, 1980);
17. Monday B. Abasiattai, ed., A History of the Cross River Region of Nigeria (Enugu, 1990),
18. especially chapters by Latham, "The Pre-Colonial Economy: The Lower Cross Region" (70-89),
19. Noah, "Social and Economic Developments: The Lower Cross Region, 1600-1900" (90-108).
20. Also see David Northrup, Trade without Rulers: Pre-Colonial Economic Development in South-Eastern Nigeria (Oxford, 1978).
21. Douglass C. North, "Institutions, Transaction Costs, and the Rise of Merchant Empires," in Tracy, Political Economy of Empires, 22-41;
22. Lance E. Davis and North, Institutional Change and American Economic Growth (Cambridge, 1971);
23. Oliver E. Williamson, The Economic Institutions of Capitalism: Firms, Markets, Relational Contracting (New York, 1985);
24. Williamson, "Credible Commitments: Using Hostages to Support Exchange," American Economic Review 73 (1983): 519-40;
25. Avner Greif, "Institutions and International Trade: Lessons from the Commercial Revolution," American Economic Review 82 (1992): 128-33;
26. Greif, "On the Political Foundations of the Late Medieval Commercial Revolution: Genoa during the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries," Journal of Economic History 54 (1994): 271-97;
27. Greif, "Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies," Journal of Political Economy 102 (1994): 912-50;
28. Greif, Paul Milgrom, and Barry Weingast, "Coordination, Commitment, and Enforcement: The Case of the Merchant Guild," Journal of Political Economy 102 (1994): 745-76.
29. Thomas Clarkson, An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African [1785], 2d edn. (London, 1788), 27-28.
30. The second edition of the Essay included Clarkson's observations arising from his research in Liverpool and Bristol in 1788, as well as letters and other materials sent to him. Both Northrup and Noah have mistakenly assumed that Clarkson actually visited Old Calabar, but he never did; see Northrup, Trade without Rulers, 66;
31. Noah, "Social and Political Developments," 95.
32. According to Clarkson's own testimony before the parliamentary inquiry in 1789, "he had never been to Africa, but had made a Tour last Year through England, in the View of collecting Information on the Subject of the Trade to Africa; and in this Tour had passed Two Months at Liverpool, and Two at Bristol"; see Sheila Lambert, ed., House of Commons Sessional Papers of the Eighteenth Century, 145 vols. (Wilmington, Del., 1975), 69: 73.
33. For a general discussion of human pawning in Africa, see Toyin Falola and Paul E. Lovejoy, eds., Pawnship in Africa: Debt Bondage in Historical Perspective (Boulder, Colo., 1994).
34. Hugh Goldie, Dictionary of the Efik Language (Farnborough, 1964), 300.
35. For information on slave shipments from the Bight of Biafra before 1700 and after 1810, see David Eltis, "The Volume and African Origins of the British Slave Trade before 1714," Cahiers d'études africaines 35, nos. 2-3 (1995): 138-39, 616-27;
36. Eltis, Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic Slave (Oxford, 1987), 250-52. The slaves taken from the Bight in 1810-1840 were shipped by non-British carriers.
37. See Eltis, et al., Atlantic Slave Trade.
38. For the early slave trade in the Bight of Biafra, see A. F. C. Ryder, "The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade," in Obaro Ikime, ed., Groundwork of Nigerian History (Ibadan, 1980), 238-41;
39. Edwin Ardener, "Documentary and Linguistic Evidence for the Rise of the Trading Polities between Rio del Rey and Cameroons, 1500-1650," in I. M. Lewis, ed., History and Social Anthropology (London, 1968), 81-126;
40. G. I. Jones, The Trading States of the Oil Rivers: A Study of Political Development in Eastern Nigeria (London, 1963), 33-42.
41. Eltis, Lovejoy, and Richardson, "Ports of the Slave Trade."
42. For Bonny, see K. O. Dike, Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta, 1830-1885 (Oxford, 1959);
43. Susan Hargreaves, "The Political Economy of Nineteenth Century Bonny: A Study of Power, Authority, Legitimacy and Ideology in a Delta Trading Community from 1790-1914" (PhD dissertation, University of Birmingham, 1987).
44. Latham, Old Calabar, 55-90;
45. Nair, Politics and Society, 28-113;
46. Martin Lynn, Commerce and Economic Change in West Africa: The Palm Oil Trade in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1997).
47. See also A. G. Hopkins, An Economic History of West Africa (London, 1973), 112-66.
48. A. J. H. Latham, "Currency, Credit and Capitalism on the Cross River in the Pre-Colonial Era," Journal of African History 12 (1971): 600-05;
49. Latham, Old Calabar, 26-28.
50. For the Aro, see J. O. Ijoma and O. N. Njoku, "Highpoints of Igbo Civilization: The Arochukwu Period," in A. E. Afigbo, ed., Groundwork of Igbo History (Lagos, 1991), 313-30;
51. Felicia Ekejiuba, "Highpoints of Igbo Civilisation - The Arochukwu Period: A Sociologist's View," in Afigbo, 333-40;
52. K. O. Dike and Ekejiuba, The Aro of South-Eastern Nigeria, 1650-1980 (Ibadan, 1990);
53. A. O. Nwauwa, "The Dating of the Aro Chiefdom: A Synthesis of Correlated Genealogies," History in Africa 17 (1990): 227-45;
54. G. Ugo Nwokeji, "The Biafran Frontier: Trade, Slaves, and Aro Society, c. 1750-1905" (PhD dissertation, University of Toronto, 1999);
55. Northrup, Trade without Rulers, 113-45.
56. Latham, Old Calabar, 46;
57. Ardener, "Documentary and Linguistic Evidence," 106-11.
58. Information on these merchants and their connections is to be found in Eltis, et al., Atlantic Slave Trade;
59. David Richardson, "Profits in the Liverpool Slave Trade: The Accounts of William Davenport, 1757-1784," in Roger Anstey and P. E. H. Hair, eds., Liverpool, the African Slave Trade, and Abolition (Liverpool, 1976), 61-62;
60. Richardson, ed., Bristol, Africa and the Eighteenth-Century Slave Trade to America, Vol. 3: The Years of Decline 1746-1769 (Bristol, 1991);
61. Stephen D. Behrendt, "The British Slave Trade, 1785-1807: Volume, Profitability, and Mortality" (PhD dissertation, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1993), 303;
62. PRO, Chancery Masters' Exhibits, C 107/59, accounts of Sir James Laroche with James Rogers; PRO, Treasury Papers, T 64/286, Lists of Ships and Their Owners in the African Trade 1789-95. Also see A. J. H. Latham, "A Trading Alliance: Sir John Tobin and Duke Ephraim," History Today 24, no. 12 (1974): 862-67;
63. J. V. Clinton, "King Eyo Honesty II of Creek Town," Nigeria Magazine 69 (1961): 182-83.
64. For the background to the various wards at Old Calabar, see Noah, Old Calabar, 2-18, 48-66;
65. Noah, "Social and Political Developments," 90-108;
66. Ekei Essien Oku, The Kings and Chiefs of Old Calabar (1785-1925) (Calabar, 1989);
67. Ukorebi U. Asuquo, "The Diary of Antera Duke of Old Calabar (1785-1788)," Calabar Historical Journal 5 (1978): 32-42.
68. "The Diary of Antera Duke," in Cyril Daryll Forde, ed., Efik Traders of Old Calabar (London, 1956),
69. hereafter, Antera Duke, "Diary." For the identity of Antera Duke (Ntiero Edem Efiom),
70. see Asuquo, "Diary of Antera Duke," 35-38.
71. For the names of traders supplying slaves in 1769-1770, see Account Book of the Dobson, in Hasell Papers, Dalemain House, Cumbria. We are grateful to Mr. Robert Hasell-McCosh for permission to use material from his family's papers.
72. P. E. H. Hair, "Antera Duke of Old Calabar - A Little More about an African Entrepreneur," History in Africa 17 (1990): 360.
73. In 1805, Henry Nicholls reported that Egbo Young, Duke Ephraim (the younger), Eyo Honesty, and Antera Duke were active traders; see Robin Hallett, ed., Records of the African Association, 1788-1831 (London, 1964), 197, 199.
74. Latham, Old Calabar, 33-37;
75. Nair, Politics and Society, 4-14.
76. Similar patterns of British merchant participation in slaving voyages to other places in the Bight of Biafra are also evident; see Behrendt, "British Slave Trade," 301-03;
77. Eltis, Lovejoy, and Richardson, "Ports of the Slave Trade."
78. Mark Granovetter, "Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness," American Journal of Sociology 91 (1985): 491.
79. Evidence of William James, in Lambert, Sessional Papers, 69: 49.
80. Also see John Adams, Remarks on the Country extending from Cape Palmas to the River Congo (London, 1823), 144. Adams, who was at Old Calabar in the 1790s, observed that "many of the natives write English."
81. William Earle noted that he had only received one of several letters that Duke Abashy had written; see February 10, 1761, William Earle to Duke Abashy, Merseyside Maritime Museum
82. Archives, Liverpool, Earle Papers, Letter Book of William Earle 1760-1. We are grateful to the Merseyside Maritime Museum for permission to cite material from these papers.
83. Ephraim Robin John to Thomas Jones, June 16, 1769, in affidavit of Thomas Jones, Bristol, October 21, 1773, PRO, King's Bench, KB 1/19 Mich 1773.
84. "Grandy King George" [Robin John Ephraim] to Ambrose Lace, January 13, 1773;
85. Robin John Otto Ephraim to Ambrose Lace, July 19, 1773; in Gomer Williams, History of the Liverpool Privateers and Letters of Marque, with an Account of the Liverpool Slave Trade (London, 1897), 542-48.
86. Asuquo, "Diary of Antera Duke," 34.
87. Antera Duke, "Diary," 29, 33, 41, 46, 54, 56, 60. The diary also suggests that letters were being exchanged between Old Calabar merchants; see 52.
88. PRO, C 107/6, March 11, 1792, Thomas Codd to James Rogers & Co.
89. According to Adams, Remarks on the Country, 144, literacy in English was "an art first acquired by some of the traders' sons, who had visited England."
90. Evidence of John Ashley Hall, in Lambert, Sessional Papers, 72: 537. The connection between King George's son and Lace was made by those questioning Hall; Hall himself denied first-hand knowledge of the connection.
91. Ambrose Lace claimed to have spent £60 on young Robin John Otto Ephraim; see Lace to Thomas Jones, November 11, 1773, in Williams, History of the Liverpool Privateers, 541-42.
92. Hallett, Records of the African Association, 195. On the basis of Archibald Dalzel's report, Nicholls spent two weeks in Liverpool talking with students before he left for Old Calabar in 1805.
93. Literacy remained common into the early nineteenth century, at least among the male offspring of the leading merchants. In 1819, G. A. Robertson claimed that "the greater part of the male-natives" at Old Calabar "can read and write English"; see Robertson, Notes on Africa; Particularly those Parts which are Situated between Cape Verd and the River Congo (London, 1819), 313.
94. Similarly, in the early 1820s, Adams observed that the traders of Old Calabar "have had the sagacity to retain up to the present period" knowledge of English: "They have established schools and schoolmasters, for the purpose of instructing in this art the youths belonging to families of consequence"; see Remarks on the Country, 144.
95. Eltis, et al., Atlantic Slave Trade.
96. In 1772-1773, Jones was involved in the repatriation of Little Ephraim Robin John and Ancona Robin Robin John, sons of Robin John Ephraim of Old Town; see Ruth Paley, "After Somerset: Mansfield, Slavery and the Law in England 1772-1830," in Norma Landau and Donna Andrews, eds., Crime, Law and Society (Cambridge, forthcoming).
97. Antera Duke, "Diary," 39, 64;
98. compare Asuquo, "Diary of Antera Duke," 40, who offers a different interpretation, identifying the "Potter of Antera Duke" as King Ekpo Iya Obo, "otherwise called 'Ekpo Ete'" of Eniong.
99. Granovetter, "Economic Action," 495-96.
100. Also see Sara S. Berry, "Stable Prices, Unstable Values: Some Thoughts on Monetization and the Meaning of Transactions in West African Economies," in Jane I. Guyer, ed., Money Matters: Instability, Values and Social Payments in the Modern History of West African Communities (Portsmouth, N.H., 1994), 309-10.
101. Antera Duke, "Diary," 41-42, 52, 63.
102. Antera Duke, "Diary," 37.
103. Smith, Wealth of Nations, 282.
104. William Earle to Duke Abashy, February 10, 1761, in Letter Book of William Earle 1760-1.
105. Robin John Otto Ephraim to Ambrose Lace, July 19, 1773, in Williams, History of the Liverpool Privateers, 547.
106. Also see Hall's testimony in Lambert, Sessional Papers, 72: 537.
107. According to John Ashley Hall, two ship captains from Liverpool were imprisoned and poisoned in 1773; see Lambert, Sessional Papers, 72: 538-39. This incident, combined with the sharp fall in British trade with Africa following the outbreak of war, may have prompted King Henshaw, Duke Ephraim, and Eyo Honesty to write in 1780 to the merchants of Liverpool to assure them that "no whiteman shall be stop onshor any more long as we be Callabar and we make Great Law about whitemen not hurt and Suppose one family Stop any whiteman We Will Brock that family because all country Stand by that Law this time." The letter was published in the Liverpool General Advertiser, February 21, 1788. We wish to thank Stephen Behrendt for drawing our attention to this letter.
108. Letter of James Berry, April 3, 1763, in Williams, History of the Liverpool Privateers, 533-35.
109. PRO, C 107/12, October 16, 1789, Duke Ephraim to Rogers & LRoach [Laroche].
110. For evidence on the massacre, see PRO, KB 1/19 Mich. 1773, affidavit of William Floyd of Bristol, October 5, 1773, and affidavits of Thomas Jones of Bristol, September 18, October 21, and November 15,1773; Minutes of Evidence of John Ashley Hall, March 1-2, 1790, and of Ambrose Lace, March 12, 1790 in Lambert, Sessional Papers, 72: 515-60, 633-36.
111. Thomas Jones of Bristol was involved in the repatriation of at least two of the Old Town residents. Also see the material reproduced in Williams, History of the Liverpool Privateers, 536-38;
112. the more recent discussions in Latham, Old Calabar, 49;
113. Noah, Old Calabar, 17-19;
114. Nair, Politics and Society, 24-25;
115. Paley, "After Somerset."
116. Hall's testimony in Lambert, Sessional Papers, 72: 516.
117. Granovetter, "Economic Action," 491.
118. In the same letter, Robin John Otto Ephraim asked Lace whether or not the two boys he had sent Lace's son Joshua as companions had arrived in Liverpool. See Robin John Otto Ephraim to Ambrose Lace, July 19, 1773, in Williams, History of the Liverpool Privateers, 547.
119. Granovetter, "Economic Action," 490.
120. S. Berry, "Stable Prices, Unstable Values," 309.
121. On May 4, 1786, Antera Duke, "Diary," 45, recorded that Ekpe was used to collect a debt from Aqua Bakassey for goods advanced on credit; a payment of one slave was received.
122. Latham, Old Calabar, 29-30.
123. It should be noted that Latham suggests that Ekpe was only introduced in the middle of the eighteenth century, but in fact William Snelgrave had already documented its existence in 1713, and it is likely to have been introduced at least several decades earlier. See Snelgrave, A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea and the Slave-Trade (London, 1734), 7-12. Snelgrave referred to a boy, whom a prominent Old Calabar resident was about to sacrifice to "his God Egbo." An earlier incident witnessed by Snelgrave in 1704 was similar, implying that Ekpe was established by then.
124. E. J. Alagoa, "Peoples of the Cross River Valley and the Eastern Niger Delta," in Ikime, Nigerian History, 61,
125. citing Ado N'Idu, "Ekpe: Cross River Cult," West Africa Review (1959): 749.
126. For early nineteenth-century commentaries on Ekpe, see "Letters of Henry Nicholls 1804-1805," in Hallett, Records of the African Association, 191-210;
127. Holman's Voyage to Old Calabar [1828], Donald C. Simmons, ed. (Calabar, 1959);
128. James Holman, A Voyage round the World, 4 vols. (London, 1834), 1: 356-410;
129. J. B. King, "Details of Explorations of the Old Calabar River, in 1841 and 1842 by Captain Becroft and Mr. J. B. King," Journal of the Royal Geographical Society 14 (1844): 260-83.
130. For more modern interpretations, see Noah, Old Calabar, 27-32, 48, 71-72;
131. Alagoa, "Peoples of the Cross River Valley," 61-66.
132. Also see Donald C. Simmons, "An Ethnographic Sketch of the Efik People," in Forde, Efik Traders, 1-26;
133. G. I. Jones, "The Political Organization of Old Calabar," in Forde, Efik Traders, 116-60;
134. C. N. de Cardi, "A Short Description of the Natives of the Niger Coast Protectorate, with Some Account of their Customs, Religion, Trade, etc.," in Mary Kingsley, West African Studies (London, 1899);
135. Percy Amaury Talbot, In the Shadow of the Bush (London, 1912);
136. Talbot, Life in Southern Nigeria: The Magic, Beliefs and Customs of the Ibibio Tribe (London, 1923);
137. Talbot, The Peoples of Southern Nigeria: A Sketch of Their History, Ethnology and Languages, 4 vols. (London, 1926).
138. Noah, Old Calabar, 30.
139. Simmons, Holman's Voyage to Old Calabar, 12, 18.
140. Brief Statement of the History of Henshaw's Town, Old Calabar River, West Coast of Africa for the information of George Offer and Co., London, December 30, 1877, PRO, Foreign Office Papers, FO 84/1527, as cited in Noah, Old Calabar, 30.
141. Noah, Old Calabar, 30. Ibid.
142. For a description of the sanctions that could be imposed, see Jones, "Political Organization," 142;
143. and Holman, Voyage round the World, 393.
144. Alagoa, "Peoples of the Cross River Valley," 62-63;
145. also see E. Dayrell, "Some Nsibidi Signs," Man 10 (1909): 113-14.
146. Alagoa, "Peoples of the Cross River Valley," 61-62;
147. Northrup, Trade without Rulers, 110, 156;
148. Nwokeji, "Biafran Frontier," 93-94;
149. U. N. Abalogu, "Ekpe Society in Arochukwu and Bende," Nigeria Magazine 126-27 (1978): 78-97.
150. For the secret society at Bonny, see Hargreaves, "Political Economy of Nineteenth Century Bonny," 111.
151. Antera Duke, "Diary," 59-60. "Grand Ekpe" appears to have involved sanctions imposed by or on the most senior officers of the society who comprised the council. It was designed from "ekpe," which might be "blown" by any member or ward of the society against an offending party. Members or wards might be pressured into removing the "blow" by senior officers or the council.
152. On the basis of evidence from 1828, Latham, Old Calabar, 38,
153. concludes that "several European traders joined the [Ekpe] society during the nineteenth century if not earlier" (emphasis added). Eyo Okon Akak may have misinterpreted the diary of Antera Duke to reach a similar conclusion; see Akak, Efiks of Old Calabar, 4 vols. (Calabar, 1981-83), 3: 292.
154. According to Simmons, Holman's Voyage to Old Calabar, 12, "They sometimes admit Englishmen into this assembly [Ekpe]: Captain Burrell of the Ship Hayward of Liverpool held the rank of Yampai, which is one of considerable importance, and he found it exceedingly to his advantage, as it enabled him to recover all debts due to him by the natives."
155. E. J. Alagoa and A. M. Okorobia, "Pawnship in Nembe, Niger Delta," in Falola and Lovejoy, Pawnship in Africa, 74.
156. Also see Felix K. Ekechi, "Pawnship in Igbo Society," in Falola and Lovejoy, 83-104.
157. Letter of James Berry of Liverpool, April 3, 1763, in Williams, History of the Liverpool Privateers, 533.
158. Evidence of James Morley, in Lambert, Sessional Papers, 73: 149-54.
159. Morley told the parliamentary inquiry that his ship, the Amelia, was at Old Calabar in 1763 or 1764, but from other evidence provided by Morley, it appears that the voyage in question was made in 1761-1762; see also Richardson, Years of Decline, 139.
160. Evidence of John Ashley Hall, in Lambert, Sessional Papers, 72: 227. The Calabar River, on which the various wards of Old Calabar are located, is a tributary of the Cross River, while Rio del Rey flows into the estuary where the Cross River joins the Bight of Biafra.
161. Antera Duke, "Diary," 86, 95, 109, 110, for the original pidgin.
162. Falola and Lovejoy, "Introduction," in Pawnship in Africa, 4.
163. James Berry, April 3, 1763, in Williams, History of the Liverpool Privateers, 533.
164. Evidence of James Morley, in Lambert, Sessional Papers, 73: 154.
165. For another example, see the account of James Berry, April 3, 1763, when four sons of Robin John Ephraim (Grandy King George) of Old Town were among the pawns being held by James Berry; see Berry's letter, April 3, 1763, in Williams, History of the Liverpool Privateers, 534.
166. Antera Duke, "Diary," 59.
167. For instance, James Arnold, in evidence to Parliament in 1790, reported that the master of the Bristol ship Ruby, which traded at Bimbia in Cameroons in 1787-1788, had released eleven slaves and some ivory to three local merchants in order to allow them to redeem pawns from another ship, the master of which was threatening to sail away with pawns. Arnold reported that the eleven slaves secured the release of "Six or Seven" of the merchants' pawns; Lambert, Sessional Papers, 72: 52.
168. Antera Duke, "Diary," 35.
169. Williamson, Economic Institutions of Capitalism, 17.
170. Evidence of John Ashley Hall, in Lambert, Sessional Papers, 72: 227.
171. Grandy King George [Robin John Ephraim] to Ambrose Lace, January 13, 1773, in Williams, History of the Liverpool Privateers, 543.
172. Antera Duke, "Diary," 59.
173. Also see Nair, Politics and Society, 15.
174. In 1787, one ship threatened to sail before slaves could be delivered against trade goods that had been advanced to Henshaw and one Willy Tom. According to Antera Duke, "Diary," 59, the Ekpe decree expressly forbade "any Captain to send any Calabar pawn, which was given for my slave goods, away in his tender."
175. PRO, C 107/12, April 1788, Richard Rogers to James Rogers.
176. Letter to Thomas Jones, Old Calabar, November 11, 1773, in Williams, History of the Liverpool Privateers, 543-45.
177. PRO, C 107/12, April 1788, Richard Rogers to James Rogers.
178. PRO, C 107/12, July 20, 1788, Richard Rogers to James Rogers.
179. Evidence of James Fraser, in Lambert, Sessional Papers, 71: 15.
180. Cited in Williams, History of the Liverpool Privateers, 541. Significantly, only Robin John Otto Ephraim, who, as noted earlier, was educated in Liverpool, signed with his own name; the others used crosses, which indicates that not all merchants were literate.
181. For discussions of cross-cultural trade, see Philip D. Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade in World History (Cambridge, 1984);
182. Abner Cohen, "Cultural Strategies in the Organization of Trading Diasporas," in Claude Meillassoux, ed., The Development of Indigenous Trade and Markets in West Africa (London, 1971), 266-81;
183. Janet Tai Landa, Trust, Ethnicity and Identity: Beyond the New Institutional Economics of Ethnic Trading Networks, Contract Law and Gift-Exchange (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1994).
184. Also see Paul E. Lovejoy, Caravans of Kola: The Hausa Kola Trade 1700-1900 (Zaria, 1980);
185. Lovejoy, Salt of the Desert Sun: A History of Salt Production and Trade in the Central Sudan (Cambridge, 1986).
186. Avner Offer, "Between the Gift and the Market: The Economy of Regard," Economic History Review 50 (1997): 450-76 (quotation, 468).
187. Bernard Bailyn, The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1955).
188. Offer, "Between the Gift and the Market," 468.
189. Smith, Wealth of Nations, 496.
190. North, "Institutions, Transaction Costs, and the Rise of Merchant Empires," 26.