From about the middle of the seventeenth century, Calabar emerged as a vibrant entrepot where Europeans traded with coastal merchants to purchase enslaved people and raw materials destined for the Americas and Europe. Referred to as 'Old Calabar' in the historical sources, this busy port was located on the eastern side of the Calabar River at the confluence with the Cross River and was the centre of a vast network of international trade extending to the Grassfields region of Cameroon and to the Benue River valley directly north.
