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Home , Anaang people, Anyanwu, Arondizuogu, Aro people, Bight of Biafra, Cross River (Nigeria)

THE BIAFRAN FRONTER: TRADE, SLAVES, AND AR0 SOCIETY, C. 1750-1905

G. Ugo Nwokeji

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree rf Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of History

O Copyright by G. Ugo Nwokeji, 1999 National Library Bibliothèque nationale m*m of du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographic Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue Wellington Ottawa ON KiA ON4 OttawaON KIAON4 calada CaMda

The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive Licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in rnicroform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique.

The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protége cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts firom it Ni ta thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. To the victimz rif the trade ABSTRACT

THE BIAFRAN FRONTIER: TRADE,SLAVES, AND AR0 SOCIETY, C. 1750-1905 G. Ugo Nwokeji, Doctor of F'ilosophy, Department of History, University of Toronto, 1999

For 400 years, African societies supplied the labour needs of the Amencas through forced migration. This reality provokes basic questions, such as how Afnca supplied so many captives, the organization of the trade in the hinterland, the trade's political, social and cultural implications, its gender and other composition, and how African societies adjusted to the suppression of the tram-oceanic trafic in the 19" century. This study addresses these questions as they relate to the

Bight of Biafh, a major expurring region. The region is of special interest because its trade developed relatively late, expanded dramaticaily frorn the mid- 18h century onwards in the absence of large centralized states, and drew a higher proportion of females than any other region. This enquiry describes the system that produced the individuals who were forced into

Atlantic slavery. Based on marinent joumals, quantitative data sets, archival material, oral data, and scholarly literature, this work demonstrates that the nse and expansion of the Aro merchant group primarily influenced the character of the Biafian trade. Unlike previous studies, which explain the organization of the hinterland trade on the basis of presence or absence of state systerns, this anaiysis associates it with the dynamics of a trade diaspora Seeing Aro Settlements in the context of a trade diaspora thmws light on crucial aspects of trade organization, commercial politics, insritutiond change, and cultural development The gender structure of the Biafkan trade was a fwction of the prevailing socio-cultural processes and the specific configuration of slave markets - domestic, Saharan, and Atlantic. Unlike existing studies of the slave trade which have sought to explain the modes of enslavement by reference to export sarnples alone, this work incorporates the categories of captives retained in in the region. The study maintains that the means by which a person becarne captive was the principal determinant of his or her destination. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

1 would like to thank the individuals and institutions that helped in different ways in shaping this work. The Department of History and the School of Graduate Studies of the University of Toronto were forthcornhg with hancial support throughout my doctoral studies. The university 's Centre for Intemationai Development supported my research with a grant The greatest intellectual debt for this study goes to my supervisor, Professor Martin A. Klein. He has diligently guided rny doctoral studies from the beginning, and intervened financidly at some crucial junctures. The prompt attention he gives to his students has been the singular most positive lwson in my graduate experience. 1 also appreciate the support of Professor Paul E. Lovejoy, a great resource person, who supe~sedmy field preparation in comparative slavery, and is a member of my thesic cornmittee. Professor Nakanyike B. Musisi, also a rnernber of the cornmittee, has provided valuable advice. Professors Julian Dent and Michael LeWi have emiched my University of

Toronto expenence.

I wish to express my gratitude to Professor David Eltis for inspiration, friendship, staunch support, and exemplary magianimity. Also for their friendship, 1 thank Professors Ogbu Kdu,

Vincent Thompson, and M.A. supervisor, Chns Youé. 1 have been a beneficiary of the goodwili and support of Dr. Ibrahim Abdullah, Professor E.J. Alagoa, Professor Michael Echeruo,

Professor Peter Ekeh, Professor Felix Ekechi, Professor Toyin FaIola.,-Dr. Paul Idahosa, Professor

Joseph Inikori, Professor Ray Kea, Professor Robin Law, Dr. Chidi Nwaubani, Dr. Onaiwu

Ogbomo, Dr. Andrew Okolie, Professor John Thornton, Professor Maureen Wamer-Lewis, Ms.

Jocelyn Jacquot, Professor David Richardson, Professor Tony Kirk-Greene, Dr. Onwuka Njoku,

Professor Phi1 Morgan, Professor Gwendolyn Hall, and Mr. Hans Zell.

For their contributions to this research, 1 would like to greet the elders who taught me aspects of hoand Igbo history, and to pinpoint Eze John O. Dike and Eze Jonas Ekemezie Uche -v-

both of Aro-nde-hogu, Mazi KG.Ufere, Mazi Aaron Muotoh, Mazi Michael Sunday Igwe,

Mazi Jacob Okoro, Mazi Ukobasi Kanu-Igbo, Mazi J.G. Okoro, Mazi Thomas Okereke, and

Mai Anibuike Nkemakonam Nwaokoye-Emesuo (Periccomo). Among the rnany archivists that

helped, I am especially grateful to U.O.A.Esse, Zona1 Co-Ordinator (East) of the

National Archives Deparhnent, and Faîher Leo Laden, the archivkt of the Holy Ghost

Provincidate, Dublin. Dr. J. Okoro Ijoma, Mai Ohien Okoro, friends Aloy Igbo and Fritz-Canute

Ngwa, and cousins Dr. Ifeanyi Ike and Emeka Okoronkwo helped during crucial junctures of the

fieldwork. Dr. Gloria Chuku, Dr. Jonathan Sadowsky, and Professor Bob Shenton sacnficed part

of their Summer holiday to read the entire dr& and made invaluable comments. Professor Robin

Law read and commented on several early chapters. Chapter 2 has benefited from the comments

of Dr. Steve Behrendt, and Chapters 2 and 3 fiom those of Dr. Sean Hawkins. Dr. Eli Bentor, and

Dr. Douglas Chambers hdly made their theses available to me. Dr. David Dickson, Professor

Felicia Ekejiuba, Professor Jane Guyer, Dr. Susan Hargreaves, Dr. Martin Lynn, Professor J.D. Y.

Peel, Professor Richard Rathbone, and Dr. Innocent Uzoechi graciously helped when 1intruded in

their lives.

Finally and most importantly, 1 sdute the members of my family. 1start by paying tibute

to my father, Chief Godwin Ukobasi Nwokeji, who is no longer around to witness the culmination of my educational pursuit. My mother, Christiana Ejenene Nwokeji has been a bastion of strength

in every imaginable way. 1 also salute my siblings and their spouses for their support: Georgy

Umenaa and Philip Urnwuiakwe, May Enda and Tony Okafor, and Uche Cele and Fab Amobi.

Not to be left out are Dr. Orizu Nwokeji, Mazi Stephen Nwokeji, Oby and Maureen. For their long-standing support, 1 must also thank my aunts, Theresa Ejeagwu and Martina Ike, and their husbands Sir George and Chief Michael respectively. TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE DEDICATION

ABSTRACT ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS vi

LIST OF TABLES vii

MAP The Bight of Biafka and its Hinterland

CHAPTER ONE Introduction

CHAPTER TWO The Aro in the Atlantic Conkxt: Expansion and Shifts, the 1620s to 1807

CHAPTER THREE The Trade Diaspora in Regional Context: Commercial Organization in the Era of Expansion, 1 750- 1 850

CHAPTER FOUR Household and Market Persons: Gender, Deportees, and Society, 1750-1 860

CHAPTER FlVE Culture Formation in the Trading Frontier, 1750-1 890

CHAPTER SE Overlapping Transitions: Slaves, Trade, and Agriculture, 1808- 1905

CHAPTER SEVEN Summary and Conclusions

SOURCES CITED LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1. Captives Exported, by Period, 1470-1699 48

Table 2.2. A Sample of Captive Prices in New and OId Cidabar, 1678-1 704 5 1

Table 2.3. Rounded Figures of AU Captives Exported, by Decade, 1700-1739 52

Table 2.4: Comparative Prices of Biafian Captives in the 55

Table 2.5: Rounded Figures of Al1 Captives Exported, by Decade, 1740- 1809 56

Table 2.6: Comparative Export trends via Liverpool Ships: Bo~y,Old and New Calabar, 1752-99 57

Table 3.1 : Division of Spheres among Lineages of the Obinkita Lineage-Group 76

Table 3.2: Principal Aro Settlements at the Edge of the Igbo Heartland 78

Table 3.3 : Division of Spheres among Aro Lineage-Groups 101

Table 4.1. Comparative Age and Sex Composition, by Period 120

Table 4.2. Mean Male Ratio by Twenty-Five Year Periods, 175 1- 1850 126

Table 4.3. Age Composition, 182 1-22, 1825-39 146

Table 4.4. Child Sex Ratios, 1821-22, 1825-39 147

Table 5.1. Nde-hop lineage-groups before 1890 and the original occupiers of the land

Table 5.2: Lexico-Statistics of Aro-, nde-hogu, non-Aro Comrnunities around nde-hop, and Nri-

Table 6.1: Captives Exponed, by Quinquennia, 18 1 1-60 194

Table 6.2. Mamage Register of Nde-hogu Residents (Grooms), 1919-20 228 THE BlGHT OF AND ITS HINTERLAND

O 25 50 75 10Okm 1 Scale 1:2 800 000 MODERN 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTlON

The from the was increasing in 1750. In the hinterland,

trade had corne under the control of merchants fkom Aro-Chukwu, a tom located north of

the -Enyong Creek estuary in the south-esstem portion of the Nigerian section of

the Biafian hinterland. As they travened the region, these men established rest houses and

small entrepots. One of them, Izuogu Mgbokpo, went further. He settled his people or & (a

generic term for offspring, henchmen, followers, clients and slaves) on a major trade route

some thirty kilometres west of the upper , in the densely populated central

Igboland. Called Aro-nde-Izuomi (Izuogu's people's Aro), this settlement became in due

course the largest and most populous Aro cornmunity. In quick succession, similarly

motivated Aro merchants established large settlements - Ajali, nde-Ikelionwu, nde-0wu and

others (generically called nde-Eni) north-west of nde-Izuogu in the Nn-Awka region, and

Inokun in the densely populated part of Ibibioland south of Aro-Chukwu. Neighbouring

peoples supplied the Aro with produce, captives and some porterage services, while the Aro

gave foreign goods in exchange. The ongins of these foreign goods indicate the extent of the

region's involvement in the emerging world economic system; guns and gunpowder came

fiorn vînous European centres, "George" cioth from the Netherlands and most other cloth

from India. Tobacco was being produced in the Chesapeake Bay region in today's United

States principally by Biafians who had been exported as captives of the overseas traffic.'

'1 reconstmct the foregoing detail hmthe following sources: NAE 8 l/27-OIUDIST 4/9/70; NAE OWCB23- ORLDIST 3111359; NAE 1248 1A-MINLOC 16/1/1326; NAE OKfDIST 1911/1 1908-25; NAE ORLDIST 141113; NAE 35/1920-OKIDIST 412132; NAE 38/22 OKlDIST 4/4/29; NAE CSE I18516197A; Arodiogbu 1996; J.O. Dike 1996; Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 205-08; Goodlife 1933; Goodlife 1 952; Heslop 19367; M.S. Igwe 1996; Michael ike 1995; Mayne 1935; J.C.P.~~~o 1973; C. Okoii 1996; J.G. Okoro 1985: 23-28; J. E. Uche 1996; Umo ad. -2-

Although the Atlantic slave market provided profits, throughout that era and beyond, the Aro ensured that they retained enough persons. As a small group, the Aro concentrated on group expansion, and depended on slaves econornically as merchandise and labourers

(Nwokeji, forthcorning). The political processes such as the civil wars and succession disputes were directly or indirectly related to slaving. A look at such social facts as rnarriage and the incest prohibition immediately reveals how hopelessly entangled they were with slaving. The people's belief system and deities were grounded in, and reinforced by, slaving related processes. The value system celebrated the ownership and proliferation of people, and encouraged the sale of others into Atlantic slavery. The decision regarding who to send to

Atlantic slavery and who to retain was central to Aro political economy and, ipso facto, to this study. Aro merchants were discriminating practitioners of both business and social engineering. While they provided rulers of non-Aro groups with an avenue for the disposa1 of dissidents, deviants, incrirninated persons and political enemies, the fiontiersmen welcomed craftsmen, artists, medicine men, fortune seekers, refugees and others who desired the prestige and protection which Aro citizenship conferred in those days. Even these non- captive immigrants found that they could not enter Aro society except through another person - frequently a male - who was already well established there. The Aro captured the phenornenon of expansion in the concept of mmuba, which, at a most basic level may be translated as "proliferation". Oral history and folklore often refer to mrnuba as an end in itself, but this idcology also encapsulated the people's desire to increase the labour pool and strengthen the Aro population for political purposes.

The Aro world had by the mid-lgm century exceeded 150 diaspora settlements across the Biafian hinterland. It celebrated cornmon observances and maintained linkage institutions,

such as the annual Ikeii festival and the Ek~esociety. These institutions fostered and

sustained a strong pan-Aro identity that facilitated Aro commercial and political interests. In

spite of these linkage institutions, the Aro diaspora evolved an intermesh of cultural forms

that managed to remain in the Aro grid. For exarnplt, the 250,000 inhabitants of nde-

~niogu,~the vast majonty of whom descended fiom people who were not Aro 250 years ago,

speak a dialect that deviates substantially From that spoken in the metropole. The

fiontierspeople also developed new notions of taboos, deities and even of class

consciousness. These developrnents did not result simply fiom the usual process of

domestication associated with frontier societies, among colonists or immigrant groups

coping with the challenges of a new environment. It happened as the Aro stmggled to

continue to dorninate trade in vanous parts of the Biafran hinterland. Ironically, while the Aro

diaspora altered Aro ways, sometimes radically, they often remained aloof and distinct from

?This estimate is worked out from 3% cornpounded annual growth rate of the 1927 estimate of 30,000. See NAE 8 1/27-OKIDIST 4/9/70. "Anthropological Report on Aros of Ndizuogu and Others." Since the report itself betrays cotonid officiais' ignorance of the full extent of nde-Imogu territory, it is iikely tiiat the 30,000 under- represented the population. The reason for the under-eslimate is that nde-Izuogu fell in two parts - one part in the Orlu District (comprising most of the nde-Izuogu temtory west of the Imo) and the other in the District (aiof tlie Imo and sornc territos. on the ~cstbank), both in thc Okipr Division. Oric 1935 rcport yct again covered only the Orlu part, as did the map accompanying it (see Mayne 1935). This situation obviates any attempt to derive rdiable census figures. Censuses have covered only the Orlu part. The exact figure from the 30,000 1927 population is 237,534. Dike and Ekejiuba (1990: 217) put the population at 83,000.This number under-estimates the population. Theresa Nwankwo (199 1: IO) has claimed that a census of 193 1 put the population at 180,000.1 have not seen this census. The British decision to pursue the policy of administrative demarcation of nde-Izuogu lias not been explained. One contradiction in this policy crystallized in a petition which some My nde-hogu signatories presented against the Okigwe Division district offiœr, G.I. Jones, in June 1940. They wondered why Jones would ask the east Irno nde-Iniogu to attend the OtanniUtanchara court on the grounds of neaniess and would not let other towns in the close proximity of the west honde-hogu court to attend it on îhe same basis (NAE EP 1238 1-MTNLOC 6/1/306: Your Obedient Members to Secretaq of the Southern Provinces, 24 June 1940). The Secretary of the Southern Provinces, RJ. Hook, replied that "the existing arrangement must continue in default of any better, until such time as a detailed investigation of the position can be made" (See m: Secretaxy of the Southern Provinces to Gentlemen, 24 July 1940). The curious demarcation has remained to this chy, with one part in the and the other part in the Okigwe Local Government Areas of . the pre-existing comrnunities in their irnmediate neighbourhood.

Mer the new trade in palm oil replaced the Atlantic slave trade in the rnid-19~

century, most of the region's food producing groups devoted more of their time to the

production of paim oil. Some others were actively involved in the new trade. These

developments restmctured the Aro economy and afFected Aro relationships with the non-

Aro. By the 1890s, the Aro had begun to produce food for themselves, and increasingly for

the market, while still dominating what was left of the slave traffic. These processes were

going on through the Aro Expedition of 1901-02, by which the British overthrew Aro power

and imposed a new order. By 1905, the terminal point of this study, the Aro diaspora had

effectively been subjected. The present study elaborates the foregoing aory, relates it to the

findings of other scholars, and situates it in Atlantic and regional contexts.

The Biafran Trade: Features, Organization, and Expansion

Although the Biafran trade grew in leaps and bounds in the 18h century, it was a small part of

the Aftican Atlantic trade before the 1730s. The region provided only 4% of the captives

exponed fiom western Mcain the first half of the 17" century, and 8% in the second.' By

the 1670s, Bende, the principal slave mart in the hinterland, was already well-established

(Nwokeji 1997a). Camed mainly in Engiish ships, some 80% of Biafian captives ended in

3Except othemise stated, overall Biafran export figures are dcuiated fiom Table 5 in Richardson (1989b: 13). There are rnany contending estimates. See Anstey 1975; Behrendt 1997; Curtin 1969, 1976; Eltis 1978, 1987, 1989b, 1995; Eltis and Richardson 1995a: Inikon 1976% 1976b, 1978, 1992b;Lovejoy 1982b; Richardson 1989a; Richardson and Behrendt 1995. See Henige (1986), Inikori (1994% 1994b, 1998), Lovejoy (1989), and Manning l998b for analyses of the historiography. English colonies during the 18' century.' The region's share of the Afncan trade rose by 17.5

percentage points between the 1700s and the end of the century, a period when Europeans

were wondering "how Africa [was] able to supply ... such prodigious numbers" (Hippisley

In the Bight of Biafh, the big surge came in the mid-18' century. The region

exported an annual mean of about 16,700 captives between 1750 and 1799 - but something

like 22,536 a year in the 1780s. With only about 200 kilometres of coastline, the south-

eastem Nigenan portion of the Bight of Biafra was the area of the most intensive slaving in

the second half of the 18& century. Csncomitant with this mid-century surge, Bomy, seMng

mainly the trade from the Igbo heartland, superseded Old Calabar as the region's port, and

also became Afnca's busiest. Tumaround rates at Biafra's ports also became significantly

shorter than elsewhere (Drake 1976: 145-49; Eltis and Richardson 1995b, 1997;

Falconbridge 1788: 1 1, 14-18). The region accounted for more than one in four Afncan

captives that enetered the overseas traffic (Behrendt 1988: 9). Thus, the mid- 18

marked a tuming point in the Biafian Atlantic trade. By the third quarter of the century, the

"tmst" system, by which Europeans advanced goods to Afican merchants on credit, had been

well established (Lovejoy and Richardson 1997, forthcoming). Another key feature of the

Biafian trade is that the region exported higher proportions of females than any other region.

"For the Biafran Atlantic slave trade to 1700, see Thornton (forthcoming). John Thoxnton States: "Undoubtedly ... the greatest source of sIaves for New Calabar [thefi the dominant port] was the Igbo-speaking region" (1 1). As early as 1627, Spanish rnissionaq priest ALfonso de Sandoval reporteci that Caravalies, as Bihcaptives were then cailed, were "innumerable* in Spanish America and spoke a variety of tongues (Sandoval[1627] 1956: 94, 96). A 1790s House of Lords suivey shows that the Bight of Biafra and West-Central Afnca accounted for 78% of al1 captives arriving in Jamaica from known AEncan ports. This pattern reflects that of other English colonies. Between these two regions, the Bight of Biafra exported more (H.Klein 1978: 147-48, 150, 173). It accounted for 40% of al1 British purchases just More abolition in 1807 (Law and Lovejoy 1996). This characteristic deviated from the focus of New World demand. Thus, the proper

understanding of the Atlantic slave trade cails for a close exarnination of the institutions and

processes that underpinned the trade from Afica (Eltis 1986; Eltis and Engeman 1992,

1993; Galenson 1986: 97- 1 14; Geggus 1989: 37-38,40-4 1; Inikon 1992a; H. Klein 1978:

1 74, 24 1-42; 1983: 3 5-37; Lovejoy and Hogendom 1979; Robertson and Klein 1983;

Thomton 199 1, 1992a).

The two largest ethnic groups in Biafia, the Igbo and Ibibio, provided most of the

exports from early on. In the rnid-18' century, German-bom Moravian rnissionary Christian

Georg Andraas Oldendorp ([1777] 1995) reported of substantial Igbo presence in the New

World. By the mid-18~century, Biafians had become the largest Afiican group in the

Chesapeake (Chambers 1996: 3 10; Kulikoff 1986: 321 -23; Gornez 1998: 1 15-16; Morgan

1998: 62, 63; Sobel 1987: 5). They were also substantial in the British Caribbean. Dike and

Ekejiuba estimate that the Aro handled some 70% of the captives exponed from Biafra (Dike

and Ekejiuba 1990: 250; Ijoma and Njoku 1991 : 300). The Aro were also the largest slave

holders in the hinterland. More than any other group, they were linked directly to region-wide

institutions. Along with Old Calabar, and Cross River Igbo wanior groups, the Aro

participated in the secret Ek~esociety.' The society dealt with credit matters and local law

enforcement. The Aro controlled the Ibiniuk~abioracle, which served as the court of appeal,

even for the coastal city-states. This merchant group also controlled the region's slave fairs at

'This miety took the name Okonko in other areas, mch as the states and southem where the Aro e.uported this institutim. The deof this variant of the society cornes out most ctearly in the work of John Oriji (Oriji 1982, 1983). The examination of the role of the Ehsociety as an agency of slave procurernent WU wait for future research. -7-

Bende, Uburu and Umakoli. Further, they had alliances with Cross River Igbo warrior communities. The Aro zoned virtuaily al1 parts of the region to individual Aro lineage-groups as spheres of influence. They maintained a variety of permanent diaspora settlements that ranged from small, peacefully established Aro presence within pre-existing non-Aro Iineage- groups to large, conquest settlements. The existence of Aro settlements in areas separated by distances, laquages and cultural practices within the Biafian hinterland was an Aro hallmark.

In spite of this visible role, Aro organization and its basic chronology have not been integrated into Atlantic scholarship. Aro expansion occurred in three main phases. The first phase, from the 1620s to the 1720s, witnessed the formation of the Aro-Chukwu metropole, the establishment and consolidation of Aro influence in the Cross River Region, the establishment of the principal market at Bende, the rise of Old Calabar as Biafra's principal port, and Aro forays into Ibibioland and central Igboland. The second phase, beginning from the 1730s, was marked by the establishment in rnid-century of Aro settlements in the Biafian hinterland, and the supersession of Old Calabar by Bomy as Biafia's premier port. This penod of expansion came to an end in 1807 when the British, carriers of some 80% of

Biafian captives (see Eltis and Richardson 1997: 21), abolished the slave traffic. Although the slave trade continued after the British abolition, this development triggered a process that culminated in the effective end of the Biafian Atlantic slave trade by about 1840. The third phase of Aro expansion began with British abolition in 1807 through the decline of the

Atlantic slave trade, the expansion of the domestic slave market, the region's deeper ii'volvernent in the overseas palm oil trade and, by the 1890s, the expansion of Aro settlements into agricultural regions mainly for the purposes of food production. -8-

A brief histoncal background of the Aro, as told and retold in the traditions and

circulated in the extant literature, is a necessary first step for reviewing the historiography.

Before the foundation of Aro-Chukwu in the early 17' cent~ry,~the Aro-Chukwu area, then

known as Unene, was inhabited by fiontiers people who were Igbo and Ibibio. As J. Okoro

Ijoma (1986~:10) suggests, this scenario reflected Igbo dispersal fiom the heartland. A civil

war, known in curent Aro lore as Aha Bibi (Tbibio War), between these two groups led to

the invitation of the intervention of a group known as the Akpa said to have originated fiom

Ekoiland north-east of Aro-Chukwu, east of the Cross River. Akpa intervention is said to

have been decisive, according to most accounts, because they introduced the element of

firearms. This war, by Dike and Ekejiubats (1990: 46) account led to the influx of other Cross

River Igbo groups to defend the Igbo inhabitants of unene.' In the context of this study, one

can refer to Aro incursions into Igboland, Ibibioland, etc., the "Igboization" of the Aro, and

the "Aroization"' of the non-Aro. The unfolding of the Aro story has given observers much

to write about.

The Historiography

Aro historiography effectively began in the rnid- 19& century, when Europeans and Sierra

Leone based Afncan retumees who travelled the Niger began to pay attention to the Aro.

%lis chronology is established in Chapter 2.

o or details of the events decribed here, see Dike and Ekejiuba (1 990: Ch. 2), Ifemesia (1979: 39) Ijoma (1986~:10-1 l), G.I. Jones (1963: 30-3l), Northnip (1978b:34-35).

'~liBentor (1994). who did extensive fieldwork among the Aro in the late 1980s, dso uses the concept of Aroization. Mostly based on hearsay, they focused their reports on the ubiquitous presence of the Aro

throughout the region, via direct trade and/or oracular activities (Allen and Thomson 1848a;

Baikie 1856; Burdo 1880; Crowther and Taylor 1859; J.A.B. Horton 1863: 183-85;

Hutchinson 186 1). hterest in the Aro continued into the early colonial period. But, even

when the colonial-era literature was historical, it did not produce much notable information

on Aro trading organization. Instead, it concentrated on Aro origins (G.I. Jones 1939: 10 1).

The theones were so speculative that Afigbo (1971b: 3 1; 1972a) has insisted on treating

them on the same footing as Aro sagas. Afigbo's analysis has itself corne under severe

critici~rn,~illustrating continuing interest in the subject.

The first publication that focused on the Aro was Major A.G. Leonard's (1898) first-

hand account of the Aro market at Bende during 1896. While Leonard provided usefùl

glimpses into a changing Aro society, as a harbinger of British invasion," he was interested

mainly in immediate strategic matters. A round of published works by British military

officers, which appeared in the wake of the Aro Expedition of 1901-02, generated some

ethnographie information (see A.G. Leonard 1906:34, 175, 183,308-09, 287,486;

MacAlister 1902; Mockler-Ferryman 1902: 127,222; Steel 1908; Venour 1902; Vickery

1906). The multi-volume work by the colonial officer and anthropologist Amaury Talbot

(1926a: 183; 1926b: 50,52,338; 1926c: 592,821), published in 1926, provided equal

9 Okwuchukwu Nwauwa, the only xholar so far to attempt a cornprehensive appraisal of Aro historiography, observes that Afigbo "stretched his critique ... too far" and added little information to that already known (Nwauwa 1995: 110). This criticism is fair. Yet, as will be made clear in Chapter 2 below in the discussion on Aro ongins, Nwauwa should have taken more seriously Afigbo's comments on the gecdogies coliected by colonial administrators, gendogies upon which Nwauwa relies.

'%or an illuminating rholarly account of Am-British relations up until the invasion is Anene (1959). -10-

measures of usefùl information on Aro organization and chimerical ones. Instances of the

latter category are his claims that the Aro were of Carthaginian provenance and that they ran

a theocracy. Between the 193Os, when colonial "intelligence reports" (e.g., Anthropologists'

Papers 1927; Mathews 1922; Mayne 1935; Shankland 1933) abated, through the 19603, Iocal

histonms and other scholars in many communities in the region did much spadework.ll

However, these works did not provide reliable chronologies and did not explicitly place the

Aro in regional trade, let alone the Atlantic system.

Serious historical inquiry began with the seminal work of Kenneth Onwuka Dike.

Although focusing on the coastal trading states, Dike (1956: 3 8) referred to the Aro as the

"econornic dictators of the hinterland" and emphasized the role of their oracle, Ibiniukpabi.

Soon after, the anthropologist Sirneon Ottenberg studied the role of oracles in Igbo social

organization. Ottenberg (1 958; 1971: 24-26) expounded on the importance of Ibiniuk~abi

and the workings of Aro impenalism. His submission that the oracle was not a major source

of captives has been confirmed by later research (see Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 250; Ekejiuba

l972b: 12; J.O.Ijoma 1986c; Ijoma and Njoku 1991: 206,300; Northnip 1978: 138;

Ofonagoro 1972: 83). It was the work of another anthropologist, G.I. Jones (1 963: 134), that

began to place the Aro in the regionai chronological framework. From the traditions of the

coastal states, Jones suggested that the Aro had been fonned by the rnid- 176 century. This

hose se dealt with the Aro included Nwana 119331 1950, Ojike 1947, Umo n.d [1947?], Igwgbe 1962, and Uku 1993. A portion of th's account that appeared in the West African Review @ec. 1953) is quoted widely. For more recent works see A.O. Anyoha 1977; Irono 1988; E.O. OkoIi 1977; J.G. Okoro 1985; Mbadiwe 1991; E.O. Mmeregini ad. For a representative sample of theses, see Agu 1985; Anaba 1988; Chuku 1989; Emeruwa 1992; C. Eze 1987; C.E. Igwe 1992; Imo 1980; G.C. Mmeregini 1978; Monye 1991; 1.0.Nwankwo 1986; J-C. Nwankwo 1973; T. Nwankwo 1991; D.C. Nwosu 1978; Onyensoh 1985; B.N.N.O ji 1978. -1 1-

means that the Aro had been well-established by the 18' century when the Biafian Atlantic

trade becarne prominent. Together, the above-mentioned works established the significance

of the Aro in the region's commercial history.

Unfominately, these important contributions did not stimulate scholarship on the

hinterland. Consequently, Joseph Inikori (1994a: 9) recently lamented: "It is particularly

disappointing that south-eastern Nigeria, which was the main exporting region in the second

half of the eighteenth century, has been very much neglected in the production of doctoral

theses" dealing with the Atlantic slave trade. Much of the extant literature deait with the

coastal States (see Alagoa 1964, 1970, 1971 a, 1971b, 1972, 1986; Cookey 1974; Hargreaves

1987; Latharn 1973; Lovejoy and Richardson 1997, forthcoming; Nair 1972; Noah 1980;

Wariboko 1991).

The systematic analysis of hinterland trade began during the late 1960s. The genealogy of this historiography starts with Ukwu 1. Ukwu's (1 967, 1969) pioneering study

of the regional marketing system, trade routes and delivery systems. Ukwu identified the conscious CO-ordinationof diaspora settlements with fairs and trade routes as the distinctive feature of the Aro system. His work foreshadowed the scholarly interest that developed in regional trade during the 1970s, as well as Aro operations and the institutions underpinning them. David Northmp (1972) published an article that deliberately focused on pre-19' century Igbo trade. Although his later irnporiant work has superseded it, this focus is noteworthy. Walter Ofonagoro's (1972) doctoral thesis on the late 19' centuiy southem

Nigeria trade was richest on its Bi&an side. Felicia Ekejiuba's (l972a; 1972b) articles focused exclusively on Aro trade and described it Ut an unprecedented detail. Afigbo's - 12- (1973b, 1977) contribution highlighted the extent of regional trade and mapped the hitherto negiected trade links between south-eastern Nigeria and the to the north. This work complemented works on Igbo-Igala relations carried out by J.S. Boston (1968) and, especially, Austin Shelton (197 1). The relevant scholarship of the late 1960s and early 1970s concentrated on trading mechanisms, trade routes, goods and supply systems. They had little to say on the implications of these processes for politics, culture, and social organization.

The holistic approach developed from the mid-1970s. Elizabeth Isichei's (1973, 1976:

49-67) work dealing with Igbo history was the most notable example of this trend. The underlying theme of Isichei's work is transformations in the Igbo social economy. She traces the process by which trade-induced migrations frorn the 17' to the 19~centuries helped to shape modem Igboland. Our understanding of this process, oflen appearing under the theme of inter-group relations, has since been made clearer by the efforts of many scholars, notably

Mgbo (1 977, 198 1a, 198 1b, 1987) and Ijoma (1 986b, 1994) (see also Ifemesia 1978, 1979;

Ijoma and Njoku 199 1; Oguagha 1991; Ohadike 1994; Onwuejeogwu 1987; Oriji 1987).

Drawing on her research on the Aro, Gloria Chuku (1993) identified the role of institutions, the employrnent of waniors, and the uses of econornic means for political ends - and -versa - as the bases of Aro influence in the region. Still, these contributions did not relate Aro expansion to the Atlantic slave trade.

Lovejoy and Hogendom (1979: 225-3 1) addressed this question for West Atiica as whole. They saw the rise of the Biafian Atlantic trade from the rnid-18' century as the culmination of four developments: expansion in the stmcture and organization of the coastal

States, the role of the society in guaranteeing credit, the division of the Niger trade -13- among the Ijo and the Niger riverine states, and the consolidation of the Aro network in the hinterland. Lovejoy and Hogendom did not, however, assign relative weights to these developments or resolve the important question of the timing of these developments. John

Onji's (1 982, 1983, 1987) work implicitly supported their critical submission that the Afncan slave trade was organized around self-conscious, regional cartels. Orij's work introduced notable empirical findings regarding the institutionai bases of the Aro network in southem

Igboland. Unlike Lovejoy and Hogendom, who clearly saw the response of indigenous middlemen as a cmciai agency that shaped export volumes, Oriji however interpreted his material merely as the impact of extemal demand on the Aro. One limitation shared by the

Biafran literature reviewed above is a Mrtual lack of attention to gender structure of the

Biafian Atlantic slave trade, which has long been noticed by scholars not primanly interested in the region (Eltis 1986, 1998; Eltis and Engerman 1992, 1993; Eltis and Richardson 1997;

Geggus 1989; Inikori 1992a; H.Nein 1983: 35-37; Manning 1998a). Oriji (1 982), Susan

Hargreaves (1 987) and, especially, Susan Martin (1 988, 1995) gave considerable attention to gender questions, but their references to the gender stnicture of the trade were, at best, perfunctory. These questions have only recently formed the focus of analysis in the region

(Nwokeji 1997a, 1997b, 1998% forthcoming).

Despite its limitations, the scholarship of the mid-1970s onwards represented two significant shifts. First, it re-integrated trade with its politics in the manner enunciated by

K.O. Dike in 1956. In fa&, Dike and Ekejiuba (1978) and Ijoma (1986b) argued that the Aro dominated regionai trade because they developed strong state structures (see also Dike and

Ekejiuba 1990). This argument about an Aro state was first pursued in detaii by the political -14- theorkt Robert F. Stevenson (1968). Second, this scholarship located the Aro within the region-wide socio-econornic process. The Aro phenornenon was seen as the centre of the regional politicai economy.

The Debate about Aro State

Two major works, Northp's Trade without Rulers (1 978) and Dike and Ekejiuba's

Aro of Southeastern Nineria (1 990), focused attention on Aro organization. They deserve extended treatment for two reasons. First, each is deservedly the basic reference of its chosen subject-matter - Northp's on regional trade and Dike and Ekejiuba's on Aro political economy. The two themes are centra1 to this study. Second, in spite of their separate subject- rnatters, they share a central concern with Aro organization. The questions raised in these works are, therefore, essential to the present study. Let us begin with Northrup's work.

The scope of this admirable and meticulously researched work surpassed that of al1 previous contributions. In a chapter titled "The God Men of the Slave Trade", Northmp

(1978: 1 14-45) correctly points out that the Aro were neither the ody nor the oldest trading group in the region. Nevertheless, he States that the Aro transcended and combined "into a single marketing grid the already existing regional networks of trade through alliances with other leading trading peoples to bring them into this economic structure" (Northp 1978:

142). Northmp argues that the people of the region evolved this complex commercial organization without corresponding cornplex political institutions. He departs ~omstate- centric approaches to the study of pre-colonial Afncan history by making a genuine attempt to study and understand non-centralized societies in their own terms. This is a welcome - 15-

approach because the existence of states was not essential to the occurrence of the slave

trade. Indeed, Peter Ekeh (1990: 680-82) has argued that vast areas of the slave trade era

Afnca were "stateless" societies and he uses the Igbo region as a prime exarnple of this

phenornenon. No doubt, Ekeh refers to the decentralized societies of northem, central and

southem Igboland from where most of the captives were drawn rather than the Aro and the

Niger rivenne states. But Northrup insists that the Aro were organized in lines that closely

resembled those of the rest of the Tgbo. Nc serious writing on the Aro can aord to gloss

over Nonhmp's submissions on Aro organization.

In spite of its insights, Nonhmp's well-researched work is weakest on Aro

organization, thus making the chapter under consideration here a problem in an othenMse

excellent work. Apollos Okwuchukwu Nwauwa (1995: 114) recently observed: "The Aro

were principal traders in Nonhmp's survey. Nevertheless, his research was mainly on the

Ibibio. . .. Out of his thirty-nine interviews, thirty-two were Ibibio informants. Unfominately

Northmp conducted only four interviews with the Aro. Not surprisingly, his conclusions on

the Aro were bound to be weak." The fact that Northmp actually conducted seven inteniews

among the Aro, out of a total of forty,12 does not detract from Nwauwa's criticism. Nonhmp

goes too far in denying the existence and relevance of political institutions. For three

important reasons, it is impossible to gloss over sorne conceptual and empirical questions that

he raises. First, much research has been done since the appearance of that remarkable work

12~orihnrp'sinterviews with Am people, although not always indicated or necessarily borne out by respondents' names, are Asiegbu 1973; lnokun 1972; Merem and Nwankwo 1973; K. Oji 1972; F.E.S. Okoro 1973; Okon 1972; 1. Udo 1972. For the transcripts of these interviews, see Northmp 1972-73. Four of th= inteMews were in Aro-Chukwu. Perhaps, this is what Nwauwa means. -16- twenty years ago. Second, interest on questions about the state persists. Third, Aro organization and regional trade are central to the present study. Northnip's formulation is, in some crucial respects, unconvincing, not least, his attempt to draw a sharp line between trade and politics.

It is unclear what Northrup means by a "systern", which he says the Aro never had.

He seems to refer to a mechanistic, centrally directed and, perhaps, unchanging network.

Often, he seems to mean a state. Not surprisingly, some of his submissions are arnbiguous and even contradictory. He sees as the rnost telling evidence of Aro lack of "substantial state structures and military force" Aro "inability to break through to the Coast to trade directly with European ships" (Northp 1978: 145). Yet, he writes that the Aro oracle was a powerful force even in areas where the Aro had "little or no direct trade" (Northrup 1978:

137). Again, he writes that the Aro "differed more by degree than by kind because they depended on, rather than transcended, segmentary organization that characterized much of the region (Nonhnip 1978: 139, 141). He observes still that the Aro tendency to set up permanent diaspora settlements and their commitment to a comrnon identity distinguished them fiom other groups (Northrup 1978: 104, 140, 142). Contrary to Northnip's daim, this characteristic is a difference in kind, not simply of degree. Because it was a fundamental aspect of Aro organization, this attribute calls for detailed analysis, such as offered in this study.

In trying to demonstrate that the Aro did not have state stmctures, Northmp separates economics f?om politics. For exarnple, he writes: "Like other traders, the Aro were made welcome primarily for the goods which they brought." Although we are told that local -17- alliances were indispensable to Aro organization, we also read that Aro expansion was economic, not political (Northmp 1978: 121, 142). But it is precisely because these alliances were a politicai phenornenon that other scholars find it rneaningfùl to link them to Aro wdare (see, e.g., Bentor 1994: 104-08; Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 165-7 1, 174-86; Isichei

1976: 82-87). Although our scholarly tradition pedts us to make heuristic distinctions between the concepts of trade and politics, the reality of human Me is as the political economy perspective shows, more complicated. The people in the Bight of Biafra did not distinguish the political, spiritual and material aspects of their life as sharply. Thus, it is unclear what made the Aro "primarily" welcome. We know, however, that people were interested in the Aro oracle, not simply because of divine retribution, as Northmp (1978:

142) suggests, but also in expectation of positive divine intervention in their material lives

(see Dike and Ekejiuba 1990; Ijoma l986b: 17; G.I. Jones 1963: 15; Talbot 1926:49, 50-5 1).

"While a political force in Afikpo, elsewhere the Aro were more economic imperialists than colonizers" (Nonhmp 1978: 121). This statement does not account for the large settlements that neither Afikpo nor the small settlements represent - in short, those settlements that made the most impact. These settlements, including nde-Iniogu and nde-Eni

@oih in central Igboland), and Inokun in Ibibioland, dominated both local politics and econornic afTairs. The settlements do not fit into Northmp's mode1 of econornic impenalism.

Rather than see them as evidence of the political component of Aro expansion, he uses their importance to argue against an Aro state. Elsewhere in the sarne book, Northmp argues that nde-Izuogu had a version of the oracle that rivalled the one in Aro-Chukwu (Northmp 1978:

133-34). My questioning of respondents, reading of nde-Izuogu folkiore and the works of -18- locai histotians have been unable to confirm that a branch of Ibiniuk~abiwas ever in nde-

IzLlogu.

Northrup (1 978: 140-42) holds brutal intra-Aro disputes as evidence of the weakness of Aro organization. Indeed, the Aro experienced many more disputes than are highlighted in

Northmp's work (see e.g., Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 180-8 1; Igwegbe 1962: 15- 16,43,46-

47, 9 1-93, 1 14- 19; J.G. Okoro 1985: 40-42). Nevertheless, this feature does not mean the absence of state structures, except if one does not expect conflict to occur in human societies.

Political philosophers have written volumes showing that CO-operation,cornpetition and conflict are not an aberration but are characteristic of relations within the "political class" (see e.g., Bottomore 1964: 9). The work of John Thomton (1992b) shows that much more brutal civil wars occurred in 18' century Kongo Kingdom, often resulting in the overthrow of constituted authority, decimation of the population of the capital and its re-colonization with out-of-province people. Yet, the appeal of the political institutions and the legitimacy of the capital remained. As Northnip himself recognizes, the "ability to achieve voluntary agreement in tirne of crisis was the key to Aro organization" (Northnip 1978: 143). Why then should the occurence of disputes be evidence of the Aro lack of a state or "system"?

Northmp's formulation fits into the idealized Igbo segmentarism promoted by such scholars as Charles Meek (193 7), Green (1964), Kenneth Carlston (1 968: 190-2 1O), Michael

Echeruo (1979); Robin Horton (1976), Richard Henderson (l972), and Ebere Nwaubani

(1 995). Ikema Nzirniro (1 972), who studied the Niger riverine states of Abo, ,

Onitsha, and Osoman, noted that generalizations can only be meaningful der each Igbo

"cultural area" has been studied in detail. Such research that has been carried out in the past -19- half a generation no longer sustains the idea rhat the region lacked denor, as Northp

(1 98 1) asserts in a later work, a "mling class" (see Afigbo 1973a; Anikpo 1985;

1993a: 3 1-32; Chuku 1993; P.C.Dike 1986; Ubah 1987: 168-72). For exarnple, der exarnining the empirical evidence presented by the members of a multi-disciplhary panel of

Igbo social scientists, a colloquium declared in 1986: "It will probably corne as a surprise to many of us, nurtured as we are on the principle now clearly under severe pressure that kbo enweeh eze (the Igbo have no king), to leam that in traditional Igboland the ultimate authority figure was very often a monarch of some kind" (Ahia-ioku Lecture Colloauium

1986: ii). Consequently, Mgbo (1 98 1b) wonders why No~hmpshould insist that the region had no mlers on the basis that it had many. We cannot understand indigenous slavery and the

Atlantic slave trade by laying undue emphasis on levelling structures. The power which some individuais in the region held over others detemined people's fate regarding being enslaved within the region or sent into Atlantic slavery. Nonhmp's enduring contribution is on commerce, not political economy.

Northrup's effort in showing that the Aro did not have a state is matched by that of

Dike and Ekejiuba's to show that the Aro had a centralized state. Rather than concentrate on political segmentation and levelling mechanisms, Dike and Ekejiuba focus on stratification and state institutions, as these characteristics concerned the historicd development of trade.

They contend that analyzing what the Aro did, instead cf pinpointing what they did not do, is more useful. They insist that the ultimate measure of Aro hegernony should emerge, not eom abstract conceptions but fiom a comparison with the polities recognized to have evolved state structures in the region: Igala suffered decentralization, disintegration and defections; -20-

Bomy (Biafra's premier port state) split after a civil war in 1869; and lacked rnilitary muscle. Drawing fkom Orner-Cooper and Vansina, Dike and Ekejiuba (1 990: 8 1, 83-85) submit that decentralization and disaggregation usually occumd to states, including Aro-

Chukwu, under the impact of trade.

Dike and Ekejiuba periodize pre-206 century Aro history into three phases: The pre-

1650 period that corresponded with the segrnentary lineage system that Northrup and othen characterize; the post-1650 period, when Akuma initiated state building, when primogeniture prevailed and Omu Aro (Aro Emblern) was introduced as a symbol of centrai authonty; and the 1 9' century, which witnessed the accommodation of ethnic heterogeneity and a "dynamic response" to extemal factors, such as "the absence of a centralized power to challenge and compete with the Aro in the control of the [trade] of the vast hinterland" @ike and Ekejiuba

1990: ch. 2, 8 1-82, 96-103, 123). Like Stevenson (1968), Dike and Ekejiuba see the zoning of spheres arnong individual Aro lineage-groups as an item of state organization.

Dike and Ekejiuba's study incorporates an arnount of research material cornmensurate with work that was in gestation for twenty-eight years (see Afigbo 1992: 108). This is the most detailed attempt at a conscious integration of the slave question in an analysis of the

Aro political economy. However, the work has some problerns of its own, much of which will crystallize in the following chapters of this study. It suffices at this juncture to make two observations. First, arguing that the Aro had a hi& degree of centralkation at any point in their history, as Dike and Ekejiuba have done, seems strained. For instance, they write that the settlements were state-sponsored projects; yet, they inforrn theù raders that Aro wars were the province of "a handfùl of Aro households" @ike and Ekejiuba 1990: 165). Second, -21-

too much emphasis on a high degree of centraikation leads Dike and Ekejiuba to over-state

the "assimilation" of immigrants and slaves into Aro culture. Thus, Dike and Ekejiuba fail to

recognize that the incorporated groups themselves impacted Aro culture profoundly,

especially in the dia~pora.'~

Northrup's and Dike and Ekejiuba's contributions share one fundamental limitation:

fixation with the presence or absence of a centralized state. In arguing their cases, the authors

bring a priori assumptions into which they struggle to fit the evidence. The fundamental

problem is that pre-colonial African States are expected to have been controlled by despots.

While Northmp showed successfùlly that nothing of that kind existed in the region, he took it

to mean, unfoitunately, the absence of state structures. Also not finding a despotic regime,

Stevenson on the other hand, Iamented that, although the Aro developed a state, this

institution was not c'fÙll blown" (Stevenson 1968). Finally, Dike and Ekejiuba constructed a

totalitarian state. Rather than accept the proliferation of settlements as an essential feature of

a trade diaspora in the context of expanding trade, they bemoan that this development

"eroded the monopoly of power by the central govemment" @ike and Ekejiuba 1990: 72). A

high degree of centralization is not a necessary attribute of a state.

One can speak of an Aro state. The anthropologist Ronald Cohen offers a simple but

nuanced insight to state theory, which is relevant to my argument. For Cohen (198 1 : 87, 95)'

the distinguishing characteristic of a state is "the formation and development of institutions

counteracting the normal fissioning of the polity." Cohen (1 98 1: 92) articulates that "if a

13~udithOkely (1996) has recently reiterated the pitfalls of the non4alectical characterization of nilhue contact. -22-

society fissions as a normal or expectable part of political process," it is not a state regardless

of the continuing ability of the central governrnent to edorce decisions. This is because States

are "highly adaptive", irrespective of the location or specific characteristics of its constituent

parts (Cohen 198 1: 95). The Aro fit neatly into Cohen's formulation, for throughout the

period covered in this study, no evidence shows that fission ever occurred among the Aro, in

spite of their dispersion. This is the cntical faa. The main institution by which the Aro

counteracted fission was the Aro central council, Ok~aNk~o, which was the highest level of

authority in the Aro system. This body was composed of the heads of al1 Aro-Chukwu

lineage-groups and Eze Aro (Aro king), who presided. Every diaspora settlement, regardless

of location, was part and parcel of its parent Aro lineage-group. This way, the diaspora

settlements were subject to the authonty of Okoa Nk~othrough the intermediary of the

heads of the respective parent lineage-groups. This framework required little adjustment in

coping with the proliferation of diaspora settlements. Through the Ok~amoo, the Aro

zoned the Bight of Biafra among the constituent lineage-groups.14The Okpa Mtoo did not

have to control the diaspora settlements by the sheer use of force. The effectiveness of the

Aro network and the pride of being Aro helped to ensure that it was in the interest of the Aro

diaspora to remain in the Aro system. The above factors enabled the Aro state successfully to

overcome the challenges of fission.

Regardless of the existence of the Aro state, 1 suggest that the key to understanding

Aro organization and regional trade is not the presence or absence of a state system. It is in

''~lthou~hbey do not mention the word "state", Lovejoy and Hogendom (1979: 230) Unply this when they note that one of the fiuictions of OkDa Mnw, was to punish those merchants who violated the zoning system -23 - seeing the Aro as a trade diaspora. The systematic study of trade diasporas has been growing since the late 1960s (Baier 1980: 57-67; A. Cohen 1969, 1971; Curtin 197 1b; 1975, 1984;

Eades 1993; Lovejoy 1980: 29-49; 1982a; Lovejoy and Hogendorn 1979; Meillassoux

197 1a; Roberts 1987). Except Onji's (1 977: 148; 1983 : 3 17) bief references to Abner

Cohen's 197 1 article, regional specialists have, unfominately, not availed themselves of the useful contribution of this scholarship. Consequently, they have not appreciated trade diasporas systematically. What Nonhnip dismisses as Aro "predilection for commerce" or

"ski11 and single-rnindedness" was after all, as Abner Cohen (1969: 9, 98) illustrates with the

Hausa experience, 'hot associated with a basic personality trait, but with a highly developed econornico-political organization." Instead of seeing the operations of Aro settlements as the normal workings of a trade diaspora, Nonhnip declares that trade and politics were an

"abrasive tearn". For their part, Dike and Ekejiuba's penchant for the centraiized state mode1 has led them to study Aro settlements as "colonies". This term is inappropriate because it does not quite capture Aro communities in their varieties.

Placing Aro settlements in the context of a trade diaspora throws light on crucial aspects of trade organization, commercial politics, institutional change, and cultural development. Thus, neither the variation in the sues of Aro diaspora communities nor their mode of organization was fundamentally peculiar. These elements made them a diaspora. "In short," writes Abner Cohen (1 971 : 267) who originated the concept of trade diasporas, a diaspora "is a nation of socially interdependent, but spatially dispersed, cornmunities." If there is a law of Aro history, it ought to emerge fiom a systematic understanding of trade diasporas, not in a centralized state system or its absence. nie concept of the trade diaspora -24- is of theoretical significance because, as Curtin (1975: 62-63; 1984) has noted, trade diasporas are a universal phenornenon. Trade diasporas exist today in the form that modem econornic ant hro pologists refer to as "et hnically homogenous middleman groups" (EHMGs)

(see e.g., Landa 1994).

Argument

The rise and expansion of the Aro was the key influence that shaped the character of the

Biafran Atlantic slave trade. Aro incursions into the densely populated Igbo heartland and the establishment there of their most important settlements in the mid- 18& century coincided with the steady increase observed in the Biafran trade during this time. Dike and Ekejiuba (1990:

250) estimate that more than 85% of al1 the captives that the Aro sold resulted from "the efforts and exploitations of individual Aro scattered in permanent settlements." The establishment of Aro fiontiers in close proximity to the densely populated Nri-Awka region, coincided with another major shift in the Biafian Atlantic slave trade; centrally located Bomy superseded easterly Old Calabar as Biafra's premier port.

Some scholars have attnbuted this shifi to developments in the pon States and, especially, to the preferences of Euro-Amencan buyers (Hargreaves 1987; Latham 1973). In the amal fact, this change and the dramatic growth in the Biafran trade reflected higher volumes of captives and changes in existing trade routes that accompanied the establishment of the Aro diaspora settlements in densely populated central Igboland. Some of the Aro communities in central Igboland were unusually large - nde-hogu and the nde-Eni cluster

(including Ajali, nde-Ikelionwu and nde-Owuu) - were established virtually -25 - contemporaneously in the nid-1 8' cenhiry, were arnong the full-fledged diaspora settlements to be established, and were established by violence. Inokun in Ibibioland was the only other

Aro settlement that shared dl these characteristics.

The argument about the centrality of the Aro diaspora to the nse of the Biafian

Atlantic trade does not rule out other influences, internd and extemal, such as increasing

Euro- Arnencan demand in the 18h century and relevant developments within the region. As

Lovejoy and Hogendom (1979: 225-32) have identified, other relevant internai developments were the expansion of the coastal states and changes in their organization, the introduction of the credit regulating Ek~esociety in Old Calabar, and "the division of the trade into segments dominated respectively by ljaw, Aboh, Igala, Awka, and Opta merchants." As important as these other elements were, it is unclear that any of them was clearly a development of the 18h century. Aro formation, like those of the Niger riverine states, happened by the early 17h century. Of course, the Niger riverine states and Aro-Chukwu underwent a period of growth and consolidation throughout the century and beyond. In fact,

Abo and Igala established a few trading outposts, such as Ah-Atani, Ab-Uten, Ab-Ugidi,

Nsugbe and Oko (see Afigbo 1977: 13 1, Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 83, Isichei 1976). But because these settlements ody dotted the banks of the lower Niger, they did not open up new markets per se. The most spectacular development of the 18'" century was the establishment of Aro settlements virtually everywhere in the region. These settlements included those in

Oguta (see Isichei 1976: 62; G.I. Jones 1989: 36; Northmp 1978: 130; Ofonagoro 1972: 89) and the main Igala market at at the nonhemost reach of the Lower Niger (Dike and

Ekejiuba 1990: 200). These ports enabled the Aro aiso to participate actively in the Niger -26-

riverine trade.

The understanding of the regional macro-economic processes is essential to the

understanding of Aro history. 1 do not assume that Aro history is synonymous with the

history of the Bight of Biafra at large. Mer dl, the Aro built their influence mainly by

extending pre-existing commercial i-tifiastructuresand spintual noms (Ijorna and Njoku

1991: 307; Northrup 1978). But this is al1 the more reason why Aro history can ody be

understood in the context of regionaI history.

Methodological Considerations and Sources

Given the Aro association with region-wide institutions, the regional character of their

commerce, the incorporation into Aro society of persons fiom other parts of the region, this

study is self-consciously interactive.15The approach sheds light on the Atlantic world into

which the Aro sold people, not only for instrumental ends, but also for political and other

reasons touching on particular visions of political and social order. Finally, as has already

been pointed out above, trade diasporas need to be understood in a broad perspective, since

they are a universal phenornenon.

The historical study of the slave question among the Aro, like in any other society

(Harms 1978: 329), cannot be abstracted from the larger terrain of political economy. Thus,

this study follows the tradition that Eric Hobsbawm cdls "the history of society." This history

compels the historian to pick "on one particular relation or relational complex as central and

'ked Cooper (1 996) recentiy explicated the interactive approach, disiinguishing it hmthe comparative rneîhod. -27-

specific to the society (or type of society) in question" (Hobsbawm 1971: 3 1). The obvious

choice in the study of Aro society is slaving. Although the work focuses on the period, c.

1750- 1905, the issues involve a process that stretches back to the early 1Th century - the

earliest days of the Am. Aro expansion tallied with the expansion of the Atlantic trade. The

cultural transformations that accompanied this process can ody be captured adequately in the

longue durée. Cultures take time to evolve.

Besides the scholarly literature, other kinds of sources infonned the present study -

export figures, mariners' joumals, archival material and oral data - each with its peculiar

strengths and problems. The archival material contains concrete, dateable information. Still,

two or three limitations of this source bear noting. First, available archival material is strong

only for the early 20' century. Second, tracking dom the relevant material was tedious.

Many files that came under the label of slavery contained unrelated material.I6 Much of the

matenal does not illuminate slavery per se but, at best, social trends. For example, the reports

of the commanders of the anti-slavery task force that began work in 1933 and other reports

and items of correspondence often produced undifferentiated slavery-related data. Even the

colonial intelligence and anthropological reports conform to Patrick Manning's

characterization of them: They reflect "the political objectives of the administration [and] the

social realities of the early twentieth century better than it fits the history of slavery in Anica"

(Manning 1990:16). In an unusual fit of self-indictment, a colonial officer wrote that, in place

of "organized judicial and administrative system for the clan", "so great was the desire to

'%or example, the archives file, "Cases of Slave Dealing." includes di mannefs of cases such as petty theR marital squabbles, and land disputes that say litiie about slaving. NAE 1/1920-0KIDIST : "Cases of Slave Deaiing." -28- destroy Aro power that Iittle of the indigenous system was permitted to survive" (Shankland

1933: 3). Coun records, especidly those relating to land cases, illuminate the changes that followed the suppression of the Atlantic slave trade. Finally, concerning archival sources, a marriage register kept in 19 19-20by the officer in charge of the Okigwe District, in which nde-hogu was, helps me to reconstruct changes in marriage practices and occupational trends.

This study has also benefited from missionary sources fiom the Holy Ghost Fathers

(Dublin, Ireland), the Church Missionary Society (Birmingham, England) and the Primitive

Methodists (London). However, the actual use of these records in this study belies the effort put in them and the gracious support I received from the Holy Ghost Fathers. First of al, these records are strongest on the Niger nverine cornmunities where Chnstianity was introduced earlier - in the mid-lgh century. Second, much of the records of the missionary societies that operated in Igboland have mainly only contextual relevance. The missions have rich documentation on such issues as female circumcision, polygyny and even fattening. 1 found no files on slavery. When 1 asked why, retired Farther Duignan (1995), a Holy Ghost priest, who spent his active seMce in Igboland fiom the late 1930s onwards, told me in

Dublin, Republic of Ireland, in 1995 that, by his time, the missions had made their contacts - principally through the schools. Besides, the Igbo, according to him, were not themselves forthcornhg on the question of slavery.

Although the Aro were a literate group, 1 have not been able to master thcu script enough to benefit fiom the information embedded in it. Together with the Cross River Igbo warrior groups and the Ibibio, the Aro had a script called nsibiri (or in the Ibibio -29-

language). Its members monopolùed the knowledge of nsibiri, the regional graphic system. l7

This study could have benefited from the script.

The problems illustnited above reinforce the role of oral tradition in this research, in

spite of its many pitfails. I inte~ewedforty-five respondents and discussed with many more

people, mainly in Aro-nde-hogu and Aro-Chukwu. 1 also studied hundreds of other

traditions collected by such earlier researchers as David Northp, Elizabeth Isichei and the

various authors of undergraduate theses in Nigenan universities. The purpose of this effort

was threefold: to buttress my evidence, infuse non-Aro perspectives to my study, and situate

the Aro in their regional context.

Given that oral traditions constitute a significant part of the material utilized in the

present study, it is necessary to clarifi related methodological issues. My understanding of

oral tradition is broad and consistent with the ideas of E. J. Alagoa (1966, 1968) and Jan

Vansina (1 96 1: 142-64; 1985: 25-27). To them, oral tradition refers to ail orally transmitted

testimonies about the past, especially those passed from generation to generation, as well as a

people's folklore. How then does one deal with the important question of chronology? By

posing this question, 1 do not mean that indigenous groups lacked a sense of chronology, Le.,

about what happened before or after, or the coincidences of events. In fact, their sense of

reckoning seems to have been long-established. Equiano recounted that the Igbo had

specialized and hereditary annual reckoners as far back as the mid-1 8h century. These

itinerant professionals, who happen to have been Awka srniths, doubled as medical

practitioners (see Equiano 1995: 42-43). In spite of the sense of chronology noted, traditions

17(~ordecails about Nsibiri, see Dayrell 19 11; Macgregor 1909; Talbot 19 12: Appendix G). -3 0-

tend to appear in synchronie fom when cast in the lonmie durée. In their raw forrn, they do

not appear in definite dateable ways.

Conscious of the requirernents of my discipline, 1 urged respondents to endeavour to

cite concrete cases and indicate the time of their occurrence. They did not dways do so. This

is one of the reasons why, unlike some scholars, 1 prefer the term "respondents" to

"informants" in refemng to the people 1 interviewed. Many of them did not only refuse to be

hedged in, but they also taught me a lot about their history." From this, 1 leamed like a

critical student. Thus, 1 reserve the appellation "informants" for those who provided me with

folkloric data, such as relevant proverbs, idiom, and folk taie. While traditions may not refer

to specific or actual events, they embody the cosmogony of a people and indicate historical

trends. They also express both abstract and real possibilities as well as Mtations in such a

people's society.

There is no one-word translation of history in the . My Aro respondents

referred to it as akuko ihe mem mabe mbu (story of things that happened in ancient times). It

seems that most other Igbo societies refer to it as akuko-. As elaborated recently by

Emannuel Obiechina, the latter terni encompasses history in the Western sense, plus a corpus

of morals (see Obiechina 1994). Most of my respondents preferred to use the English term -

"history" - including those whose knowledge of English was slight. What was clear to me is

that the people did not conceptualize history simply as charter, and they did not always tell

charter. This observation departs from the impression given by many scholars that oral

18~en~orreports of a similar experience in nde-izuogu. "1began to feel imtated 'Ihings were not working the way they shotiid. ... My hosts resisted the division of labour. 1 had to rethink my relationship with them. My own response was to abandon tem such as informant and field research" (Bentor 1994: 3,4). -3 1-

traditions are invariably apologies for present politics.

Everyone that 1 spoke to, not just interviewed, conceptualized history as a distinct

and knowable body of knowledge. One of rny more helpful respondents said the following

about Eze Izuogu, the derof nde-Izuogu: "Go to him. He is a nice man. He rnight not know

it dl, but he will not tell you lies" (Michael Ike 1996). Many people lamented that, had I done

this research a few years earlier when this or that man or the occasional woman was living,

s/he "would have told you al1 about it." There was remarkable consistency in the mention of

particular names, such as the late Obasi Bassey Igbo of Ikpa-Eze and late Udoji Mmeruonye

of nde-Akunwanta. These persons had different social background, but they are united in

their acclaimed knowledge of "history". This kind of recognition implies that a historian could

have inte~ewedone person and found dl there is to histoncal knowledge! History for the

Aro people, above al1 else, is thus a body of knowledge and truth, of which there are pundits

and which should not be contaminated with falsehood, One of the men that 1 interviewed was

recommended widely by persons fiom various backgrounds, but, in almost every case, 1 was

wamed to beware of his lies! This means that there is an objective body of historical

knowledge - and not simply group charter - which even the enemy (or one who is known for

telling lies sometimes) alone might posses.19

For express reasons, an overwhelrning majority of the respondents with whom 1 had

lengthy interviews reached a point when they refused to answer certain questions. Such

questions as whose ancestors were slaves and how the Aro came to occupy certain regions

19T'he reputation as a knowledgeable historian is obviously a chenshed one. To mainiah or clah ic some respondents in the diaspora communities switched to archaic Am diaiect, or tesort to theatrics or other an tics. -3 2- were oflen touchy. Some respondents preferred to refer me to particular individuais. In some cases, the reason for not discussing certain issues was that a particular respondent was Md of misrepresenting history or, at least 1 was given that impression. Except for my aunt

(Martina Ike 1995, 1996) and sister (Umumakwe 1995), women ofken hesitated to discuss matters concerning their husband's lineages, always pointing out that "a biaru m abia" ("1 came here [fiom elsewhere]"). Dependhg on circumstances, this response was perhaps informed by an anxiety not to be regarded as presumptuous by male elders of her husband's lineage, or simply an inoffensive way of withholding information for undisclosed reasons. In other instances. male and female respondents refused pointedly to answer certain questions, insisting that doing so was inimical to present relations. For the same reason, a respondent often told me something but charged me emphatically never to "write it down". One is thus caught in the tension between research ethics and ngour, both of which 1 have strived to satisfy. Several respondents decided to involve other individuals in their interviews. I cannot insist on regarding the traditions that arose fiom this experience as mere charters, wMch are disseminated as widely as possible since they are meant to serve group interests. Neither should one insist on calling these folks "informants", implying non-creative and passive suppliers of data. To do so also implicates the researcher in the implied passivity. On the contrary, the researcher plays an active role in teasing out historical data.

In my expenence, charters are more likely to result from group interviews. Group inte~ewswere not part of my original plan for fieldwork, but circumstances forced them on me. Such circumstances arose when a potential respondent decided to incorporate lineage members, ofien their seniors for unknown reasons or because those memben had just -3 3 - retumed on a weekend visit from a city. In other instances, people intmded in the interviews sometimes by accident, other times deliberately. Without exceptions, group inteMews did not yield much reliable information. In one inteMew in an nde-hogu lineage-group, one lineage-level amadi (aristocracy) intruded when 1 was interviewing a man of humbler origins.

Mer listening for a while, he began vigorously to urge my respondent to stop answering my questions. The intnider charged that 1 was asking questions like a "trained person". His presence ruined the remainder of the interview, in spite of my respondent. Unfortunately, 1 could not retum to him because this incident occurred towards the end of my fieldwork. In another lineage-group, one intmder insisted that 1 should see their "chie£" and other elders.

Defensively, my respondent explained to him that we were discussing such procedural matters and "rninor issues", that he had already advised my Company and 1 on how best to approach the elders (Obinani 1996).

1 have found genealogies particularly useful in soriing out this problem. This process opens doors to other historical issues. Until very recently, itu eve (genealogical recitation), was required of every male Aro in public deliberations. The possibility of distortion was remote in a society in which everyone knew almost everyone else - and where any daims were verifiable. A point missed so far in the historiography regarding the dispute over Aro warrant chieftaincy dunng the early colonial period is that the main issue was not the antiquity that contestants claimed for their lineages. It was about statuses at the point of entry and the nature of relations to other groups. Because those who got the office initially were descendants of relatively recent entrants, colonial anthropologists constructed a genealogical chart that dated Aro formation wrongly at "most probably around 1750" (Anthropologists' Papers 1927).

The issues that were, and still are, often vigorously contested in Aro traditions

concern who achieved what and, especially, the speciflc status (i.e., whether slave, client or

immigrant) of the prima1 ancestor in any line at the point of entry into Aro society. It was not,

and still is not, often through whom he came. The annual rite ("homage") takes care of

these issues. As detailed in Chapter 5, this rite routinized ties among individual males in a

hierarchical order defined by social origins, age, and kinship Gliation. 1have never heard

that anyone has ever denied his or her provenance. In like manner, 1 do not know of any

disputes regarding who came into the society before another or who came later. 1 wish to

observe in this connection that even in the long-standing dispute over the nde-hogu throne,

dominant nde-Awa have never claimed senionty over nde-Uche. The claim is based on

Uche's alleged disinhentance by ~zuogu.'~

The implication of the foregoing for oral tradition is the minimiration of one of its

central defects, i.e., the confusion often associated with lineal precedence. A colonial

anthropological report of 1927 observes that the Aro had "an undimmed recollection of their

past history" (see Anthropologists' Papers 1927: 2). Another in 1935 notes that nde-Izuogu

'0There are contesting vaditions regardiiig Uche's supenession by Awa. The popdar version relates that Izuogu disinherited Uche, his first son, in favour of Awa, during hogu's lifetime. It is said that Iniogu had inadvertentiy killed a fellow Aro amadi (aristocrat) over a disagreement in an Aro council meeting. In the Iast anaiysis, Izuogu was asked to present one of his sons. Failing to do this, hoguwouId pay witb his own head Uche's mother, Mpi, twk her son away in order to protect him. By contra* Awa's mother, Egimcha, offered her young son. As luck wouid have it, Izuogu was spared the ordd when, either he was pardoned or a slave was accepted in his son's stead. Consequent upon this experience, Iniogu made Awa his heir. But the tradition put fonvard by nde-Uche is different. Its centrai panel is that Izuagu's dependents used their matrician connections with Awa to support Awa in Awa's won@ bid for power. Whatever be the case, both traditions affirm the fact that Uche was Imogu's first son and that hogu's dependents determined the outcome of the succession dispute between the two princes. -3 5- did not have any legends (see Mayne 1935). In spite of 20' century manipulations, these observations are consistent with those of modem scholars (Bentor 1994; Dike and Ekejiuba

1990; Nonhmp 1978: 34). As a result, one does not start to reconstmct Aro history Rom

"time imrnemorial". While debates about entiy statuses stiil create problems, Aro genealogies are reliable enough for establishing rough chronologies.

1 have compared the results of my calculations with the dates given by other researchers (Bentor 1994; Dike and Ekejiuba 1990; Ekejiuba 1972a; Ijoma and Njoku 199 1; lsichei 1976;G.I. Jones 1963; Latharn 1973; Northmp 1978; Nwuauwa 1990, 199 1; J.G.

Okoro 1985; Oriji 1994). In some cases, as in the formation of nde-Izuogu, my calculations correspond with other estimates. Where comparative chronologies do not exist in the literature, for example, the entry points of nde-Izuogu lineage-groups, 1 have relied solely on rny own. In analyzing the genealogies, for example, the formation of individual lineages, which appeared in the traditions to be separated only by a few years, tums out to have spanned one centuiy and a half Aiso, the movement of two Aro groups into the upper Imo

River, said to have been made by Izuogu's brothers and by implication happened in the same generation as the formation of nde-Izuogu, took place afler one century and over (in the late

1850s and early 1870~)~and it involved the descendants of the supposed pioneen. Having put the chronologies in a chart, as done in Chapter 5, a pattern emerges regarding the physical location of the lineage-groups. Also, the dates established in these chronologies help us to leam about what was happening in those other societies fiom where the Aro recruited entrants. For instance, the time of refbgee infiux from Owa in the Nri-Awka axis helps us to estimate a date for the catastrophe that obliterated that society. -36-

Genealogies are, however, more complicated than the foregoing may suggest. For exarnple, a slave acquisition or immigration that a tradition may connect with a particular name within a lineage may actually have been associated with another person within that same lineage at an earlier or a later penod. Lineages are often related to one another in a synchronie form. Thus, it is not enough to focus on one heage in establishing chronologies on cross-Iineal matters.

Material culture found during fieldwork also helped me a great deai in understanding

Aro history. Architectural stmctures and their components are living contemporaries of the past. They tell lively stories about settlement patterns, occupations, warfare and other processes. Religious icons go very far in unknotting important aspects of the people's cosmogony.

On a final note, although 1 owe much of my understanding of the subjed to my encounter with traditions, it seems that I leam a new thing each time 1 re-read the published eye-witness sources, especially mariners' journals. Each kind of source places the other in perspective.

Arrangement of Chapters

The arrangement of the chapters of this study is both chronological and thematic. There are chronological overlaps, but even within such sections, 1 have strived to present the material chronologically. In Chapter 2,1 relate the chronology of Aro expansion during its fkst and second phases to the oscillations in the Biafran Atlantic trade up until British abolition of that trac in 1807. Focusing on the second phase, Chapter 3 situates Aro slaving in the regional -3 7- context with an emphasis on Aro organization during the crucial period 1750-1807.1 link cultural and economic processes within the Bight of BiaFra to the Atlantic slave trade in

Chapter 4. Slaving within the region is discussed here, not just in tenns of economic relationships, but also of collateral social and ideologicai systems. The chapter demonstrates that indigenous slavery and conceptions of the Atlantic world helped to shape the gender and other composition of export captives. Chapter 5 addresses the formation and expansion of the

Aro diaspora and the evolution of a fiontier culture out of Aro ideals, pragmatic adaptations, and the cultural artifacts brought by the non-Aro who came into the society. Chapter 6 concentrates on the 19' century and deals with the decline of the Atlantic slave trade and transformations in the indigenous political economy following this decline. Chapter 7 concludes this study. The chapter's highlight is an assessrnent of the implications of the study for Atlantic historiography. It is to the Aro link to the Atlantic systern that we must now turn. CHAPTER 2 THE AR0 IN THE ATLANTIC CON-XT: EXPANSION AND SHIFTS, 1620s-1807

The foundation of Aro-Chukwu and the development of the Aro diaspora corresponded with basic trends in the Bi&an Atlantic slave trade. But this simple proposition has not been fully investigated. As recently as 1989, G.I. Jones (1989: 36) remarked: "We do not know how or when the traders achieved their dominant position in the Cross River trading system and the hinterland slave trade which fed the Bight of Biafra's ports." Although several scholars have show how the Aro attained their dominance (see Dike and Ekejiuba 1990;

Ijoma and Njoku 1991; Northmp 1978b; Ukwu 1969: 132-36), we still need to link this development to oscillations in the Biafian Atlantic trade. The major aim of this chapter then is to periodize Aro expansionism during its first and second phases, and to correlate its dynarnics with those of the Biafian Atlantic trade. Thus, the chapter situates the Aro trading complex in the Atlantic system, mapping how the development of this complex and demand conditions impacted each other.

Earlier attempts focused on the coastal city states. E.J.Alagoa's (1 970, 197 la,

197 1 b, 1972; 1986) work on these states described structural changes related to trade. Other works oEered detailed analyses of the indiiidual trading states - Bo~y(Hargreaves 19S7),

Brass (Alagoa 1964), (Cookey 1974), New Calabar (Elem-Kalahari) (Wariboko

199 1) and Old Calabar (Calabar) (Latham 1973; Lovejoy and Richardson 1997, forthcoming;

Nair 1972; Noah 1980) - that Alagoa, Dike (1956) and Jones treated in a grasp. These works help us to understand the patterns and dimensions of regionai trade. However, except the -3 9- works of Sylvanus Cookey (1974) and Alagoa (1970, 197la; 1986), which emphasized the role of intemal long-distance trade in the institutional development of the coastal states, these works treated the hinterland trade merely as an adjund of coastal trade. Because most of the studies depended primarily on European sources - Alagoa's and to an extent Cookey's excepted - they tended to explain Biafian trade from the European perspective.

Cookey's work on Opobo is the most relevant to the hinterland, but its necessary focus on the 19" century places much of the 18' century - a period cnicial to this study - outside its pu~ew.This 1g6 century focus is shared by most other Niger delta works

(Alagoa 197 1b; Hargreaves 1987; Nair 1972; Noah 1980; Wariboko 199 1). John Latharn provides an uncornmon insight into the 18" century. but his work on Old Calabar represented a setback on one issue that is central to this study. He located Aro formation in the second half of the 18" century (Latharn 1973: 26-28) - one century and a half late. Effectively, therefore, Latham irnplied that the Aro, who actually dorninated the hinterland trade, came to the scene only when the slave trade was at its height. Consequently, these works require a critical reading in any attempt to understand the system that produced the captives who were shipped through the ports hosted by the city-states they described.

In situating the Aro in the Atlantic context, one must address the centrality of slaveq to their expansion. The comection between indigenous Afirican slavery and the Atlantic slave trade is an important theme of Afiican history. The views expressed centre on whether slavery was important in Afncan societies before the Atlantic slave trade or acanslavery -40-

resulted fiom the Atlantic slave trade.' Beyond differences, the consensus is that the Atlantic

slave trade interacteci intimately with indigenous slavery. With regard to the region, Cookey

(1974: 18) has observed in the case of the coastal states that "there is little doubt that

dornestic slavery existed before the opening of the transatlantic slave trade and [that] the

status lacked the odium which it subsequently acquired." While Inikon (1982b: 45; 1992a:

127, 130, 157) cautions against projecting backward to the Atlantic slave trade era the

spectre of late 19n century developed slave systems, he notes that "the crucial issue is what

the export slave trade [Saharan and Atlantic] did to the extent and character of slavery in the

region" (see also Ekeh 1990: 677n). Thus, the concern here is not the existence of slavery

se, but the extent to which it was practised. This must be measured against the background of

two pertinent facts of regional history. First, by the beginning of the 17& century, the coastal

city-states were still fledgling formations. Second, the later large-scale holders of the

hinterland - Aro-Chukwu, Abo, Asaba, Oguta and Osomari - were only just forming, out of a

series of migrations (see K.O. Dike 1956: 25-26; Henderson 1972:41 -65; Latham 1973: 3 1;

Noah 1980: 1- 19; Northmp 1978b: 45-47; Ogedengbe 1971 ; Ohadike 1994: xvi, xviii-xix,

46-48, 49-50; Onwuejeogwu 1987: 34; Onji 1994: 11). Thus, Cookey's clah that slavery in

the region ante-dated the Atlantic slave trade is open to question.

Still, slavery seems to have becorne widespread by the rnid-18"' century. Olaudah

or the fm view, see Fage 1969, 1975, 1980; Thomton 1992a. The second view is most closely associated with Davidson (1961, 197 1); Rodney (1966, 1967); Inikori (1982b, 1992a, 1994a); Noah 1980: 76-77); Thompson (1987). Other scholars have explainecl the expansion, not the origin, of slavery in terms of the Muence of the Atlantic slave trade (see M. Klein 1978; Klein and Lovejoy 1979; Lovejoy 1979, 1983, 1989; Manaiag 1981, 1982: 10; 1990; Meillassoux 1982). Except Meillassou, the scholan in the third category describe 19' cenhuy political econornies as slave modes of production. -4 1-

Equiano (1 995: 37) refers to gifts and fines in slaves, and gives the impression that a man's

"family and slaves" could be 4bnumerous".A few of the Ara settlements were founded in the

rnid-18¢ury by men whom Aro-Chukwu holders had enslaved as boys @ike and

Ekejiuba 1990; Nwokeji, forthcorring).*The coastal city-states had also corne to depend on

slaveiy by the end of the 18' century, about which period relevant works exist (see

Hargreaves 1987: 87, 9 1-92, 93, 10 1; Nair 1972: 37). The question regarding whether

slavery in Afnca bulwarked the Atlantic slave trade is not as critical as once supposed. First,

Afnca was only one of many places where this ancient institution existed. Second, there is no

necessary correlation between the extent of pre-existing slavery and volumes of captives

exported. While the Bight of Biafra becarne one of the most important supply regions, places

with well-established pre-existing slave regimes, as in the Kingdom, were not

necessarily the most important supply regions (see Ekeh 1990: 677n). Other reasons

consigned Africa to that role at that point in history (see e.g., Curtin 1990, 1993: 17 1-76;

Eltis 1993; H. Klein 1978: 3-8; Menard and Schwartz 1993; Waivin 1997: 24; E. Williams

1944: 6- 10; Wolf 1982: 20 1-04). No wonder, the supposed link between pre-existing slavery

and the Atlantic slave trade has been omitted in some studies without detracting from their

contribution (as in Law 199 1b).

'~wertheless,îhe initiative of ex-slaves in founding Aro seitlements has sometimes ben ovemateci. Although Dike and Ekejiuba do this in an attempt to theorize the slave element as the motive force of Aro dispersal, their own data show that this etement was relevant only in a haadfiil of cases (Dike and Ekejiuba, 1990: 7 1,75, 78, 97- 98, 99, 120, 176, 206, 217). -42-

First Phase: Aro Rise and the Biafran Slave Trade, 1620s-1720s

The enquky into Aro ongins is an old theme. The vast outpounng on Aro ongins gaineci

rnornentum with the Aro expedition of 1901-02, through which the British subordinated the

hoto colonial nile. The first systematic attempt at dating Aro formation was that of the

colonial anthropologist, H.F.Mathews. Mathews dated Aro formation at not "earlier than

1700 or 1730 but most probably around 1750." Still, he reduces Aro antiquity by declaring

that formation happened 150 or 160 years earlier than 1927 when he wrote. This conclusion

places Aro foundation at either 1777 or 1767. Mathews arrived at his conclusions via

deductions from Aro-Chukwu traditions, including the genealogies of relatively recent Aro

families. Mathews learned also that blunderbusses (two of thern, "of a primitive type", he

actually saw) had played a decisive role in the war that produced the Aro state. His

investigations led him to believe that the first blunderbusses arrived in Biafra early in the 18"

century3 Some scholars have accepted Mathews's conclusions as a benchmark. For example,

Bentor (1994: 79), who did extensive fieldwork among the Aro in the late 1980s, puts

forward the second half of the 18" century. Latham (1973: 26-28), whose information is that

blunderbusses were first exported to Biafra in 1713, insists on a date not earlier than the mid-

1 century. Upon a cntical reassessment of Mathews's date, Okwuchukwu Nwauwa (199 1)

establishes a date at 1690- 1720.

Nwauwa's calculation deserves fùrther attention because it is the most ngorous to

date. Nwauwa makes an important distinction between srnall-scale and commercial

kuch of the details on Aro origins as presented by colonial officials are contained in NAE ARODIV 2011115: Anthropologists Papers on Aro Origin: Discussion and the Basis of the Widespread of Am Influence, 1927. -43 - importation of firearms, suggesting t hat Latham's 17 13 date referred to commercial importation, while firearms could have trickled into the region during more than 150 years of trade with Europeans (Nwauwa 1990: 227, 235). This latter observation is convincing.

Nwauwa (1990: 227, 233-36; 1991: 296) insists that the importation of firearms was critical to Aro chronology. His chronoiogical charts place the genealogies of almost dl the major characters of Aro formation in the generation 1690-1720, and that "many of [Aro-Chukwu's] constituent villages were established in the next generation (ca. 1720-1 XO)." Nwauwa attempts to correlate Aro expansion with the expansion of the Biafran trade, identifjing

Arnawom and Nkalunta in western Cross River Igbo area as the earliest diaspora settlements.

By placing the foundation date of Aro-nde-lzuogu within 1795- 1825, Nwauwa fails in his attempt to correlate the foundation of the principal settlements with the expansion of captive exports. The siting of two obscure settlements outside the Igbo heartland would hardly have generated the high volumes of captive exports observed in the rnid-18' century. Nwauwa makes no attempt to locate the genealogies of founding members of the major diaspora settlements, such as Imogu Mgbokpo and Oti Emesinwa. Doing this would have cornpelled

Nwauwa to adjust his chronology for Aro-Chukwu backwards because hogu was the great- grandson of Nnachi, an Aro pioneer. Omitting this vital step, Nwauwa is lefl with no choice but to telescope Aro involvernent in the Atlantic trade. For instance, he reckons that the supersession of Old Calabar by Bonny, which he acknowledges to possess "a better location than [Old] Calabar for the Aro trading network," took place "by the early nineteenth century"

(Nwauwa 1991 : 3 08). But this shifi had taken place in the mid- 18& century. Nwauwa's 1690-

1720 date for the foundation of Aro-Chukwu is one century late. The limitations of Nwauwa's contribution cannot surprise, above dl, because of the

author's apparent unfamliarity with some key works in the field. Nwauwa omits the

important compendium edited by Okoro Ijoma (Ijoma 1986a) because that material has not

been widely circulated. More disappointing is that he also omits Felicia Ekejiuba's (1972%

1972b) well known articles on 19& century Aro trade, with important information on Aro

ongins (the area of Nwauwa's special interest). Ekejiuba (1972a: 13n) points out, and it is

venfiable by fieldwork, that these genealogies came from farnilies of relatively recent origins,

fiom whom the British drew the early warrant chefs. To legitimate the claim to authonty,

these individuais impressed on the British that their lineages began with the establishment of

Aro-Chukwu. Closer familiarity with the literature would have illurninated Nwauwa's

analyses.' The problems shared by the contributions of Bentor, Latharn and Nwauwa, are that

they have not tumed up any new body of evidence and have not given due weight to G.I.

Jones's considered views on the subject.

Using the traditions of the Niger Delta houses, G.I. Jones (1 963 : 134) concluded that

the Aro oracle, Ibiniukpabi, played a cnicial part in their formation. He attributed the

blunderbusses' element in Aro traditions of ongin to telescoping. From this fact, Jones places

%or instance, familiarity with such works on Aro-nde-hogu by Richard Igwegbe (1962) and, especially, I.G. Okoro ( 1985)' and fieldwork of any kind would have given Nwauwa more insight in dating Aro expansion than is available in colonial te.-, upon which he relies. Aiso glaring is Nwauwa's neglect of Dike and Ekejiuba's (1990) book, to date the most comprehensive treatrnent of the Aro political economy. Although by Nwauwa's own admission, the traditions collected by colonial offrcers were "meagre", Nwauwa claims that they surpass those collected by "any rcsearcher until very recently." He also asserts that 'tery littie, if any fieIdwork has actually been carrieci out" (Nwauwa 1995: 110, 111, 114). While these assertions apply to his own work and specinc criticism of Angbo's work, bey are a disse~ceto Ekejiuba who did extensive fieldwork arnong the Aro mainly between 1963 and 1965. Nwauwa's critical method, is nevertheless, useN in appreciaîing the complexities of Aro history. However, reliable analyses of An> origins lie within Dike and Ekejiuba (1990). Ekejiuba (19724 1972a), Ijoma (1986b) and Northntp (1978b: 36). -45-

Aro formation at the period before the mid-lTb century. Like Jones, Ekejiuba dates Aro

formation at the first half of the 17' century (see also Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 44). Isichei

(1976: 6, 58, 76) and Oriji (1994) have accepted this date. For their part, Ijoma and Njoku

(1 99 1 : 204) declare: "Arochukwu appears to have developed .. . administrative machinery

and was a thriving state by the 17' century to be able to cope with the immense commercial

activities of the 18' and 1gh centuries." This statement is a slight modification of Ijoma's

(1 986c: 16) earlier declaration that "the Aro state ... must have waxed strong and [that] its

trading and oracular activities were already established by the end of the 16"' century."

Northnip (1978b: 36) is less definite in his assertion that Aro-Chukwu "must have been

founded at least as early as the seventeenth century." One must distinguish between the

occupation of the Unene region (the Aro-Chukwu area) and the foundation of Aro-Chuwku.

The region had been occupied before the 17~century, probably long before, but the

formation of Aro-Chukwu seems to have been an event of the 1620s.

Documentary evidence, overlooked before now, shows that Bende, an Aro market,'

was already thriving by the 1670s. John Barbot (1732: 381), who made at least two voyages

to the Biafian Coast between 1678 and 1682, wrote in 1682 that "There is . . . a large

market for slaves in Beili, a large town West of Old Calabar inland." In July 1699, James

Barbot and John Grailhier (1699: 109), referred to a "Bendi" market where 247 bars

exchanged for twenty-three captives. The inland market was, according to them, three or four

days away from the New Calabar port. This was a century earlier than the second half of the

'The market's major and minor fain were respectively named der the Aro families Agbagwu and Bianko (see Isichei 1976:63). -46-

18' century date advanced for Aro formation by Mathews, foiiowed by Latham and Bentor.

It is safe to assume that about fie years elapsed from Aro formation, through the establishment of the Bende market, to the fmous market that the Barbots and Graziihier described so accurately fiom the Coast. Relevant to this contention is that both Ekejiuba

(1972a: 13) and Afigbo (1980: 87) have concluded that the Aro came into prominence in the mid-1 7' century. Unless there is evidence to show that another group had controlled the

Bende market before the Aro or that the inchoate pre-Aro inhabitants of the Unene region could sponsor the market that European mariners described in the 1670s and 1690s, to suggest that the Aro ernerged as late as the 18~century is out of the question. Placing the formation of the Aro state in about the 1620s is reasonable in the light of the evidence. Given my newly discovered information on Bende and other evidence, 1 am inclined to agree with

Northrup (1978: 36) that blunderbusses - as put fonh by Mathews, followed by Bentor,

Latham and Nwauwa - are not central to dating Aro formation. Blunderbusses either did not play a crucial part in Aro formation or they came into the region about a century before

Latham's 1713 date. Mer all, the blunderbuss that Mathews saw in Aro-Chukwu was, by his own testimony, of "a primitive type". It is clear fiom the foregoing that Aro-Chukwu was formed during the early Atlantic slave trade era in the Bight of Biafra.

Importantly, Dike and Ekejiuba (1990: 56, 57) link the contemporaneous formation in the 17" century of five Igbo States - Aro-Chukwu, Abo, Oguta, Onitsha and Osomari - to non-Igbo peoples interested in the slave trade. Dike and Ekejiuba theorke that Aro-

Chukwu's formation and consolidation derived frorn a conjuncture of ecologicai and economic conditions that made the Ibiniukoabi socially relevant and gave expression to the -47-

"genius" of Akuma, the first Aro king. They have also suggested that the stability and the

corollary surplus population which the Aro state ensured, rather than the Atlantic slave trade,

prompted Aro expansion. Thus, they conclude that "the Atlantic slave trade was a facilitating,

not a causal factor in Aro wars." Although Dike and Ekejiuba are correct in pointing out that

"war was fortuitous and not a central planned policy of Aro e~pansion,"~to classifi and

stratify these "factors" is problernatic in this instance (Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 94, 95, 16 1-

62).

Contrary to this approach, 1 believe that understanding change in the Bight of Biafra

in terms of conjunctures is a more effective approach. One should not discount or relegate

any causal element if it gave impetus to a given phenornenon and helped to shape it. Dike and

Ekejiuba (1990: 57) themselves show that the group that engineered the formation of the Aro

state had the Atlantic slave trade fidyin view. It is, therefore, not usefiil to separate into

discrete factors what were indeed interacting elements. During expansion fiom Aro-Chukwu,

the existence of a stable Aro state and the Atlantic slave trade were complementary elements,

not competing factors. This standpoint alone can satisfactonly clai@ the conjuncture of Aro

expansion and the rise of the Biafian Atlantic slave trade. As Table 2.1 shows, the Biafian

trade was still in its infancy at the time the Aro state was founded in about the 1620s. The

sample of enslaved Biafians in the Americas recorded by Alonso Sandovai ([1627] 1956: 94)

in 1627 shows that the proportion of the Igbo in the Biafian trade was still small- one clear

case of Igbo origin among fifteen enslaved Biafians (see also Hair 1967: 263n). As Table I

bThis view accords with A£igbo9s(l98la: 15) idea that prealonial Igbo wars, in general iike warfate elsewhere, occurred when other means of settiing issues had collapsed. And John Thornton reminds us that African warfàre had rnany causes (Thornton l992a: 125). shows, the slave trade in Biafra becarne important only in the second half of the 1Tb centuxy.

Table 2.1: Capthes Exported, by Pdod, I UtPl699 (Al1 Camers; figures rounded)

Perioda Bight of Biafra Yearly Avg. Africm Totd Biafran Prct of African TotaJ

1470s- 1600 20,000 200 367,000 5.5

1600- 1650s 25,000 500 630,600 4.0 1 1660s- 1699 100,000 2,500 1,237.00 Source: Chambers 1996.

Three signifiant features affected the Biafkan trade before the 18" century. The first was that the captives from the Calabars "were not in high favour with the English."

Discrimination against captives fiom the Old Calabar in particular was reported in Barbados as early as 1675-76 (see Doman 1930: 108, 205). In 1679, they were referred to as

"supemumerary Negroest' (Stede and Gascoigne 1679). This negative attitude would continue with buyers in the British New World colonies up to the 18" century. Added to this problem were, as John Barbot (1682: 300) recorded in the late 17' century, the turbulence of

Old Calabar waters and its "intemperate air" (see also Van Nyendael 1702: 467-68).

"Intemperate air" was associated with malaria and high mortality. This phenornenon seems to have even been worse elsewhere in the region (see Johnston 1888b: 753). For this reason, the

Europeans did not establish a permanent presence in the region (Thomton, forthcoming: 1).

The third problem came from the supply side. Captives stili amved in trickles. Again, John

Barbot (1732: 38 1,383) writes that "trade is not so bnsk" in Bende (the idand market of

"Belli" or "Bendi") "as at the east of river Calabar" and in the delta port of New Calabar.

"[Sleveral ships are obliged to stay eight or ten months, accordina to the circumstances of the natives."' John Barbot made his 1682 observation out of hstration at the long wait that the

New Calabar trade demanded. The situation rernained so until the end of the century. James

Barbot and Grarilhier (1699: 109- 16) in 1699 comrnented in similar vein. Up to the end of

the 17"' century, New Calabar was the only port in the Bight of Biafia to which European

slave vessels paid regular visit (Thornton, forthcoming: 1, 5-6, 7). The foregohg information

indicates that Aro organization had yet to reach its maturity in the lp century. Captain

William Snelgrave (1730: 505) estimated that only a total of 20,000 had been exported from

Old Calabar by 1730.

In spite of the problems, the Biafian slave trade continued to gain momentum as the

17& century wore on. The Spaniards were buying Biafran captives at Jamaica and Barbados

as early as the 1660s (see Donnan 1930: 108). John Thomton (forthcoming: 5) reports that

Biafians "became quite numerous" in Peru between 16 10 and 1640. Out of a record of 5,278

enslaved Afncans in Peru between 1560 and 1650, entnes for "Biafia" and "Caravali" total

682 or nearly 13% (see Bowser 1974: 40-4 1). In about 1668 and about 1693, a total of about

215 captives frorn "Callebar" were imported into the island of Bemuda (Bennett 1704: 48).'

In 1672, a Royal Afncan Company (RAC) document conceming New and Old Calabar read

7John Barbot "made at least two voyages to the West coastn between 1678 and 1682. His A Descri~tionwas originaily mritten in French in 1682 and translated into Engiish in 1732 (Donnan 1930:282). Whiie Elizabeth Dom's version implies that Barbot may have made more voyages, Paul Hair, Adam Jones and Robin Law pinpoint only 1678-79 and 1681-82. They doubt that Barbot made any further voyages aAer 1682 (Hair, Jones and Law 1992b:i. xiii). But they concedeci that the John Barbot reference may have been made in connection with the journey of the Grfin or that of the Draaon which apparentfy made its joumey later in 1699, which involved his brother, James Barbot. John Barbot may have borrowed hmthe jounial of his brother and his mates or may himself bave been part of the Dranon 's 1699 trip (Hair, Jones and Law 1992b:xlix, lxxiii, xciii). The emphasis in the quotation is added.

*slightly more tban a balf of the captives were reshipped to North Carolina and Vuginia -50-

in part, "whither many ships are sent to trade [and where] slaves and teeth ... are to be had in

plenty. "'At this time and up to 1705, the British were trading the Dutch, who had "the

greatest share" in the OId Calabar trade (John Barbot 1682: 299-300;James Barbot, jr. 1705:

14).

The withdrawal of RAC's monopoly rights in 1698 seems to have been a factor in the

nse of the Biafian trade. According to Herbert Klein (1978: 122-23), this measure stimulated

a rapid increase in the import of captives into the New World, as independent traders moved

strongly into the supply regions in which the British were strong but maintained no forts. The

Bight of Biafra was one of such region, and soon, the British assumed the leading position

here. By mid-1699, we find firmer evidence of improvement in trade. In June of that year,

James Barbot (1699: 432) learned that an English ship which one Captain Edwards

commanded "got his compliments" of 500 captives in three weeks' time in New Calabar.

James Barbot, jr., (1705: 14) reports that he saw in October 1700 ten or more slave ships in

New Calabar. In October, 1702, it was expected that there might be too many ships in New

Calabar, but certainly in Old Calabar (see Starke 1702: 8 1). No wonder, prices made steady

progress. In December 1705, it was alleged that New Calabar suppliers "rais'd pnce of

negroes from 40s.-50s. to £12 or £14" (James Barbot, jr., 170% 14n).

'~ee"The Trade of the Royal African Company, 1672." See Do- (1 930: 193). Table 2.2:A San& of Captive Rices in New and Old Cafabar, 1678-1 704 fin copper bard Men Women Girls Boys Place Date , Feb. 36 30 NA NA N. Calabar 1678'

168Sb 38 36 or 37 NA NA O. Calabar 1688' 56 or 60 NA NA NA N. Caiabar

1698' 40148 28-36 17-30 20-40 O. Calabar

1699' 52 36 NA NA N. Calabar I703/17 48 36 NA NA N. Caiabar 04' Sources: ' "Journal of the Arthur, Dec. 5, 1677-May 25, 1678."See Donnan (1930: 226). John Barbot (1682: 300n). 'Dapper, cited by Meek (1937: 5).1° 'John Bart>ot (1698: 4 19). James Barbot (1699:420).11 f James Barbot, jr., (1705: 14); Donnan (193 1: 2n). Note: 51 or 61 equalled 1 iron bar (ie., 4 copper bars) (see Donnan 193 1: 1411).

In spite of increasing pnces, the Board of Trade (1709: 56-57, 59) reported in 1709 that,

along with the situation at the ports below the Equator, captive prices were lowest in the

Bight of Biafra, ''from whence the greatest number of Negroes are exported."

As important as the market processes were to the expansion of trade, it was

developments within the hinterland that made captives available. These developments

involved Aro expansion and related institutions. These institutions will receive due attention

at appropriate junctures of this study. The one which needs mention here is the Mazi because

of its special role in the first phase of expansion, a role that became less important thereafter.

The appointment of a resident Mazi, usually a trusted confidant of the king, for the outlying

%apper does not specify sex. The pria was for "a good slave", and may not have been representative.

"The prices are my convenions corn the New Calabar exchange rate, quoted in iron bars. One iron bar was qua1 to four copper bars (see John i3dt1682: 30011;1698: 420). Apart hmstability in the prices of female captives and appreciation of those of males between 1682 and 1699 in both New Calabar and Old Calabar, the latter period seems to have witnessed pice instability in both ports. comrnunities, as far as Afikpo (north of Aro-Chukwu), was perhaps the first act in Aro

expansionism. The Mazi and his followen, linked "the local administration ... to the Aro

system" @ike and Ekejiuba 1990: 69). They also constituted themselves into amadi

(aristocracy), and controlled trade and the Afikpo market. Mazi was clearly a state office,

although there does not seem to have been a clear-cut distinction between private and state

spheres. The era of private enterprise in Aro expansionism belonged to the next phase."

Other institutions included the Ekpe secret society, the Aro central council (Okoa Nkoo),

and the Ibiniukoabi oracle. As will be show in Chapter 3 below, the influence of these

institutions continued to expand with the Biafran slave trade in the 18& century.

Table 2.3: Rounded Figures of Ail Captives Erporte

1730-39 62,260 6,226 5995 10 10.4 1 Source: Tabulated from Richardson (1989b: 17).

Although the Biafran proportion of the Afncan trade fluctuated in the 1720s and

l73Os, the Biafkan share increased steadily. In a report of Febniaiy 172 1, the Royal Afncan

'%e stimulation for my thinking in terms of private/state enterprises denves from Robin Law's (1977, 1978: 1245; 1996) studies of Dahomey. The fùnctions of the Mazi corresponded roughly to Dahomian "Captain of the Market," in a foreign land, whose duties "included ... the maintenance of order and the collection of a sales tax on al1 transactions in the market." He aiso regulated the cowry currency and prices (Law 1991: 51). The ders of the Malinke and Wolof of Senegambia appointed lieutenants to supervise trade (Aschcroft-Eason, forthcoming). in late 17" and early 18" centuries Benin the king's traders were called Fiadors - Portuguese for guarantors (see Van Nyendael 1702: 434). Faiconbndge (1788: 8) reports of "officer boys" in Old Calabar during the second half of the 18" cenhuy. In the early 19" century, bey were referred to as "govemors", whose powers were "great and aimost uncontrolled" (Bold 1822: 72). At Addamugy immediate south of the Niger-Benue confluence, the office of Nufîa or "Captain of the Port" existed by 1841 (see Ailen and Thomson 1848a: 273). John .4dams reports about "the king's trader" in Benin (Adams 1832: 3 1). This phenomenon of AfÎican trade should make an interesthg study. -53-

Company (1 72 1: 25 1) decided to send factors "to try if an allyance cannot be made with the princes of the Country of the Bight, and to learn what son of Trade may be carryed on there. " Exports grew from a yearly average of 2.3 13 in the 1700s to 6,226 in the 1730s. The presence of people from the Biafian hinterland wntinued to grow in the New World. In

Virginia, they had become the single most important source of captives. Figures of their proportion within the Atncan population range from 38% (Kulikoff 1986: 321-23; Sobel

1987: 5, 244-45n), 40% (Mullin 1992: 24) to half of al1 Africans (50%) - 25,000 (Chambers

1996: 3 10). The Biafran percentage of the Afncan trade rose fiom 6.42 percentage points in the 1700s to 10.38 percentage points in the 1730s. The trade expenenced a "burst" in mid- century.

Second Phase, 1730s to 1807: Surge of Trade

The mid-1 8h century marked Biafiats nse to pre-erninence in the Atlantic slave market. In part, this developrnent cm be understood in terms of the apparently rising profile of Biah captives in the New World during the 18' century. As early as January 1 730 or 173 1, one

Theodore Morris (1 7301 1 [?]: 43 1) in Barbados bemoaned to Bristol merchant Isaac

Hobhouse that "there has not been a cargo of Ebbo Slaves sould here a long time, and many

People are Enquiring for them." In his work dealing with Spanish Arnenca between 1700 and

1739, Colin Palmer (198 1: 29) writes that Igbo captives "were considered tractable and hence were highly sought after by some of the slaveholders in the Amencas." Although he noted in 1788 that Biafian captives were "weakly, and more liable to disorders", one

Liverpool merchant, James Jones (1788: 590), considered that "the Trade [in Biafra] most -54-

Advantageous .. . both as to Our Manufaturies and the Number had from thence." The fact

that Equiano (1995: 39), as well-informed as he was, could state categorically during this

period that "[tlhe West India planters prefer the slaves of Benin or Eboe to those of any other

part of Guinea, for their hardiness, intelligence, integrity, and zeal" suggests a shift in planter

attitude to Biafian captives. The entry of Liverpool merchants and their subsequent takeover

of the trade from their Bristol counterparts is relevant in understanding the expansion of

trade. Between 1680 and 1 700, Bristol ships alone carried 300,000 captives. Liverpool

became dominant towards the rnid- 18h century (Blindloss 1898: 17 1). At least, two-thirds of

the voyages in which the Liverpool tycoon of the second half of the 18' century, William

Davenport, invested involved Old Calabar and the , both in the Bight of Biafra.

Out of 144 of some 160 voyages, 55 involved OId Calabar and 43 the Carneroons

Wchardson 1976: 65).13As David Drake (1976: 141) has observed, Liverpool merchants

preferred to buy lower priced captives and accept lower prices in New World ports. In

January 1736, two mariners wrote their boss in Britain that "we buy Callabar and Angola

Negroes .. . on which account we take as many ... as possibly we can, in order to render the

Negroe Account proffitable to the Company" (Merewether and Manning 1736). Thus,

Liverpool operations emphasized turnover. This tendency helps to explain the recent

observation by Steve Behrendt that increase in ship site between 1664 and 1807 was greatest

in the Bight of Biafra, where it rose by 50 percentage points greater than it had been in the

previous 200 years (Behrendt 1998: 7, 8-9). Liverpool domination of the Biafkan trade

Hopkins 1973: 96; Minchinton 1976 for informative detaiis concerning the Liverpool slave irade; E. Williams 1914: 6 1,63. correlates with this development.

Certain developments justified this strategy and contnbuted to the expansion of the

Biafian trade. These include continuing New World demand for labour and rising profle of

Biaffan captives, especially the "Eboes" from the Bomy port. These demand factors drove

pnces, irrespective of increased supply. While acknowleging the relevance of supply

variables, Eltis (1983: 260) has noted that, in the long run, there is a direct relationship

between price and the quantity of captives supplied. This appears to have been the case in the

Bight of Biafra. The following comparative table (2.4) puts the average pices of Biafian

captives in the New World, especially the "Eboe", at quite competitive rates during the peak

years of trade.

7 4 Wm~.flliofronw~inœ NmWdd Years Origin of Place of Sale f s d Captives

1759 wh~dah Charlestown 35 11 O

1767 *mabar G renada 27 O O 4 1767 * Bonny do- 30 1O O

1768 *Calabar Tortola 2 3 10 O

1769 do- Jarnaica 34 14 O

1770 Windward Dominica 33 8 O Coast

1770 *Old Calabar do- 27 12 O

1771 *Eboe CharIestown 40 O O

1771 *Calabar Do minica 30 13 O

1772 *Eboe Charlestown 39 15 O Source: G. Williams (1897: 529).14 *Biafran captives.

"~omerWilliams indicates that the average price in 1772 at Charlestown, where 4,500 and f3t.y Afîicans were landed in that year, ranged from f 50 to f 54. In that case, the prie of the Igbo captives sold at Charlestom although highest in the table, may be misleading, since the Charlestown averages for other categories of captives Table 2.4 shows that the prices offered for captives from Old Calabar were much lower than

those from Bonny. A sarnple price for nine captives negotiated at Old Calabar in July-August

1767 suggests an average price of 100 bags of cowries per captive." Absolute numbers of

captives exported grew tremendously.

Table 2.5 : Roun&d Figures of Al1 Captives ETpotterl, By Decade, 1 Nb1809

Dccadc Yearly Avg. African Totd Biafran Prct.

-- 1 23,000 12,3Oo 605,770 20.3 Source: Tabulated from Richardson (1 !Wb: 17).

Table 2.5 bears eloquent testimony to the impact of mid-1 8m century developrnents. Within

the Atlantic system, "the slave trade had become better organized, more efficient in both

captunng and deiivenng slaves, and more profitable to European and herican traders"

(Allison 1995). On the Biafran Coast, the "trust" system of credit had become operative by

the 1760s (see Cowan 1936: 53-54; Hargreaves 1987; Latham 1973 : 27; Lovejoy and

are not included in the table. Nevertheless, the Biahcaptives had attracted cornpetitive prices by the mid-lgrn century, marking the ascendancy of the Biafian trade.

'%le '%le figures are derived fiom G. Williams (1897: 539-40). Although the sex and age ratios are unclear, two male captives were priced at 201 cowries on 7 August and two others at 200 on the 24th. -57-

Richardson 1997, forthcorning). Through the system of "trust,?' European buyers advanced goods to coastai traders on deferred payrnent basis and on barter for captives. In turn, coastal traders advanced these goods to the Aro. The rise of the Bi& trade has been attributed to this peculiar practice, which was made possible by the operation of the indigenous Ek~e society (Drake 1976: 149; Forde 1956: 16; Latharn 1973: 27-28, 3 5-39). As important as this institution was, however, it only partially explains the rise of the region's trade. The key lies in Aro organization because developments in the hinterland were relevant to those on the

Coast.

Central Igboland and Coastal Ports

The most salient accompaniment of the rising trade in mid- 18" century Biafra was Bonny's supersession of Old Calabar as Biafra's premier pon. This shift in trade is represented in

Table 2.6. Bonny became the busiest West African port (Hargreaves 1987: 18 1-82).

Table 2.6: Compwafive Erport ttends via Liveq~oolShips: Bonny, Old Calabor and New Calabat, 1 752-99 New Calabar Bonny Old Calabar Year Ships Captives Ships Captives Ships Captive S

1752 6 2,260 12 4,670 8 3,130

177 1 3 1,050 16 6,850 11 3,250

1784 11 4,2 10 13 6, 900 1I 4,200

1785 15 5,450 14 8,600 8 3,150

1786 6 2,200 11 5,750 13 5,150

1787 5 1,960 9 6,650 7 2,360

1798 11 3,234 3 4 14,078 6 2,473

1799 8 2,583 3 7 14,945 6 2,275 *Source: Latham (1973: 21). Historians have pondered over why this change came about. Some have tned to explain the shift by attributing it to intemal dynamics, while others seek answers fiom Euro-Amencan quarters. Based on extemai dynarnics, Hargreaves (1 987: 18 1) and Latharn (1973: 19-20} attribute the shift to West Indian planten' disinterest in Old Calabar captives. Consequently, according to this view, European traders could obtain 260-62 for Bonny and New Calabar captives, "against only f28-30 for slaves fiom Old Calabar." The traders also "considered the comey at Old Calabar to be too high."Indeed, the exactions of "comey" (duty paid to coastal mlers to secure trading rights) at Old Calabar had reached notable proportions (see Corsbies and Trafford et al 1762: 486; G. Williams 1897: 529-48), and could well have deterred Euro-

Amencan buyers. There were even more reasons why some European merchants desisted corn trading in Old Calabar. Captives from Old Calabar continued to have a relatively low profile. For instance, James Jones (1788:590), who sent ships regularly to Bomy, claimed that he "allways declined sending" ships to Old Calabar (and the Cameroons) because the pons "are Sickly, and Slaves inferior to any other, very Weakly and liable to great mortality."

It makes econornic sense that the Aro moved captives to the area of higher pnces - in this case Bonny, where they could sel1 their captives as "Eboe" rather than the opprobrious

"Calabar". Still, other facts should be considered in determinhg why Old Cdabar gave way to Bomy as the leading port in Biafra. Explanations based on high duties and Euro-Amencan preferences make sense only in the existence of alternative markets. Consequently, the nature and strength of the alternative markets cal1 for analysis.

The alternative markets to OId Calabar were Bonny, New Cdabar, Brass and Birnbia. -5 9-

We must hirn attention to Bonny, where trade was increasing rapidly. An important

component of the Hargeaves-Latham argument is that hi& comey in Old Calabar was a key

factor in this supersession by Bonny. Since the high comey did not hamper the palrn oil trade,

which becarne important in Old Calabar in the second half of the 18¢ury (see Adams

1832; Northrup 1976; Ryder 1980: 242), no discernible reason commends it as a significant

factor in the decline of the slave trade. Further, contrary to the impression that Hargreaves

and Latham give, the duties paid in Bonny and New Calabar were also considerable. By

1788, James Jones (1 788) could declare that "the Dutys paid there [Bonny and New Calabar]

being very high much more than at anv other Dart of the Coast, and on every ship dike

without distinction as to size." Jones did not mention Old Calabar, an indication that duties at

Bonny and New Calabar had perhaps overtaken those in Old Calabar. In Bomy, the custom

duty for each ship was as high as £400 in 1792 (see Crow 1830: 43). There is no evidence

that this rise in duties in Bomy and New Calabar, above any other ports, shifted trade away

from there. Instead, Bo~ycontinued to record phenomenal sales.

Comey would have had less impact on buyers' attitude than Hargreaves and Latham

suggest, given the high incidence of competition arnong European buyers. The nvalry between Liverpool and Bristol ships for captives had reached notable proportions by 1767.

This rivalry seems nowhere to have been as rife as in Old Calabar, fiom where one Liverpool sailor wrote that he "never saw a worse prospect for making a voyage than at present" (see

G. Williams 1897: 535). Above all, the Hargreaves-Latham idea does not explah the fast loading rate at the Bomy port. David Richardson and David Eltis (1997) recently identined this factor as particularly striking about the Bonny trade (see also Drake 1976: 147;16J. Jones

1788: 589). No wonder, Captain Sirnrnons of the Vine, from Liverpool, "apparently [broke]

the record" in 1766 when he sailed with 400 captives from Bo~yto Dominica. He

"accomplished the round voyage in seven months and ten days" (G. Williams 1897: 529).

A satisfactory explanation of Bonny's ascendancy must address the dwindling

supplies of captives in Old Calabar itself An unidentified European eyewitness's report from

Old Calabar, dated 12 August 1767, is quite informative:

There are now seven large vessels in the nver, each of which expects to purchase 500 slaves, and 1 imagine there was seldom ever known a greater scarcity of slaves than at present, and these few chieflv from the low countq. The natives [are engaged in a bloody intemal conflict]. The river of late has been very fatal both to whites and blacks. There have three captains belonging to Bristol died within these few months, besides a number of officers and sailors . .. . The major part of the vessels here have very dangerous disorders amongst the slaves, which makes me rejoice that 1 have very few on board. I do not expect that our stay here will exceed eight months. The adioininn coasts of trade seem al1 to be verv much thronsed with shi~~inq... (reproduced by G. Williams 1897: 53 5).

The gist of this report is that European buyers went to Old Calabar to prospect for trade,

with large vessels. Each vesse1 was to collect as many as 500 captives. Earlier in 1762, the

Liverpool owners of the Marauis of Granby had sent Captain Ambrose Lace with a "larger

than ... expected" cargo of 550 captives (Crosbies and Tra£Eord et al 1762: 486). But the

reality was that captives were becorning cornparatively scarce in Old Calabar. As Drake

(1976: 142) points out, coastal middlemen calculated their pnces on the basis of supply and

"~rake(1976: 147) identifies this phenornenon, but his aggregation of the Biafran ports only distinguishes the region from the others, rather than show that Bonny had a patticulariy rapid tum-around. -61- demand. European demand in Old Calabar had placed pressure upon supply, a situation that local nilers sought to exploit sometimes by hiking the comey. The violent rivalry behveen two leading factions of Old Calabar was a symptom of a structural problem. Old Calabar and

European factions hankered &er dwindling captives in messy, cornplicated and violent incidents (see G. Williams 1897: 535-36). Funher, contrary to the implication of Hargreaves and Latham, it seems to me that high European mortality rate at this time resulted, not fiom the intrinsic unhealthiness of Old Calabar, but from long waits occasioned by the paucity of captives. Informed by relative mortality, Harry Johnston (1888b: 753), the British Vice

Consul in the Bight of Biafra dunng the 18805 writes that Old Calabar was "relatively healthy" - in cornparison to other ports, including Bomy. The Hargreaves-Latham explanation is unsatisfactory. A satisfactory explanation for the shift must examine the intemal dynarnics of the Biafran trade.

A beginning has been made in this direction. For example, A.F.C. Ryder (1980: 242) attributes the shifi to the Ibiniukpabi oracle, through which the Aro CO-ordinated"slave- gathering far inland to feed the Imo River markets." He states further that "Old Calabar, though conveniently placed for access to Arochukwu, was evidently not disposing of many slaves" in the late 18' century. The implication of Ryder's observation is that Ibiniuk~abiwas the main source of captives.

Although Ryder's explanation focuses inwards, the idea that Ibiniukpabi was the main source of captives has been debunked (see Dike and Ekejiuba 1990; J.O.ijorna 1986~;Ijoma and Njoku 1991: 206,300; Northnip 1978b: 138; Ofonagoro 1972:83; Ottenberg 1958:

304). According to Dike and Ekejiuba (1990: 250), not all traders were qualified to act as -62-

agents of the oracle. Even qualified traders often found it more rewarding to focus on their

trade. J. Okoro Ijoma (1 986c: 18; 1994: 44-45) points out that the location of Aro-Chukwu

at the south-eastemmost extreme of Igboland meant that only the wealthy could really aord

the expenses involved in consulting the oracle. Uku also notes the expensive requirements of

the consultations (see dso Ijoma and Njoku 1991 : 206; Uku 1993 : 16, 17). The oracle could

not have generated large numbers of captives. As Ijoma (1994: 44-45) articulates, its

influence would not have endured "if the people discovered that travelling to Arochukwu to

seek advice or to detennine their cases meant the disappearance of entire farnilies or

villages." Apart fiom not being the main source of captives, the nature of the operation of the

oracle meant that victims were destined for Old Calabar. Thus, rather than shed light on the

situation in OId Caiabar, Ryder's observation actually confirms that Ibiniukoabi was not a

major source of captives - Old Calabar port could not retain its primacy in spite of being fed

with lbiniuk~abivictims. One must seek the shift to Bomy outside the context of the oracle.

Like Ryder, Cookey (1974: 19-20) explains the shift via interna1 dynarnics, offering

two reasons for the rise of Bonny. Bonny had "a more convenient and healthier" anchorage

and it "secured the perpetual alliance" of boat-producing Brass against the other city-states,

notably rival New Calabar. Euro-Arnerican buyers had been aware of this fact by the turn of

the 18' century (see Starke 1702: 74). No doubt, good anchorage and an improved trade and

supply of capital goods which a strategic alliance could ensure must have been relevant in

Bomy's rise to prominence. But if Bonny's alliance with westerly Brass was usefil in Bomy's

supersession of New Calabar (which was flanked by the two allies), the pact has no necessary co~ectionwith the supersession of Old Calabar which was located to the east of the Niger -63- delta. Further, Cookey's description of the supposedly crucial political alliance is not verifiable since he gives no chronological referents. The idea of good anchorage in Bonny raises the question of why the advantages of this resource had not become salient at an earLier time. Bonny still had its safe anchorage when Opobo superseded it after 1869, notwithstanding that Opobo had an exceeding shaiiow channel. The gap in Cookey's explanation concerns developments in the hinterland. With Bende already well-established by the 1670s- the trade routes had criss-crossed Igboland and the Ibibio country down to

Calabar (Nwokeji 1997a). Southwards, they led up to the pons of Bo~yand New Calabar.

They led nonh into the Igala and Idoma lands in the Nigerian Middle Belt probably fiom the mid- 18' century, during the second phase of expansion.

Although without reference to the trends in the Biafian Atlantic trade, Afigbo (1987:

41) identifies four north-south routes to have emerged by 1750. Apart From the westernrnost

Niger watenvay and the easternmost Ibi-Wukari-Ogoja-En-Uburu-Bende-Arochuk-

Calabar route, the two other routes passed through central Igboland and headed towards the central N~gerdelta. Angbo is explicit that this one terrninated at Bonny. He suggests that the

Niger route was probably the oldest. From the antiquity of significant exports from Old

Calabar, the easternrnost route was also older than the central routes. This picture tallies well with the trends in BiaFran Atlantic exports. New Calabar was the oldest port of significance and received most of its trade fiom the Niger route closest to it. The Niger also fed Brass, the westemmost port in Biafra. According to Cookey (1 974: 19): "At the two extreme[s] .. . of the Eastern Delta were ... Brass and .. . [Old] Calabar. The former traded at the Igbo faûs along the Niger, while the latter dealt with the Ibibio dong the lower Cross River and were -64- supplied overland by the .. . ho." Noting that the captives sold at the Biafian ports "came predominantly from the Igbo country," Alagoa (1986: 127) observes that Bomy received its trade principally fiom the Aro networlg while that of Bras included non-Igbo captives fiom farther north. This view is consistent with the observation made by the Belgian visitor

Adolphe Burdo (1 880: 95) in 1878 that it was more practicable to reach the Niger through the Brass rather than Bonny river. Liverpool trader, John Whitford (1967: 159), recounts that the Bonny River was not a branch of the Niger. Aithough Burdo and Whitford Msited during the second half of the f 9th century, when overseas captive exports had been suppressed, their expenences give us an indication of the direction of the Niger trade in the earlier time. Old

Calabar, which superseded New Calabar, received its trade corn the eastemost route via

Aro-Chukwu. The two central routes Ieading to Bonny were the new element in the trade route systern during the 18' century. Finally, the Bonny port, which became pre-eminent fiom the mid- 18' century, linked these two routes that passed through the Igbo heartland, via the major Aro settlements in the greater upper Imo River area. The examination of the relevant hinterland processes will be done in detail in the next chapter. The objections stated above are merely meant to emphasize that intemal and extemal dynamics were linked. While the Aro mobilized captives From the hinterland, it was Euro-hericans who bought and transported the captives overseas. Just like providing captives depended on intemal dynamics, this process was subject to Euro-American circumstances. -65-

Conclusions

This chapter has show a correlation of Aro expansion into the Igbo heartland and the rise of the Biafian Atlantic slave trade. 1 have suggested that this incursion, accentuated by the establishment of the principal Aro diaspora settlements, was both a wseand effect of the

Biafian Atlantic system. While the European trade encouraged Aro forays in the hinterland, these forays increased the Biafian supply of captives as their direction shifted the direction of trade from Old Calabar to Bomy. Up to the end of the 17" century, New Calabar was the only port that slaving vessels visited regularly. As the Aro network matured in the Cross

River region, OId Calabar, situated near Aro-Chukwu, became dominant in the first half of the lah century. This development resulted from the supply situation at Old Calabar, where the Aro channelled most of their captives before the 1740s. This initial shift of trade eastwards skipped Bomy, which was located between New Calabar and OId Caiabar. Further expansion of trade stirnulated further Aro expansion. But their foray northwestwards into the densely populated central Igboland and their establishment there of large diaspora settlernents shified trade away from Old Calabar to cenfrally located Bonny, which was more convenient for these settlernents. It is significant that, although the overall profile of Biafian captives may have risen over the period among captive buyers, the comparatively low profile of captives sold at Old Calabar remained unaltered throughout the shifts and trends observed. This fact strongly suggests the relevance of the supply side to these changes.

Other scholars who have thought about the shift 6om Old Caiabar to Bomy have missed this critical element. Cookey and Ryder pinpoint intemal developments, but they have no explanation of why the shift happened when it did. Latham and Hargreaves have -66- attempted to explain the development in terms of European preferences and the situation in

Old Caiabar. They have failed to provide a satisfactory explanation because they neglect the internal dynamics of the Biafian trade. As has been shown, the Hargreaves-Latham thesis is contradicted by even the European sources they use. The observation of Eltis and Richardson regarding the remarkably fast loading rate at the Bomy port leads to one obvious direction in the light of the foregoing andysis: the impact of the Aro diaspora settlements on the Biafran

Atlantic trade.

Future research will throw light on some aspects of the stages of Aro expansion.

While we know that the first stage witnessed the amalgamation of the Igbo, the Ibibio, and the Akpa, and the foundation of Bende as the bulking centre of the Aro network, it is still unclear in what sequence the principal Aro institutions - Eze Aro. Okoa Nk~o.Ibiniuk~abi, and the Eke - were established. We have a better picture of the chronology of expansion dunng the second stage and the impact of that development both on the hinterland and the

Coast, but the activities of the srnaller settlements and the sequence of their establishment are hazy. This problem is complicated by the fact that many of these settlernents have since ceased to exist. Regardless of these problems, this chapter has placed the Aro system in the

Atlantic context. CHAPTER 3 THE TRADE DIASPORA IN REGIONAL CONTEXT: COMMERCIAL ORGANIZATION IN THE ERA OF EXPANSION, 1750-1850

While the previous chapter situates the Aro trading complex in the Atlantic system, the present one situates the complex in the regional political economy. Various competent authorities have provided detailed descriptions of the structure and functioning of Aro markets (see Dike and Ekejiuba 1990; Ekejiuba 1972% 1972b; Lfemesia 1978: 32-37;Ijoma and Njoku 1991; G.I. Jones 1989:34-36; Nonhmp 1978; Ofonagoro 1972; Oriji 1981; 1982;

Ottenberg 1958, 1971 : 24-27; Stevenson 1968: Ch. 9; Ukwu 1967, 1969). One point to stress is that the Aro created what K.O.Dike termed a regional "pax" under which large-scale trade flourished in a multi-ethnic region (Crowder 1978: 65; K.O. Dike 1956: 38-39;

Ekejiuba 199 1 : 3 13-14). Aro operations eased exchange in a region with a multi-tiered currency system (Ekejiuba 1991: 3 14). The Aro criss-crossed these currency zones in their trade with other Aro and non-Aro groups (M. Okereke 1991). Thus, Onwuka Njoku argues that one cannot divide the region into ngid currency zones (Njoku 1991: 136). Writers, such as Selwyn M. Grier, even put forth the view that the Aro brought stability to the region

(Grier 1922). And Isichei has noted that the Aro "brought rapid impetus to econornic expansion" (Isichei 1976: 64). As has been sbom in the previous chapter, the directions of the major trade routes in this penod shed light on the establishment of the large Aro settlements in central Igboland and the supersession of Old Calabar by Bonny during the rnid-

18' century.

Oriji has suggested that the Aro incursion into the Igbo heartland was a consequence -68- of the shift from Old Calabar to Bomy (Oriji 198 1: 3 14). rather than its cause. He leaves the shift unaccounted for, and gives the impression that trade shified to Bomy before the Aro channelled central Igbo captives to that port. In the actual fact, however, the Aro had been trading in the Igbo heartland pnor to the shift of export activity fiom Old Calabar to Bonny in the mid- 18m century. This shift happened in the mid-1 grn century as a result of earlier incursions. The dynamic element for this development was Aro incursion into the densely populated Igbo heartland.

This chapter shows that Aro expansion during the peak years of the Atlantic slave trade was attained via the agency of a network of diaspora settlements. The establishment of settlements in the denseiy populated central Igboland was a major factor that shaped the character of the Biafian Atlantic trade. Dike and Ekejiuba estimate that more than 85% of al1 the captives that the Aro sold resulted from "the efforts and exploitations of individual Aro scattered in permanent settlements" @ike and Ekejiuba 1990: 250). The complex historicai circumstances that accompanied both the formation and development of about 150 diaspora communities have given rise to cornpeting taxonomies, ranging fiorn two to five (see Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 196-97; Ijoma and Njoku 1991 : 305; C. Okafor 1986: 1 16-19; Ottenberg

1958: 301; Stevenson 1968: 204; Umo n.d.: 19).

Based on just the mode of establishment, Kanu Umo (n.d.: 10) identifies two types: by treaty and by conquest. Ottenberg (1958: 301), followed by Stevenson (1968: 204), has three, based on size and function. Using the same criteria, Ijoma and Njoku (1991 : 305) identify two types. Based on modes of formation and fûnction, Dike and Ekejiuba (1990:

196-97) delineate as many as five. But they concede that, "since the Aro oflen combined -69- trading, recmiting Abam waniors and proselytizing for the oracle, the above typology is pnmarily a heuristic scheme." Probably aware of the rough sirnilarities in the fùnctions of the

Aro diaspora cornmunities, Chinyere Okafor (1986: 1 16-19) eschews function as a comparative cnterion in her three-type classification. She uses the mode of formation, size and structure to derive the following types: (1) Large settlements that were founded by conquest and grew to dominate the land, superimposing their names on it, (as in nde-Izuogu, nde-Eni and Inokun); (2) those that were founded peacefully and constituted separate villages or wards within pre-existing non-Aro cornmunities (as found in Oguta, Bende, and

Port Harcourt); and (3) the numerous compounds or lineages within pre-existing non-Aro villages, sprouted as trading outposts and founded peacefully. Nevertheless, exceptions obtain even in Okafor's classification.

Although trade diasporas do not corne to being in any one fashion (Curtin 1984;

Meillassoux 197 1b: 72-73), the principal Aro fiontiers at the edge of the densely populated

Igbo heartland exhibited rernarkable uniformity in their patterns of establishment in the mid-

18" century. The use of force as a vehicle of expansion was a characteristic specific to the central Igbo settlements of nde-Izuogu and the nde-Eni cluster. This area had the largest concentration of large Aro settlements. Arnong the several features of the Aro expansionist strategy, five stand out: (1) the timing and location of the major settlements in the densely populated central Igboland; (2) the zoning of the Biafian hinterland among Aro-Chukwu lineage-groups; (3) alliances through the agency of pnvate enterprise; (4) the use of force in the establishment of the large settlements; and (5) conscious efforts at group expansion.

These projects were pursued through specific institutions. -70-

The Diaspora Context

Placing Aro settlements in the diaspora context helps us to better appreciate the relationships of the Aro diaspora with one another, with host communities and with the Aro metropoie, the process and direction of cultural evolution, and the incorporation of outsiders into Aro groups. The exercise also helps to identie in what ways the Aro both resembled, and deviated fkom, other trade diasporas.

The Aro resembled other trade diasporas elsewhere in four significant senses. First, whatever the level of centralization, a trade diaspora had a "central place" that perfomed roles "which al1 require but it alone [could] perform" (Curtin 1975: 63-64)! In the Aro case, the central place was Aro-Chukwu in the Cross River region. The second way in which the

Aro resembled other trade diasporas is in the relationship of trade diasporas to their host communities. They range widely fiom dominated to dominant diasporas (Curtin 1975: 63;

1984: 5). The third similarity between the Aro and other trade diasporas is cultural alooffness from the host population. Whatever their size, structure or specific history, Aro settlements, like other trade diasporas, stood out from the local population. In spite of the tendency to emphasize cultural exclusiveness, trade diasporas were "cross-cultural carriers of culture" or

"cultural brokers" (Curtin 1984: 2, 3). For example, although the trade diasporas of the

Senegambian trade, such as the Maraka, the Juula and the Jahaanke, "adopted the language[s] and some aspects of the culture of the [host societies]," they continued to clah

Soninke ongin (Curtin 1984: 25).

Fourthly, trade diasporas have-historicaiiy made ideological andor religious

See Kea 1982: ch. 2 for an elaboration of a centrai place in a Werpnt contea -7 1- references to universalkt monotheism, and often clairned a special place within such religion.

The best example are the Jews, who were the most widespread of al1 trade diasporas. The known African trade diasporas, such as the Hausa and the So~inke-speakinggroups of West

Afnca, and the Swahili of East Africa, operated within the framework of . These

Muslim merchants presented themselves to, and were accepted among most, Afncan groups in which they operated as role models of Islam.

In spite of these similarities, the Aro differed fiom other trade diasporas in a number of ways. Unlike other diasporas, the Aro diaspora almost always had access to rnilitary resources, a resource that was ofien decisive in their dealings with hinterland groups. The

Aro embarked on a massive incorporation of non-Aro into the Aro group. They invariably wielded political influence on host comrnunities. Finally, they differed particularly fiom other

Afiican trade diasporas in being non-Muslim. These differences compel the examination of

Aro methods.

Timing and Location of the Major Settlements

As was common among trade diasporas (see Curtin 1984: 2), the Aro settlements were established in areas with existing charnels of exchange (see Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 197;

Ukwu 1967, 1969). The Aro established comrnunities whenever any trader or kin-related traders deemed it necessary to do so in furtherance of trade. Therefore, they established settlements dong existing trade routes.

Generally, the Aro adopted existing principal markets. In areas with rudirnentary market inffastructures, as in Ikwereland in southem Igboland and other peripheral areas, the -72-

Aro established markets (Ukwu 1969: 134, 135; Ifemesia 1978: 33). The Aro found reiiable exchange stmctures in the upper Imo RiverMi-Awka region, which they had traversed for many decades before the 1740s, during their trading missions. This region maintained a complex trade network that encompassed Igbo-Ukwu, which Thurstan Shaw dates at the 9' century AD (Shaw 1970a: 268), and established trading groups of Awka and Nkwere. It was not a surprise, therefore, that the most important Aro settlements were concentrated in central Igboland, at the edge of the Nri-Awka region. The founders of the Aro settlements of the Igbo heartland either had already acquired dependents from the Nri-Awka area or had themselves been acquired originally as children from the region. These men were among the

Aro traders who made regular trips to the Nri-Awka axis. For instance, the founder of nde-

Imogu, Intogu Mgbopko, had as dependents Amazu from Oro (Awlaw) in the Oji-Mmam

Rivers area, west of in the savanna, and Iheme fiom Nise near Awka in the Igbo heartland. hogu's contemporary, Ikelionwu Ufere, who soon established a settlement north-

West of nde-hoy, had been acquired from Ifite in Awka (see J.C.Nwankwo 1973), aiso in the Nn-Awka area. Owuu Mgbori, the founder of nde-Owuu, had also been acquired from the Nri-Awka area. These contacts indicate the extent to which the Aro had penetrated the

Igbo country by the time in question. hogu already had a key contact in the region -

Nzeadachie of Umulolo in the upper horegion (see J.G.Okoro 1985: 23; 1996). In time,

Umulolo traditions even claimed that the clan's legendary projenitor, Loio, was an Aro man

(see Goodlife 1933: 7; NAE CSE 11115 28935). Recently, it has been suggested that most

Igbo sent to the U.S. Chesapeake region up to the 1740s were drawn from the Nn-Awka area (Chambers 1996). Ifthis observation is valid, it indicates that the region had begun to -73 - supply significant numbers of captives through Aro operations prior to the establishment of the Aro settlements in centrai Igboland. Although, they do not specfi the period, Susan

Martin (1995: 174) and John Onji (1987: 159-60) suggest that this area contributed the better part of the region's export captives. This means that when hogu Mgbokpo and his contemporaries founded the central Igbo settlements in the mid- 18' century, they were beginning a fùller exploitation of the Nri-Awka supply zone that had begun much earlier.

These settlements were in the area of the highest population densities in the Biafian hinterland and Atlantic Afnca. Nde-Imogu in particular was "situated in the heart of the Ibo country with easy access fiorn this broken country to the uplands in the west and north, through gaps in the encampment to the Cross River basin in the east, as well as to the southem coastal plainsy'(Ukwu 1967: 65 1; 1969: 134). With nde-Eni, this settlement commanded the trade routes fiom the Igbo heartland and beyond. The trade route linking

Bende and the Niger riverine state of Abo passed through nde-Izuogu (Cookey 1974: 6).

Another basic rationale behind the strategic siting of settlements was the Aro need of a constant supply of provision to their ever-growing populations and for transit captives.

Since Aro-nde-Imogu is generally accepted as the first full-fledged diaspora settlement, the date of its foundation should clariq the timing of the Aro diaspora. Early nde-

Izuogu vniters give great antiquity to the settlement. Kanu Umo (nad. [1947?: 171) has 1620 and Richard Igwegbe (1 962) 1635. Others have put forth later dates. Bernice (1978: 8) has 1728, and Dike and Ekejiuba (1990: 205) arrive at 1720-30 date. Isichei (1976)' foiiowed by Onji (1994: 153), puts forth the late 18' century. Based on genealogies collected by colonial officers dunng the early 2eh century, Nwauwa (1 990) suggests 1790-1820. These genealogies were compted by telescoping when certain groups attempted to give respectablity to their ancestries in order to advance within the indirect mle system. For instance, Nwauwa has Iheme as Izuogu's son, whereas Iheme was Izuogu's dependent, contemporary and a joint pioneer of the settlement. In spite of Nwauwa's rigour and his awareness that "much of the evidence appears flawed," his atternpt to chart an accurate chronology is unavailing due to his use of limited archival material and the lack of fieldwork.

By Nwauwa's scheme, the Atlantic slave trade was about over when the community was founded. Working with genuine genealogy (six generations) and aware of the role of the

Atlantic slave trade in Aro expansion, J.G.Okoro's (1 985: 43) 1750 date is quite plausible.

Remarkably, he notes that this penod was "still within the peak period of the slave trade in

West Afica, and the colony was set up as a convenient base for the collection of slaves."

Dike and Ekejiuba probably collected the correct genealogy, but their method of deduction is unciear. J.G.Okoro's also is, and his estimate tallies with mine.

Researchers in the Bight of Biafra commoniy use thirty years as a generational marker

(Nwauwa 1990). This paradigm assumes that a male was always the first child and that first male children (who were actually not necessaîily first bom) al1 survive. These constants were not always present. For instance, infant rnortality was high in those days, and particularly in the hogu line. Further, men married late. According to an Aro elder, Michael Igwe, "Before a man could Say in those days that he was getting mamed, he would be up to fifty years, or at least forty" (M.S.Igwe 1996). Given these considerations, forty years seerns to be a more accurate marker. The present Eze, John Dike II, was bom in about 1918 as the son of Dike.

This puts his father, Dike Oti, at about 1878. Oti Okoronkwo, Dike's grandfather, would -75- have been bom at about 1838. This puts Okoronkwo, 0th father's birth date in about 1798.

From this, we denve about 1758 birth date for Awa, Izuogu's second son by his second wife.

(Wche was a much older son, but 1 do not have the genealogy of nde-Uche). This would have put Izuogu's own birth date in about 17 18. Many accounts give the impression that Izuogu had traded in the area for sometime when he founded the settlement. 1 put the date at 1748 when Izuogu was about 40. Within five years' margin of error, we have 1743- 1753. This range is consistent with the import of genealogies collected fiom the pioneer lineage-groups.

Izuogu was the great-grandson of Nnachi, the Igbo pioneer of the Aro state by the 1620s.

The fact that Izuogu had already acquired dependents fiom beyond the area strongly suggests this. It is likely that even his ancestors had been trading in the Nn-Awka region for many decades.

The concentration of Aro activities in central Igboland from the mid- 18' century suggests strongly that the trade of these Aro cornmunities were oriented towards Bonny and

New Caiabar. This trend was the most significant element in the supersession of Old Caiabar by Bonny (and New Calabar) during the second half of the 18' century.

Zoning of the Hinterland

The Aro divided the entire Biafkan hinterland into spheres of operation arnong the lineage- groups. The list in Table 3.3 indicates which groups would have been in conflict and/or co- operation with one another. The spheres hardly fit into any neat scheme, as the following table about the Obinkita lineage-group shows. As implied in Table 3.1, the list of markets in

Table 3.3 is not exhaustive for Obinkita. Table 3.1 : Division of Spheres ninong Lineages of the Obinkita Lineage-Group

1 Limage 1 Markets 1 1 nde-Okoro 1 Ekpemiong, Nung Okoro (Ibibio country) 1 1 nde-Otu 1 Urua Anwa (in Opobo) 1 nde-C hio ka n

Source: Merem and Nwankwo 1973.

The method by which the hinterland was zoned is also hazy. Some of my respondents talked mostly about establishing and following familiar lines of trade by individuai traders and groups of traders. Individuals and lineages opened their own spheres and maintained contacts accordingly (e.g. J. O. Dike 1996; Obinani 1996; Michael Ike 1995; Kanu-Igbo 1996; J.G.

Okoro 1996; J.O.Okoro 1996). By respecting one another's domains, Aro groups were able to erect a moral economy of trade and rninimize confiict. Denying completely that there were any conflicts, Kanu Umo tells us that:

each village or town community in Aro-land had an emissaty to different peoples outside. With each of these they had an oath of allegiance in which the Aros swore safe conduct to "Chukwu" whilst, on the other hand, the peoples swore loydty and staunch reliability to their intermediaries and lords. .. . the relative principle between the .. . peoples was purely democratic such that any encroachment would be a vital stet-to (sic) the democracy intended (Umo n.d. [1947] : 10).

Just like individual Aro traders knew, and were expected to respect, the boundaries, their non-Aro suppliers knew their particular Aro men. One respondent told me: "It was already recognized at home before they came out. The individuals focused on their familiar lines. The -77- customers who supplied them with trade goods already knew their [Aro] men. Aro groups never collided over spheres of influence. ... Nobody would move fiom the Amankwu team to buy captives being supplied to the Ujari; nobody fiom the Ujari team would buy those being supplied to the Arnuvi, and so forth" (Kanu-Igbo 1996). A person fiom one group went into another group's area of influence only through someone from the responsible group (Kanu-

Igbo 1996; J.O. Okoro 1996). One respondent goes on to explain how the Aro groups interacted. "In those days, trade through commission agents was part of trade. (Trader A] may find the price of a commodity unfavourable. me] then decides to shift it to [his fiiend, trader BI to consider if p]could cope with the price. [Trader BI may even decide to send it to [trader Cl. Buying the commodity did not give [trader C] the right to trade in [trader A's] area of trade" (Kanu-Igbo 1996). One Aro tradition from Ihiala in the Ni-Awka area relates that an Aro person who scouted for pilgrims to the oracle or non-Aro caravans in an area controlled by another Aro group forfeited the commission accruing from such a transaction

(E. Ike 1985). There can be no doubt that the Aro quarrelled amongst themselves over spheres, but the foregoing discussion has focused on how they contained the quarrels because the Aro managed to prevent such civil problems from disrupting their activities.

In zoning the region and in forging commercial ties, the Aro capitalized on their multi-ethnic origins and strategic placing (see Dike and Ekejiuba 1990; Ijoma and Njoku

199 1 : 208; G.I. Jones 1989: 3 5; Northrup 1978 : 48). The zoning of spheres directed the various lineage-groups mainly to areas of their ethnic origins. Thus, nde-hop, an

Amankwu offshoot, controlled much of the Nri-Awka market. Nde-Iniogu was a branch of the Igbo pioneers of Aro-Chukwu. The later settlements, such as Ajali, nde-Ilcelionwu and -78- nde-Owuu, were offshoots of Ujari and Ibom whose main areas of operation were in the non-

Igbo regions east of Aro-Chukwu. Collectively referred to as nde-Eni, these settlements were established in short order after nde-hogu (see Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: ch. 7). Ujari and

Ibom were branches of the Akpa pioneers of the AroChukwu. The rest of the nde-Eni group were nde-Okpaleze, nde-Okpaleke, nde-Ukwuenu and nde-Okoro. Nde-Eni settlements had different histones and denved respectively from persons from an assortment of Aro-Chukwu lineage groups and founded at different times. In the temtory lying between nde-hogu and the nde-Eni group were a group of pre-existing clans.

Table 3.2: Rincipal Aro Settlements at the Edge of the Igbo Headand sealemen t Parent ArdXukwu lineage-group

1 Ajali

Ninety-nine year-old Jacob Okoro narrated the complicated zoning arrangement as it applied tû central Igboland.

There are nineteen "villages" in Aro-Chukwu. ... the Aro "villages" shared out eastem Nigeria into areas of influence. Nde-Iniogu's share was the region from Uzuakoli to Okigwe up to Akokwa, Uga and the rest of the places. These were the places that this Amankwu dominated. The people whose area of influence bordered that of nde-Izuogu was nde-Ilcelionwu, the Ibom people here. The Ibom and Amankwu peoples knew their areas and one group would not intrude in another group's domain. A person f?om one group went into another group's area of infiuence only through a person of the group responsible for the area. This other person took a cue from the person that brought him. He could secure trade goods only through the person that brought him. So, nde-Ikelionwu and nde-hop had a boundary. This was at Ekwuluobia. Nde-Ikeiionwu was responsible for one side, including Umunze and Oka. Nde-hogu had Ekwuluobia up to Unu (Orlu). The group with which nde-Izuogu shared a boundary there was Atani. Nde-Izuogu did not go beyond there to buy captives. Nde-hogu people could only go there through the Atani group. Nde-Owu and Ujari (Ajali) were responible for the the area from Umunze. The Ibom group and nde-Ike also shared the area. Ajali, Ibom and nde-Ike were al1 involved in the same place. Nde-hogu controlled Adazi and Nimo. Nde-Ikelionwu controlled , Oko and other places. The Ajali people had a stake in these places too. Beyond these places were places Ue Eziama, Nokpa and others. ... The peoples of Ugbo and Arnoba controlled them (J.O.Okoro 1996).

We cannot tell on the strength of available evidence the precise time for this development but, it seems that the spheres grew fiom practice and that they took shape in the mid- 18' century. Aro groups recognized one another's spheres as trade progressed. Aro methods of penetration difiered according to local circumstances.

In analyzing the important Aro incursion into the Nri-Awka region, Northnip has suggested that Aro settlements ''hait" at the edge of the area. Although he notes that the Aro were able to dominate the trade of the region, he argues that this was achieved "by adopting a different set of rnethods" (i.e., other than foming diaspora communities) (Northrup 1978:

13 1). Northrup relates that the Aro had to reach a modus vivendi with Nri-Awka groups

(Irlorthnip 1978: 134-35). According to km, "[tlhe tems of the qyeement are not known, but they evidently enabled the Aro to monopolize a major share of the slave trade in this area" (Nonhp 1978: 135). The case for a "modus vivendi" may be extended with the fact that the Aro of central Igboland preferred to recmit rnernbers fiom this region. Although Aro settlements did not pervade the Ni-Awka area as elsewhere, contrary to Northrup's observation, the Aro forrned lineages in many cornmunities there (see Onwuejeogwu 1987: -80-

40; C. Okafor 1986: 126; Onji 1994: 39-40,48, 53, 64, 105). The settlement in fiala was

quite substantial (see 1.0. Nwankwo 1986). To fùlly understand the character of Aro

expansion, one has to corne to terms with the changes associated with it.

Private Enterprise and Alliances

The character of expansion undenvent fundamental change in one important respect during

the second phase of expansion. While the first phase of Aro expansion witnessed the direct

involvement of the Aro state, the second phase was built on private enterprise. The role of

Mazi (Consul) of the first phase of expansion, for example, contrasted sharply with that of

the merchant wamors that emerged fiom the 1 86 century onwards. According to Dike and

Ekejiuba (1990: 165-66), Aro wars in the 18th century did not involve the entire Aro, but

typically a merchant-warlord and his followen. He negotiated for mercenaries on his own

accord, utilizing blood and mamage bonds. OAen, a people would invite an Aro trader to

protect them against their foes. The Aro would display tender palm fronds, an important item

in the Aro national emblem (Omu Aro), to signifj that the area was under Aro protection. In

tum, he exacted tnbute or other advantges fiom pre-existing groups (Nwokoye-Emesuo

1996). For instance, afier the Aro had been established, "chiefs who sought hop's

protection against their enernies pledged their land and became his subjects. They paid regular tributes in slaves, labour and food, thus contributing to the economic manpower needs of the new settlements" @ike and Ekejiuba 1978: 178). Aro diaspora traders employed persons fi-om pre-existing comrnunities as carriers. These traders also used chatte1 captives who were being sent to the market. Although Dike and Ekejiuba have suggested that chanel slaves -81-

"were very rarely used as carriers" on the bais that the Aro drew from a pool of contract labour from pre-existing groups (Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 129n), the use of captives and the use of the labour of pre-existing peoples were not incompatible. The Aro traders are unlikely to have marched their captives empty handed if there was any load to carry. The foregoing and the fact that merchant-warlords did not negotiate as officiais of the Aro state shows that

Aro expansion fiom the 18' century onwards was a function of private enterprise rather than state programme. We may ask: Who were these merchant waniors?

In their important study of Aro history, Dike and Ekejiuba credit the "acculturated

Aro" with the formation of the Aro diaspora. According to them, the arnbitious persons in this category, "excluded fiom politics at Arochukwu could find scope for their energies in the vanous settlements which the expanding Aro commerce necessitated . . . In other words, exclusion Rom politics at home did not spell doom for the ambitious individual" @ike and

Ekejiuba, 1990: 7 1, 75, 78, 97-98, 99). In fact, Dike and Ekejiuba are explicit in stating that such individuals "were more strongly motivated to pursue risk-taking, and long-distance trading ventures for their suMval in the Aro systern than the prudent and proud elite and the ruling groups" @ike and Ekejiuba 1990: 98). Of course, the dynamism and risk-taking propensities of certain persons of seMle and recent origins are beyond reasonable doiibt in a society that honoured achievement, such as the Aro did. Many "acculturated Aro" - to use

Dike and Ekejiuba's tenn - contributed significantly to the advancement of Aro cultural and material life (see Nwokeji, forthcoming). Beyond this point, 1part ways with Dike and

Ekejiuba.

It is unclear that one can use the exciusion of certain categones of traders from -82- mainstream Aro-Chukwu politics as a basis for generaliPng about the settlements. Dike and

Ekejiuba do not provide specific exarnples for their formulation. Instead, they refer to such abstract tems as "slave[s]", "acculturated Aro" and "Aro commoners" @ike and E~ejiuba

1990: 75,78, 97, 99). Such conceptuai looseness confuses. Contrary to the impression given by Dike and Ekejiuba, hogu Mgbokpo and Oti Emesinwa, respectively the founders of nde-

Imogu and Ajali (a key component of the nde-Eni cluster), were Aro amadi. Amadi approximated the nobility and had several gradations. The amadi status was acnptive. Both

Oti and Izuogu belonged to Arnadi Mnirne Asaa, the highest order reserved for the descendants of the founders of the Aro state. Dike and Ekejiuba are, of course, aware of this fact, but they do not incorporate it into their analysis of the motive force of Aro expansion. In another part of the same book, Dike and Ekejiuba describe Iniogu, correctly, as the great- grandson of Nnachi, "one of the CO-foundersof Arochukwu" @ike and Ekejiuba 1990: 176).

In yet other parts, they write: "the population of Ndizuogu . . . is made up exclusively of people of Aro extraction [and] those who have long associated with them" (Dike and

Ekejiuba 1990: 206, 2 17). Dike and Ekejiuba contradict their analysis further. They note that the "Aro saw the need for colonizing strategic routes in the interests of their trade. Successfùl

Aro traders used their agents[,] who were either sons or tmsted household retainees and lieutenants, to pioneer the new settlements and develop an intelligence network over the entire region" @ike and Ekejiuba 1990: 120). Nothing in these staternents supports the clah that the founders were necessarily "slaves," "acculturated Aro" or "cornmoners." The emphasis which Dike and Ekejiuba place on the "acculturated Aro" is unwarranteci. Further, trade, not originally political ambition, motivated the establishment of Aro settlements. The merchant warriors did not fom a political formation or domain initiaiiy, but a "trading

centre". Consequently, they lived in Aro-Chukwu throughout; it was theû descendants and

dependents who settled permanently in the diaspora. These settlements sprang up in response

to opportunities created by the expanding Atlantic slave trade. Dike and Ekejiuba's analysis of this phenornenon seems incoherent, for they aiso tell us that the diaspora settlements

"fieed the Aro nobility from the strenuous competition for power" @ike and Ekejiuba, 1990:

72). We may take this observation to mean that it was not only the politicaily marginal nch

ex-slave merchants who founded the settlements. Ansing Rom their rnarginality, the absence

of this class of men could not, therefore, have necessarily fkeed the Aro nobility from competition for power. Also, the presence of this group cmot explain the proliferation of diaspora settlements. Ai1 merchants, irrespective of social rank, participated in expansion.

The founders of the settlements were a motely crowd of successful and adventurous merchants.

Ijoma and Njoku summarize the general pattern in the evolution of the diaspora cornrnuni ties:

Pioneer Aro traders probably shunled between Arochukwu and their market destinations. In the process, they built up a chain of rest-houses along the routes. Gradually, the more important of such places developed into trading centres and finally into Aro settlements. The settlements became launching-pads for the commercial penetration of the Aro into new areas and for the founding of new settlements, partly through Aro initiative and, partly on the invitation of local people. It was very comrnon for non-Aro communities to invite the Aro to establish in their areas in order that they would benefit from Aro trade and protection (Ijoma and Njoku 1991: 300).

Secunng bases was sometimes a problem and other times not for the Aro. In most situations, they established settlements peacefully (Uku 1993: 15). Their presence was often sought by the communities. Communities threatened by their neighbours Uivited the Aro to provide them protection. "In retum for this protection, whether requested or bestowed, the

Aros expected to receive slaves" (Uku 1993: 14). The Ngwa of southem Igboland had a saying that "Onve Aro Mbi la ke va whe orna mmera va". (He who harbours the Aro is blessed with good fortune) (Onyensoh 1985: 17). These dimensions obscure the fact that the communities which threatened others, leading to Aro invitation, were sometimes Aro ailies.

Equiano made this observation:

Perhaps [raiders] were incited to this by those traders who brought the European goods . .. amongst us. . .. When a trader wants slaves, he applies to a chief for them, and tempts him with his wares, It is not extraordinary, if on this occasion he yields to the temptation with as little fimess, and accepts the price of his fellow creature's liberty, with as little reluctance as the enlightened merchant. Accordingly he falls on his neighbours, and a desperate battle ensures. If he prevails and takes prisoners, he gratifies his avarice by selling them; but, if his party be vanquished, and he falls into the hands of the enemy, he is put to death; for, as he has been known to forment their quarrels, it is thought dangerous to let him suMve (Equiano 1995: 40).

In this desperate struggle for survival, the Aro would have been "invited" by one side or the other, or by both. The Aro were also welcomed because of their ability to dispense "justice", including the removal of categorized persons to Atlantic slaveiy (see I.G.C. Men n.d. : 149;

Grier 1922: 35). Where tenancy applied, it was a token. in Ngwa communities, one of the areas with strong Aro presence, an annual tenancy renewal required the presentation of

"kola". In one community, the "rent7' consisted only of two gallons of paim wine, eight manillas and a cock (Wamuo 1973). In Ibibioland, the acquisition of land required a case of drinks, a piece of cloth, a gun and some salt (J. Udo 1972). The Aro contracted i~bandu -85-

(covenant) with their hosts and contacts as an instrument of protectionism. Iaba ndu ofken

involved mixing protagonists' blood for mutual consumption. This ritual was supposed to

carry a spiritual force capable of killing a protagonist who defaults fkom the term of the

a~eernent.~Kinship ties were forged and exploited. Marriages, in particulas, were usefil.

Although this practice creates "the obligation of inlaws" (Levin 1992: 103), as inlaws and

sons of local women, the Aro widened their contacts and increased trade. The rnid-19~

century merchant warrior, Okoro Udomka, is said to have made the best of these

arrangements. "He was staying in his mother's land while trading in slaves because his

grandfather's relatives were helping him get enough slaves" (Igwegbe 1962: 34). Kinship ties

were fùrthered by massive immigration. Immigrants into Aro settlements operated ffeely in

their natal homes within Aro concems. In spite of these ties, however, the Aro deemed force

particularly effective at the edge of the Igbo heartland. They did not wait to be "invited" by

pre-existing groups. This was especially so in the mid- 18' century in the course of

establishing the principal settlements. These settlements, located in the densely populated

Igbo heartland, then affected the Biafian Atlantic trade in matenal ways.

The Role of Force in Central Igboland

Historians of the Aro treat this development as exceptional (see Dike and Ekejiuba 1990;

ljoma 1986c, 1994; Ijoma and Njoku 1991; Nonhrup 1978: 138; C. Okafor 1986). Northp

is correctly of the view that wars were not in the interests of Aro trade, and mentions "strong

o or details regarding &ba ndu, see Dike and Ekejiuba (1990: 118-19, 163, 164, 198-99,2444);Ekejiuba 1972~;Ukwu 1969: 127, 13 1-32. -86- opposition" against the Aro (Northrup 1978: 138-139). Dike and Ekejiuba have explained

Aro wars in terms of punitive measures, and they point out that the wars were not directed against numerically strong groups, such as Onitsha, Ogidi and Igbo-Ukwu @ike and

Ekejiuba 1990: 75; 164, 166-67, 177-79; 208). While treating the cases as exceptional is accurate, it is crucial to understand why it was so. It may be tnie that wars were not made on certain groups, but the observation does not explain specifically why warfare prevailed in the greater upper ImoMri-Awka region in the course of establishing the principal Aro settlements during the mid-1 tIh century. That the wars were punitive does not explain why the conditions for punishment were widespread in the region. Furthemore, contrary to Dike and Ekejiuba's suggestion, the presence of numerically strong groups seerns to have been the very cause of the confiicts in the region rather than deterrence. One cannot accurately extrapolate the historical strengths of the societies concerned from their present populations, given that the wars had severe impact on them, and that subsequent demogaphic developmets have been uneven. Some societies gained by immigration from devasted areas, while others lost out in the same process. One of my respondents in 1996 emphasized that most people who entered nde-Izuogu society from the Nn-Awka region were refbgees from these wars (Nwokoye-Emesuo 1996). Some societies even no longer exia. For instance,

Owa, a comrnunity, in the vicinity of Agulu Lake in the NrbAwka axis, was destroyed through an alliance by its neighbours during the mid-19"' century (Maduadichie 1996). Owa exists in nde-Izuogu folklore, only because its inhabitants, including the founder of a major lineage-group, got transferred to nde-hogu in large numbers. Many others came in as refugees.' StilI, we need to understand why warfare characterized the establishment of Nde-

hogu and the nde-EN group and why opposition was strong in the area.

It should not be surprishg that these wus took place in the upper ImoMri-Awka

region. The resort to warfâre was more like a consequence of tighter land tenure rules, the

coroilary of population pressure in the area. It was also symptomatic of Aro determination to

establish strongly in the well endowed region. Aro incursions into the heartland were in the

first instance a fundion of the search for captives. As Northmp (1978) points out, the Aro

met with some resistance in the heartland. This point is important because the Aro generally

preferred peace to war in the pursuit of their interests. They made war on the concemed

groups, when they did, as part of their overall strategy to dominate trade. The establishment

of strong bases in this region seems to have been criticai in Aro operations.

The wars of this period are well-documented in Aro historiography (see Dike and

Ekejiuba 1990; Igwegbe 1962; C. Okafor 1986: 121-122; J.G.Okoro 1985). By force of

arms, each of the principal Aro settlements destroyed or subdued the most important power

in its immediate neighbourhood. The most spectacular was Izuogu's destniction of Ora, east

of the upper Imo River, in one of the severest acts of violence committed during the Atlantic

slave trade. "What happened to Ikpa-Ora had no paralle1 in this part of the world. nepeople

were massacred and the entire population was wiped out. The temtory was plundered and

completely laid waste. [The land has] ever since, remained desolate . . . The temtory became

3 1 became curious about Owa because of this dimension. Initially, 1 had asswned that it mut have ben a srnail and obscure community, but 1 wondered how such a small community could have supplieci the large number of nde-Izuogu persons who trace their origin there. Then, when 1sought Merinformation as a step to visiting the place, 1 was told that the cornmuniîy no longer existe.. No studies have so far been carried out on the ûwa case as far as 1 know. -88-

known as 'the land of blood'." (J.G. Okoro 1985: 24). The comptete destruction of Ora does

not seem to have been necessary for the establishment of nde-hogu because the settlement

was sited thirty kilometres west of the Imo, and about forty kilometres West of Ora.

Nevertheless, the occasion hstilled fear into the communities near the upper Imo River,

leaving them with "awful expedations" (J.G.Okoro 1985: 25). Mobilizing warriors

for this purpose was easy for hogu because, in part, his mother came fiom there. The

Ohafia people therefore intervened in favour of their nwadiana (child of a local woman

rnarried to an outside man) (Igwegbe 1962; C. Okoli 1986: 121-22; J.G.Okoro 1985: 23-

24). Part of Imogu's strength derived fiom confiias arnong the pre-existing communities.

Demands for captives seem to have accompanied his role as a broker. Dike and Ekejiuba

report that Ora was destroyed because it rejected hogu's demand for 400 captives (see

Dike and Ekejiuba IWO: 177). Traditions relate that Okoli Ijoma's forces displaced the

present Ugwuoba on the Mamu River fiom their original site around Enugwu-Ukwu, some

sixty kilometers to the south (see Agu l98S).' The traditions of Uruala to the south-west of

nde-Iniogu report that at one time al1 the able-bodied men of the community were

slaughtered during a confiict with nde-hogu (Aiaka 1984; Ipere 1983).

4 Although Veronica Agu bases her ihesis on traditions collecteci rnainly at Awka, 1 found coroborating evidence in the National Archives, Enugu. A colonialera intelligence report noted that Ugwuoba [and Amsim] acknowledge no relationship at dl"with the rest of Mbasato - Awka, Amawbia, Ebenebe, Nawgu, Nibo and Nise. See NAE MILG0V.-13/1/17:Mbanasataw - Awka Division, 1936. -89-

Mmuba: Expanding the Group

The growth of Aro operations depended on the ways by which the Aro booaed their human

capital in the context of an expanding uimmercial network. Like in the Aro-Chukwu

metropole, the political emnomy of the Aro diaspora centred on the slave - as merchandise,

labour and lineage members. As one colonial anthropological report puts it, "The original Aro

party was not yet very numerous but it quickly collected around it a large number of local

followers by purchase of slaves, sheltering of refugees corn other villages, and so on."' Many

of my respondents during 1995-96 explained Aro expansion, especially the phenomenal

population increase in the major settlements, with the concept of mmuba. Mrnuba was one of

the most outstanding elements of Aro expansion. The concept refers to a range of phenornena

that embraces at once human proliferation, prospenty and even territorial expansion. 1 have

not found an appropriate English synonym, although in given contexts the term "human

proliferation" is adequate. Mmuba was not just a practice; it was also a mentality. In pursuit

of mrnuba, men mamed several wives, and men and women acquired slaves. Mmuba helps to

explain the accelerated manumission processes that characterized the Aro slave system, and

the Aro practice of partial exogamy, by which the Aro manied outside women without letting

off their own. Children and slaves developed these ambitions as well. Established members of

the society fieely gave asylum to economic and political refugees fiom other communities,

but on conditions of dependency. Hear 98-year-old Mazi Jacob Okoro:

You kept the person as your slave. You brought the person up.

'NAE 8 1127-OKIDIST 4/9/70:Anthropological Report of Aras of NdUuogu and Othen," 3 1 March 1927. When the person grew up and he was a good person, you got a wife for him and he had children. .. . After the slaves had manied and prospered, he could begin to buy his own slaves, and people continued to multiply. In tum, the persons he bought replicated the sarne pattern. What was important is that people recognized the person under whom they were (J.0 Okoro 1996).

At the expressive level at least, the ownership of people was an end in nde-Izuogu.

Before long, the people adopted Oda, the god of proliferation. Most likely of Nri-Awka provenance, Oda was used to usher into the household every new baby and every newly acquired person (G. Anyakoha 1996; Igwilo 1996b). A new member of the family was brought before it to symbolize entry into the family. Medicine men prepared Oda to arrest infant mortality and other foms of premature death.

Another important process by which the Aro increased their fold is what we might cal1 partial exogamy. This system allowed Aro men to rnarry non-Aro women without giving out Aro daughters. This practice "expanded" at the expense of other groups (Levin 1992:

103). Arnong a slave trading group, increase in population meant an increase in the pool of slave dealers. The matriclan had become important among the Aro by the beginning of the

18" century. For example, the nde-Eni group, denve their name from a legendry Mgboro Eni of Aro-Chukwu @ike and Ekejiuba 1990: 207; C. Okafor 1986: 116).

Other advantages ensued from partial exogarny. The mamage of outside women facilitated the acquisition of the languages of the groups from where Aro wives were drawn.

These "mistresses of language" imparted the necessary luiguistic proficiencies to their young

Aro children (Umo [1947?] n-d.: 18). Although 19" centwy European visitors seem to have got the impression that every Aro spoke al1 the languages in the region or that these -91- languages were spoken in Aro-Chukwu (e.g., Bakie 1856: 3 19-40; Burdo 1880: 159),

Afigbo (198 la: 20) has observed that, Wte traders fiom other trading groups in the region, an

Aro was bilinguai or multilingual depending on the range of his operations. The wives of Aro traders sometimes accompanied their husbands on trading tours. "The wives helped to supe~setheir husband's food, [and] look after the currency and trade goods. They took care of very young slaves between ages ... one and five while they travelled fiom the market to the settlements" (Ekejiuba l972a: 1 8).

Claude Meillassoux has argued that the channeling of surplus exclusively to reproduction meant the "destruction of surplus" (cited by Coquery-Vidrovitch and Lovejoy

1985b: 14). On this basis, the Aro penchant for accumulating people was counterproductive and could not have advanced their trade. But this is not so. Although Coquery-Vidrovitch and Lovejoy cite Meillassoux approvingly, their own analysis shows that reproduction was a form of re-investment; it entailed such forrns "social insurance" as the accumulation of women, "conspicuous consumption [and] redistribution as gifts." As Joseph Miller notes in the case of West-Central Afica, the people conceptualized capital broadly, as any resource for future wealth and not in the restrictive sense of buildings, machines, and so forth (Miller

1988: 42-43). In this respect, the channehg of surplus to reproduction was not destructive.

The measure of affluence arnong the Aro was, not narrowly the number of slaves or wives that one had. It was the sum total of dependents, including slaves, ex-slave clients, and al1 kinds of immigrants that one brought into the society. The successes of one's dependents in both trade and the acquisition of people counted highly in status tems. Having many slaves was esteemed, but it was better to have many dependents who were themselves prosperous, -92- and had many dependents. Thus, the Aro evolved a slave system based on an accelerated manumission. The idea of a slave based on accelerated manumission sounds logicdy contradictory, but it merely sums the contradictions that mark Aro history. The Aro slave system drew strength and sustenance fiom manumission. This is obviously what Dike and

Ekejiuba (1 990: 56, 264-65) mean by the idea of "seerningly contradictory organiPng pnnciples of hierarchy and incorporation." In noting the transcendence of slave status in the

Biafian region, Lovejoy notes: "[tlhe designation 'slave' could be little more than a sign of origin and association with the commercial firm of the slave's original master. Once slaves had assumed ... independence and an effective social freedom that placed them in the class of slave owners, emancipation had effectively taken place. Here was a system that promoted slaves as a means of securing strict loydty and dependence" (Lovejoy 1983: 180). The Aro system typifies this model.

The best example of the drive for mmuba was, perhaps, the mid-19' century wamor- merchant, Okoro Udomka (see Igwegbe 1962: 34-3 5). Besides his numerous children through an army of wives, Okoro Udozuka "was able through the institution of slavery to build a miniature empire for himself" Ws "subjects" numbered more than 200 and

"contributed so much to the increased population of Ndiakunwanta" (E.N. Okoli 1977: 35).

Different sources estimated the descendants of originally non-Aro farnilies at 90% of the present nde-hogu population (J.O.Dike 1996; M.S. Igwe 1996; T.O.Okereke 1996;

Ufere 1996). If accurate, this percentage holds more or less for other Aro settlements. In fact, Dike and Ekejiuba (1990) observe that nde-hop has the largest concentration of originally Aro groups among the Aro diaspora settlements @ike and Ekejiuba 1990: 206, -93 -

21 7). The metropole, Aro-Chukwu, also incorporated many non-Aro over the centuries. This has been the case for other Aro settlements upon which relevant research has been done (e.g.,

Emeruwa 1992; C. Eze 1987; G.C. Mmeregini 1978; 1.0. Nwankwo 1986; J.C. Nwankwo

1973).

Relevant Institutions

Certain institutions formed the basis of Aro organization in terms of exchange, credit, expansion and the settlement of civil disputes. Instead of simply a "predilection for commerce", "ski11 and single-mindedness", the national spirit, "a natural by-product of trading lifey', and a sense of superiority (Northnip 1978: 118, 142, 143, 144), the Aro were bonded by identifiable institutions. Although a detailed description of linkage institutions is made in Chapter 5, such institutions as the Okoa Nk~o(Aro central council), the Ibiniukpabi oracle, and the EkodOkonko society, are more usefully examined at this juncture because of their central role in Aro expansion during the period with which this chapter is concemed.

These institutions were shrouded in elaborate rituals designed to test participants' knowledge of Aro lore, imagery and customs @ike and Ekejiuba 1990: 20,77). The Aro-Chukwu metropole alone sponsored these institutions in its capacity as the "central place" in the diaspora. The Aro regulated trade through the Ok~aNk~o (central council), the highest level of authority within the Aro system. This body was composed of the heads (eze Oao) of Aro-

Chukwu Iineage-groups (who, as a group were known as the Otusi), with Eze Aro (Aro king) as president. The diaspora settlements were not represented directly in the Okpa Nk~o., but indirectly through the heads of their respective parent Aro-Chuwku lineage-groups. Part -94- of the institution's role involved the regulation of trade and war (see Afigbo 1971b: 32;

Chuku 1993: 176; Dike and Ekejiuba 1990; Ijoma 1986c: 22-24;Lovejoy and Hogendorn

1979: 230). According to P.C.Dike, the Aro council Ok~aNk~o rnaintained "a structured control of Aro bands in pursuit of rnilitary, political and social exploits in South-Eastern

Nigeria1' (P.C.Dike 1986: 15). It "mapped out" trading spheres for the Nneteen Aro lineage- groups (Chuku 1993: 176).

The Ibiniukoabi oracle, the temple of the utiiversalist Aro God (Chukwu), was one of the most effective agencies of Aro domination. It was used to siphon captives and maintain influence. Descnbed by Dike and Ekejiuba as the most important agency of Aro influence, the oracle blossomed in the first phase of Aro expansion from its humble beginnings as a medium of "local nature spirits" @ike and Ekejiuba 1990: 130, 134). The intelligence network around the oracle becarne widespread and conveyed on it a reputation of clairvoyance. Through the oracle, the Aro presented themselves, and were regarded, as the "children of God" (Umu

Chukwu). The agency of this oracle generated significant numbers of captives. The oracle served as an important siphon of captives because litigants were sometimes "eaten"

(euphernism for sale into Atlantic slavery), but more ofien they were asked to pay fees and fines in captives. Convias who could not pay the requisite fines got sold into slavery (see

Ijoma and Njoku 199 1:307; Ottenberg 1971 :24-26, 2 12). Apart fiom its judicial function, the oracle was a resort for people seeking divine intervention to such existential misfortunes as epidemics, infertility, bad harvest, and serious illnesses. This oracle remained a central component of Aro influence throughout the Bight of Biafra until the beginning of the 20° century when it was destroyed by the British invaders. -95-

The Aro sponsored versions of their institutions in dEerent parts of the region as a way of prornoting trade. Thus, the miniuk~abioracle had localized variants, such as Kamdu at Ajatakiri, Imkeala at Umuneoha, Oiukwu of Diobu and Agbala at Awka (Cookey 1974;

Mathews 1922: 8; Ofonagoro 1972: 76, 88). In spite of the existence of these clones, the operation of the Ibiniuk~abishould be considered a central funaion of the metropole for two important reasons. First, the temple at Aro-Chukwu remained the last resort. People also beseeched the oracle for supernaturai mediation on al1 kinds of worldly problerns. Second, the

Aro settlernents and Aro merchants continued to advertize and popularize the Ibiniukpabi itself The inhabitants of the settlements gathered the intelligence that gave pungency to the oracle's injunctions @ike and Ekejiuba 1990: 137-38). "It was the responsibility of the Aro abroad, Aro Uzo3 to advertize the efficacy of the oracle in solving al1 sorts of human problems, spirihial and temporal" (Ijoma and Njoku 1991: 205). One British observer in the early 20' century described them as "mission stations" (J.G. Allen n.d.: iii).

The adjudicating role of the oracle was specifically for the non-Aro (see K. Oji 1972).

This is why there was a saying to the effect that "Nwa Aro a nahu a si ib've na Ibiniukoabi na- aiu va" (An Aro person does not tell another Aro person the oracle surnrnons the former).

P.C.Dike explains the two leveis of meaning embedded in this idiorn. On the one hand, it meant that an Aro person knew better than to expose himself to the Ibiniuk~abiruse. On the other, it was "a prescription of a code of conduct which specifically means that Aro group identity, internai fidelity, coherence as weli extemal aggression and impenalism [were] the raison d'etre, the lifeblood of Aro hegemony" (P.C. Dike 1986: 15). The use of Nsibiri, the

Ek~elanguage (see Arnankulor and Okafor 1988: 40-43; Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 77, 142, -96-

287-88) underscores the close relationship that existed between the Ekpe and Ibiniuk~abi.

Aithough the role of Ekpe society wil shed light Aro organization, 1 have not ben

able to investigate the role of the society in detail. Ek~eeffectively served as a police force

and was used to regulate credit (see Chuku 1993: 176; Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 288;

Lovejoy and Richardson 1997: 3 1; forthcorning). This society formed part of the judicial

apparatus and it made public the decisions of the lineage-group councils and the the Ok~a

Nk~o(see Chuku 1993: 176). This society was shed with the Cross River groups, including

Old Calabar, who used it for the rame purposes. In his work dealing with Old Calabar,

Latham (1 973 : 28, 29-30) associates the emergence of this institution with the second half of the 18'" century, with the emergence of the "trust system". This periodization is inaccurate; both the Ekee and the "trust system" had a greater antiquity than this penod. If the two institutions shared origins, this association should be traced to the 17' century. As early as

1682, John Barbot (1682: 299) reported that some inhabitants of New Calabar and Bomy acted as "factors, or brokers, either for their own countrymen, or for the Europeans; who are often obliged to trust them with their goods, to attend the upper markets, and purchase slaves for them." Regarding the Ek~e,Noah (1 980: 30) has suggested that it had probably been introduced in Old Calabar as early as the 16" century. The Aro seem to have adopted the institution as soon as the Aro state was constituted in the early 17" century @ike and

Ekejiuba 1990: 40, 58, 287).

According to an Ibibio respondent inte~ewedby Northmp in 1972, the Aro gave the

Ekpe to certain Ibibio comrnunities. One such community became farnous for Ekne and assumed the name Ikot mit Ekpe. In retum, the community gave the Aro "very many slaves" -97-

arnong other gifts (U.U. Obong 1972). In southern Igboland, where the society was cailed

Okonko or Ekne Aro (Aro Ekpe), it was the "most powerfûl administrative organ in

Ngwaland." The members of this society, referred to as "fiends of the Aro", controlled trade.

The establishment of this institution in the 18m century expanded trade in southern Igboland

(Oriji 1983: 3 15- !7). Although severai references have been made to the Ek~eand the Nsibin in existing literature, in rny considered view, these institutions are yet to be studied meaningfully. Membership of the society is the route to the Nsibiri script, the knowledge of which will enrich our understanding of the history of the Bight of Biafra. The problem is that

Ekpe membership prohibits a member from revealing the Nsibin and other secrets.

Sorne other methods of spreading Aro influence deserve noting. The Aro rotated the fairs between Bende and Ubum to foster rivalry over Aro patronage between the two groups.

This strategy enabled the Aro to maximize advantages and maintain control of hinterland commerce (see Ekejiuba 1WZa, l972b; Ukwu 1969: 135). The total of sixteen days spaced systematically in between the altemate four days' long fairs, each with a cycle of twenty-four days, also facilitated the participation of suppliers from different pans of the region. The apprenticeship system, through which the Aro trained future traders, awaits future research

(see Igwegbe 1962: 49-5 1, 76).

The vanous dimensions of the Aro diaspora have not been exhausted. Neither have al1 the aspects mentioned been treated in sufficient detail. But it has been made clear enough that

Aro presence encouraged commercial transactions, which in some ways affected social practices and structures. For example, the presence of the Aro made it possible for the other cornmunities not to have to waste the lives of certain categories of people. "Before the anivd -98- of the Ara[,] people who cornrnitted 'abomination', eg, possessed 6 fingers, were NJins, girls who menstruated prematurely, children with extra teeth or cut the upper teeth first were thrown into the bad bush. With the Aro, they becarne merchandize" (Onyiukah 1983: 27;

Goodlife 1952: 6; Meek 1937: 3 1, 224-25). As hubs of commercial transactions, Aro diaspora comrnunities also provide a framework for understanding pre-colonial urbanization.

K.O. Dike describes the Aro diaspora in the following tenns: "The trading settlements ... became 'fiee cities' to which al1 who wished to 'traffic and exchange' safely repaired, international courts where individuais and clans in confiict sought justice nom the undisputed authority of the Oracle" (K.O. Dike 1956: 39,45). Although some hinterland groups, such as the Awka and the Nkwere had participated in long-distance trade, Aro incursions stimulated and professionalized trade in predominantly agricultural societies (see e.g., lsichei 1976: 64).

According to Ukwu, the presence of Aro diaspora communities boosted markets situated near them. Some of the inhabitants of the diaspora settlements acted as "trade callers" and some others as money lenden (G.I.Jones 1989: 36; Ottenberg 1971). The Aro settlers attended town or clan councils "and 'gave advice' which was invariably taken" (Grier 1922:

35). The following observation by Dike and Ekejiuba helps to clarify why. "Over and above their firm grasp of current events, the Aro of the dispersion were consummate students of local institutions, local religion and had the knack of discovering the theoretical bais of many local beliefs and practices. ... It was therefore part of Aro intelligence to see that the verdicts and other interpretations given by the oracle were in line with local beliefs and that they conformed with the idiom and supernaturd ideas of the local non-" (Dike and

Ekejiuba 1990: 137-38). Aro ascendancy was not, however, wholly a direct result of -99- organizational rnastery. Soon enough, local myths developed ascribing to the Aro divine nghts to trade (see Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 103-08).

Conclusion

It is not simply Aro organization that is relevant in expanding trade in the 1g0 cenhiry. Aro organization must be understood in conjundion with the dynarnic of centrai Igboland. In the

Nn-Awka region, for exarnple, the impehis for enslavement was pressure on resources. High population densities in the region since the tirne of ancient Igbo-Ukwu (see Shaw 1970%

1970) had been the cause of migrations into less populated areas, such as the West Niger and northern Igboland (Afigbo 198 1a, 198 lb, 1987; G.I. Jones 1963: 30; Ohadike 1984).

Centuries of intensive agriculture seem to have exhausted the soil. Aro traditions regarding the peopling of central Igbo Aro sttlements refer frequently to fhnein the Nri-Awka region

(e.g., M.S. Igwe 1996; Kanu-Igbo 1996a; C. Okoli 1996; G.N.Okoli 1996). And warfare, which was a constant experience Rom the 176 cenhiry (Agu 1985; Arnaechi 1987; E.O.

Okafor 1978), contnbuted to slaving.

One might ask: Why were the Aro not viewed as exploiters in the region? Apart from kinship netwroks which they diligently contracted across the region, for the most part, Aro interests were linked closely to those of the ruling groups in other societies. These stalwart men needed the foreign goods that the Aro supplied. Funher, individuals and groups needed the Aro in struggles among one another over political power and econornic opportunities.

Moreover, the Aro comrnitted their allies to igba ndu (covenant), which deterred allies f?om deiinquency, and apparently justified Aro retribution, saving thern from the odium of being - 100- perceived as bullies or aggressors. Of importance is that the Aro had access to an effective military machine with which they beat dissenting groups into line. In this, they dBered fiom other trade diasporas. The Ibiniuk~abioracle essentialized these transactions, commending the Aro widely as Umu-Chukwu (Children of God). The seemingly ominipresent Ibiniukoabi was the final resort in the knottiest of cases. Consequently, the Aro were immune fkom molestation. Dissenters to Aro dominance, nvals in local politics, and incfirninated persons were likely to be sold into overseas slavery. The next chapter addresses this congruence of ideology, fear, justice, inter-linked interests, and slaving. Table 3.3 : Division of Spheres cunong Am Lheage-Groups

Markets

Item: Ohaozaraa, ~gbidi',~se-~oto~

Bo~y",New CalabaP Ogutaf, Abamf, Ukwaf Calabar via Umomu, Ekia, and Uweta, Lokpa~tai,Lokpaukwu", Ibiasoegbei Amoba

Ohaozarag Enugu:., 1 bo hinterland up to Nsukkaa, Awguœ,lsuochf, IhueAchf Okig~e~,~,1 bo hinterland up to Nsukkaa, Orlu- Oguia*, Aba&alikif, Wor Ezaaf, Inif

Adaa Oburaa, nde-helionwu areai, nde-ûwuu ares< Ogwe Ebijiakaraf, Ihial*, Isinkpu Bomyl,O, OkirikaO,Np3 Degema", New Calabar', Okporo-Enyif, Itu-Ntaf, Nkaluntaf

Oro UbumO,Igbo hinterland up to Nsukkaa, Amasirif

Abakalikiu*Igb hinterland up to Nsukkaa, Okposi-Akd, Onicha-Id

Sources: 1922:34; CHAPTER 4 HOUSEHOLD AND MARKET PERSONS: GENDER, DEPORTEES, AND SOCIETY, C. 1750-C. 1860

The nse of the Atlantic slave trade described in Chapters 2 and 3 Ied to an increase in the number of both the captives exported and retained within the region. This chapter examines the processes involved. By implication, the chapter takes up the relationship involving indigenous slavery and the Atlantic slave trade, and places this relationship in the context of the pressures of the times. The period of focus is fiom the 1750s, when the Biafian trade was surging and when the Aro diaspora cornmunities were being established in rnany places within the Bight of Biafra, to about 1860, when the Atlantic slave trade finally ended there.

For 400 years, Euro-American shipowners articulated the labour needs of New World slave masters in the categorical instructions they gave to West Afnca-bound supercargoes.

Let us see just two examples of these instructions in the peak years of the Atlantic slave trade. On 7 October 1725, a group of Bristol rnerchants, who then dominated the Biafran trade, directed Captain William Barry of the Dis~atchto buy 240 "Choice slaves" from the obscure port of Andoni. None of these should "exceed the years of 25 or under 10 if possible, among which so many men, and stout men boys as can be had seeing such are most Valuable at the Plantritions" (Hobhouse et al 1735: 327). Although plantation Amerka and the organization of the slave trade had undergone important changes, arising partly from major wars, nsing shipping costs (Eltis and Engerman 1993: 3 14- 19, and a substantial drop in maldfemale price dflerential on Biafran ports (Inikori 1W2a: 137-3 8), Afiica-bound ship captains continued to receive similar instructions. On 18 July 1803, seventy-eight years der -103-

Captain Barry's instructions, Thomas Leyland (1803: 65 l), owner of the Entemrise and a member of the Liverpool merchant community that had since the 1740s assurned the helm of the British slave trade, charged Bomy-bound Captain Caesar Lawson with the following instruction. "By Law this vesse1 is allowed to carry 400 Negroes, and we request that they may al1 be males, if possible to get them, at any rate buy as few females as in your power, because we look to a Spanish market for the disposal of your cargo, where Females are a very tedious sale. In the choice of the Negroes be veiy particular, select those that are well fomed and strong; and do not buy any above 24 years of Age, as it may happen that you will have to go to Jamaica, where you know any exceeding that age would be liable to a Duty of f 10 per head." Some Arnericanists have supplied details about how New World planters chose the sex configuration of captives (Littlefield 198 1: 56-73; Sheridan 1994: 241-42,253;

Wax 1973).

On the Afncan side, one tendency has argued that Euro-Arnerican preferences determined the age and sex composition of the Atlantic slave trade. Refining Nieboer's

(1900) theory of slavery as a finction of surplus land, this school argues that the absence of a staple market before and during the Atlantic slave trade inhibited the emergence of slavery and, therefore, a strong intemal slave market. Africans responded to the demand "pull" fiom foreign buyers (Inikori 1982b: 24,44; 1992a; Gemery and Hogendom 1974). According to a version of this view, deviant sex ratios hmBiafia resulted fiom a favourable attitude to the region's women by Euro-American buyers of captives (Inikori l992a: 134-3 8). Contrariwise, a supply side explanation insists that the intemal slave market was "perhaps even the dominant factor". Females' pnces in the hinterland were higher than male ones, a function of - 104- differences in effective demand. This view draws heavily hmareas where the Saharan trade was infiuential and in which female captives sold at prime rates (M. Klein 1983; Lovejoy and

Richardson 1995a: 262, 270; 1995b: 5 1; Manning 1990: 42; Robertson and Klein 1983a).

Lovejoy and Richardson (1995b: 45) suggest explicitly, in line with their market model, that indigenous people sold the captives that fetched higher prices and retained those that did not.

According to them, the initial price collapse of the early 19' century made "available low- cost slaves for local use." In-between these codicting tendencies, a third explanation sues for the integration of the various markets - New World, Saharan and indigenous. Domestic and Saharan demand for captives and transport costs (probably "the key to the *cm trade") hiked hinterland prices enough to check increased supply to the Coast (Hogendorn

1996: 2 1 1, 2 19). The unifLing themes in these market-oriented models include assumptions that captives derived ovenvhelmingly ftorn wars and that any captive category ended in the hands of the highest bidder - Afiican, Arab or Euro-Arnerican. The idea that the market approach is "much too strong for senous challenge" (Lovejoy and Hogendorn 1979: 217n) seems to command wide agreement.

The market is important because it mediated supply and demand. It also united as a complex the Biahhinterland where captives from the various cultural areas were exchanged between holders and sellers from various cultural areas. In fact, Victor Uchendu

(1977: 123) credits this market system partly with the "high cultural homogeneity" of the region. Still, econornic historians can pay more attention to Karl Polanyi's observation that the market was only one of "a great vanety of institutions" that underpinned human existence - the limitations of his details aside.' In spite of the clear directives they received,

supercargoes offen disembarked captives on New World shores without the desired

configuration, Moreover, as is now generally welI-known, shipping data show significant sex

and age variations among exporting regions. A major quantitative effort by Eltis and

Engerman (1992: 253) shows that inter-regional variations in maldfernale ratios were greater

than ten percentage points in twenty of the thirty-two quinquennia. By contrast, variations in

the Americas were never greater than 10 percentage points.'

Building on this observation, some scholars have sought answers primarily in Afncan

social structures and processes (including alternative markets) (Eltis 1986; Eltis and

Engerman 1992, 1993; Galenson 1986: 97- 114; Geggus 1989: 37-3 8, 40-4 1 ; H. Klein 1976,

1978: 174,24 1-42; 1983 : 35-37; Robertson and Klein 1983a). For its Mcan data, this

tendency draws - although not uncritically - from the important contributions of Afîicanist

social histonans. This Afncanist scholarship stresses the intemal absorption of women as

producers and reproducers. The female-biased Saharan slave trade that went to North Afnca,

the Persian Gulf and across the was also important. Due to these pressures,

Afncan societies could export only so many women (Curtin 1975: 175-87; Lovejoy 1983: 16,

1Polanyi goes too far in his insistence that the market approach is usefûi only in capitalistic settings (Polanyi 1957: 24536; Polanyi et 1957b: 241; Bohannan and Bohannan 1968: 220). Contrary to Polanyi's argument, the market approach also has some usefûlness in non-capitalist settings. Secondly, as Curtin (1984: 14), Ekkehart 1998, Eltis (1993), Gose (1994), Hausner et (1993), and Meillassouv (198 1: 5-6) have observed, its limitations do not disappear in capitaiist contexts because, even here, the economy is part of the larger society, and econornic practice is susceptible to ideological influence.

2Several scholars have argueci as well that neither New World prices nor especially its labour demands showed significant differentiation by sex (Beckles 1989; Cmton 1978: 14247; Fogel and Engerman 1974: 75-77; Hîgrnan 1976 194; Walvin 1992: 119-121). By contrast, however, the Louisiana evidence provided by Gwendolyn Hall (1998) shows that the male/female pnœ differential was significant. - 1O6-

20; Manning 198 1, 1990: 22, 128; Miller 1988: 159-64; Robertson and Klein 1983a;

Thomton 1992a: 72- 125). Since this debate centres on the use of people within exponing regions, a detailed study of indigenous slavery in a single region should shed light on pertinent comparative questions. The regional focus reveals additional ethnographie and historical information that clarifies the quantitative evidence. The data suggest that the New

World demand "pull" was important, but merits less causal weight than it has received. The data also suggest the importance of indigenous slavery, but not the virility of alternative markets for women in the Bight of Biafra. The market for women was weak.

The increasing importance of slave use in AFncan political economies during the

Atlantic slave trade had implications for the trade in quite material terms. The relationship between slavery and the slave trade raises two invenely related central questions on Aro political economy. One of these questions is, why did the Aro retain people, whereas the trade in people was the basis of their wealth and power? This question has been addressed in

Chapter 3 - acquisition of people was critical to Aro society (see also Nwokeji, forthcoming).

The other question, with which this chapter is primarily concerned, is, why the Aro and other holders sold people, whereas group expansion formed the basis of their social organization?

Joseph Miller (1988) has asked and ably answered this last question in the Angolan case. The complexities of these questions show that age and sex issues were only part of the consideration that figured among Biafian slavers. The slave question involved the economic choice of selling people for money or retaining them for labour purposes, the juridical choice of imposing enslavement or other punishment, the social choice of who to sel1 and who to retain, and the cultural choice of the particular group or gender to incorporate. For better or - 107- for worse, some indigenous people exercised this power over others. This choice left an imprint on the composition of export captives. Slave traders, who were ofien slave owners as well, mediated these transactions. Just like Euro-American planters gave shopping lists of preferred captives to slavers' captains, Biafran slave owners and prospectives had "mental models" of the good and bad captive. Slaveiy's special fundion of group expansion makes the Aro case especially interesting. Local Aro literature and, particularly, the traditions acknowlcdge that slavers had pre-determined destinations for the Mctims. Equally important, circumstances of enslavement figured prominently in who they retained and who they sent to

Atlantic slavery. This last point has figured little in discussions about age and sex structure of the Atlantic slave trade.

The existing scholarship relies virtually exclusively on export captive samples for evidence. Paul Hair (1965: 196-97) lias analyzed the sarnple of captives, rescued and resettled in by the British Anti-Slavery Squadron, and inte~ewedin the late

1840s or early 1850s by the German-born missionary linguist, Koelle, of the Church

Missionary Society (CMS).' At 34%, war is the largest group and kidnapping a close second at 30%. This analysis is an accurate description of the export data, but it does not explain the data observed. Based on these samples and the experiences of certain individuals sent to New

World slavery, some scholars have stressed kidnapping in explaining modes of enslavement in the Biaf?an hinterland (as Geggus 1989: 40; Isichei 1976: 45-47; Manning 1990: 89;

Northp 1W8b: 77-80; Oriji 1987: 16 1-63). Using the same kind of evidence, John Oriji

(1987: 161-63) also stresses warfare. K.O. Dike (1956: 40) is correct to have doubted the

3The purpose of Koelle's interviews was to collate Afncan languages and their varieties. - 108- emphasis placed on warfare and kidnapping. The contribution of the present study to this debate is that the Sierra Leone evidence and the experience of exported individuals are good for gauging the age and sex composition of exoorted captives, but are a rnisleading indicator of the character and means of slaving. They do not account for the captives who were retained in the region. The implication of over-reliance on such data is that hinterland slave users did not discriminate in the people they retained and those they sold away. The difference between Atlantic-bound captives and those retained in the region is important and is central to this study. Indigenous slave users discriminated regarding who they kept and whom they sold to Atlantic slavery. Accordingly, reliable conclusions on the general character of enslavement must incorporate the character of intemal slavery.

Although this chapter centres on the Aro, a11 regional evidence is relevant in the consideration of this cornplex, because of the nature and scope of Aro operations. In outline, the slave systems of the Aro and coastal city-states were similar, and both differed fiom most parts of the Biafian hinterland. This distinction has been made clear in the Aro case, where slavery emphasized incorporation based on acculturation and accumulation. "In contrat,

Igbo and Ibibio patrilineages and village heads continued to be ascriptively filled and were respected not because of achieved position but as the link between the villages and ancestral spirit" (Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 209). At any rate, the rest of the Igbo and Ibibio groups do not seem to have become signifiant holders of slaves until &er the suppression of the

Atlantic slave trade in the 1gh century.

Two further reasons justifjt the emphasis on the Aro and the coastal States. First, slavery existed among them in the hey day of the Atlantic slave trade. Second, the - 109-

incorporative nature of these ystems warranted weful selection of household persons. This chapter discusses the preferences of indigenous slave users and the role of the mode of enslavement in the preferences. It is appropriate to begin by distinguishing between household and market categones of captives. 1 concur with Herbert Klein (1 978: 24 1) that

"since Afiican slavery was quite dissimilar ftom the Amet-ican chattel plantation variety, its demands for slaves were quite distinct as well."

Household and Market Types

"Person of the household" is distinct fiom person of the house or house slave or domestic slave. The term has a broader meaning. The household was the unit of production. As a unit of production, the househoid was also the locus of exchangehrade, whether long or short distance. This unit incorporated the nuclear family, the polygynous farnily, and other persons or families who could be slaves, refugees, guests or clients. Most importantly, a person of the household did not need to live within the spatial limits of the household. He or she could [ive in separate outlying compounds within the same comrnunity or away in non-contiguous settlements or distant diaspora communities. A rite of passage marked the application of the term to an outsider, including a slave. The comerstone of the ritual was a supplication for the multiplication of household members. On the other hand, market persons were treated like commodities (see Uku 1993 : 19). In spite of his more favourable placing, evidence fiom the

19" century Aro and coastal city-states shows that a person of the household could be killed or, as more often happened, resold, if he was lazy, rebellious or committed any maifeasance

(Uku 1993: 19, WaddeU 1970: 3 18-2 1). Buchi Emecheta's (1 977: 63) lucid portrayl of -1 10- early 20' century Igbo slavery - that the best chance of a person of the household was to be "docile and trouble-free" - carried over from earlier centuries. A household penon that satisfied these conditions was not just sold because the price was right. It was in the interest of the master or mistress to treat the household person humanely. Oppressed slaves often ran to other masters, usually in rival villages, who were glad to have them. This kind of situation routinely "produced winners and losers of people" (Martina Ike 1996). Rather thon for profit maximiration, gratuitous sale of a household person - whether slave or fiee - served immediate and desperate needs. As will becorne clear at the appropriate juncture below, the nature of t hese transactions warranted t hat buyers understood the circumstances leading to sale. Such awareness affected the chances of that person being retained by an indigenous user or being sold into Atlantic slavery.

Understanding the true meaning of the term "slave" in its historical context clarifies

Our understanding about what the indigenous people meant when they wanted to keep enslaved persons in the household. In classical Latin, it was servitus, when slaves were mainly

Slavs. From there, the terni metamorphosed to sclavus or "slave" in English. It was in plantation Arnerica during the 1pcenhiry that the tem "slave" came to refer to a person without rights (Curtin 1971 a: 8 1-82; 1990: 29; Davidson 197 1: 6 1-62;}. Even if one chooses to employ vemacular nomenclature, as Igor Kopytoff and Suzanne Miers (1977) suggest, there is still a problem. Even local versions could be either obfuscating kinship idiom or an equally obfuscating pretence to superiority. The Igbo term, &,equated with slave, refea to infenority or imitation. It hardly refen to a person without rights. Yet, it has been used in this way in local politics when doing so is advantageous. How do we find a tenthat captures a -1 11- histoncal relationship?

Choosing a specific label is complicated. Jack Goody (1980: 16) suggests that we distinguish "the label 'slave' (or its local equivalent) as a statement of ongin and as a statement about present status. . .. We can best understand the problem if we think of the same double meaning that occurs in our use of labels for nationality or classes; sometimes we refer to ongin; sometimes to present position, though less confusion arises when we know the context." In Aro slavery, it is not just double, but triple meaning: the real slave acknowledged as slave (acknowledgement of reality); the slave glorified as kin (denial of present reality); and slave used by one group to refer to others of slave origin

(essentialization of past reality). I would argue, contrary to the prevailing trend in African studies, the dominant ideology was not only the kinship idiom employed to play exploitation.

Charter groups have been known to deny kinship and free status to previously enslaved groups, even generations after the hitherto enslaved groups had eamed full citizenship status or long afler the charter groups had lost their ability to enforce subordination. As David

Northmp (1 98 1: 1 18- 19) has observed, many colonial reports concentrated on slavdfiee differentiation but ignored or understated "the degree of assimilation which wealth or the kinship idiom could produce." Ironically, scholars who make a case for the prevalence of a more rigid regirnen daim that colonial reports whitewashed slavery, and were based on information collected when the institution was already in recess. The tendency to limit the critique of ideology to the kinship idiorn assumes that the ideology of slavery serves only instrumental purposes - to rationalize the selling and working of people. This critique misses slavery's relationship to other conceptions of the political and social order, such as atiempts -1 12- to essentialize slavery where it did not exist. Men early ethnographers and modem scholars talk about a "slave" owning a slave, they may be refemng actually to a former slave. Having considered the conceptual problem, let us now tum to the key parameters that figured in the consideration of who became a household or a market person.

Preferences 1: Skills

The Aro began to incorporate skilled outsiders into their society as early as their formation in the early 17' century (see Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 58; 73). Other 18' and 19' centuries

Igbo evidence shows the continuing importance of craflsmen (Equiano 1995: 42-43;

Uchendu 1977: 123). Oral traditions inform us that the upper Imo River Aro settlernent, nde-

Izuogu, harboured skilled dissidents and other immigrants during the 18th and 19' centuries

(C. Iroh 1991; 0. Mgbemena 1991; T.O. Okereke 1996; Okorie 1991; J.E. Uche 1996; 0.

Udensi 199 1). However, direct evidence regarding the selection of captives according to their skills comes only from the 19" century. One of my nde-Imogu respondents in 1996 referred to such acquisitions and showed me some archaic works of art, including a speciai war dmm called Ikoerik~eand religious icons. The genealogies of the families concemed go back respectively to the early 19th and early 20' centuries (Igwilo 1996% 1996b). Another source of information on deliberate retention of skilled captives comes from the home of Okoroji, a

19' century Aro-Chukwu trader. The Nigerian govemment in 1972 dedared this structure, called Oebuti Okoroii (Okoroji's Parlour), a national monument. One of the platforms in the building was for questioning new captives about their occupation. If, for instance, a captive was a skilled hunter, he was given a gun and shown a domain. The skulls of the animai heads -1 13-

contributed by these slaves are arranged on the building's ceiling in neat symrnetries

according to species. This finding parallels a recent account from Dahomey. Here, as in the

Aro case, evidence comes from the 19~century. The evidence that derives the practice in the

slave trade era comes from family genealogies. These families retained their skills and

peculiar dance foms into the 2oh century (see Adandé, forthcoming).' Given these

preferences, it is uniikely that skilled artisans and artists were exported in large numbers.

Those exported would have intersected captive categories earrnarked for the export market.

Preferences 2: Sectional

Based on positive stereotypes, indigenous slave holders preferred captives from some

sections of the region to others. Again, evidence on this is clearest among the Aro. For

reasons explicated in Chapter 5 below, they had a specific and consistent interest in

cultivating persons from the Nn-Awka region. A captive from outside the Nri-Awka region

was more likely to end in the market. Aro preference for people from this region was not

limited to captives. The Aro dso incorporated the people mwively as refugees and voluntary

immigrants. This development gained momentum in mid-18' century with the foundation of

the major Aro settlements at the south-eastem edge of that region. It is worth repeating that

this period marked the surge of the Biafian Atlantic trade. From available evidence, one can

hypothesize that Aro expansion and concomitant rise in the Atlantic slave trade corresponded

4 Such projection is easier in areas where castes were occupational, as in many places in the Western Sudan (see M. Klein 1968: 10; Tamari 1991). The caste that existeci among the Igbo does not belong to "endogamous artisan and musician groups" or "endogamous ranked specialist groups" - both Tamari's (199 1: 22 1, 223) definitions. It refers instead to persons who were either consignai to worship deities or pladthernselves in the services of those deities. It was not occupationai because the did not make a living that way. Contrary to impressions given by some scholars, it was not slavery (Nwokeji 1998b: 323). -1 14-

with declining proportions of the Nri-Awka people exported overseas.

To make this point, let us consider some specific details about Aro expansion and

New World and Sierra Leone evidence. Let us use as an example the upper Imo River

settlement, nde-hop, that grew to become the largest Aro comrnunity. Aro-nde-hogu was also the first of the permanent settlements that sprang up in the rnid-18' century. The

founder, Iruogu Mgbokpo fiom Aro-Chukwu, came to the region with a retinue of dependents. Among the three early ones that founded lineage-groups within nde-Izuogu, only one, Lheme, came from the Nri-Awka region. This represents 33% of the incorporated groups. By contrast, the Ni-Awka group dominated the list of the latter limage-groups that resulted after 1780 fiom incorporated groups - seven out of nine or 78% (see Figure 5.1).

Even when incorporated groups did not originate fiom the Nri-Awka area, they followed the tradition of acquiring people fiom that region as slaves, clients and wives. As mentioned already, the founders of a few whole Aro settlements at the edge of the Nri-Awka region themselves had originated fiom the region. Like the settlements founded by originally Aro people, these settlements expanded from a massive incorporation of people fiom the Nri-

Awka area. This situation diffen fiom the impression given by Dike and Ekejiuba (1990: 74) that slaves were procured from far places. This view derives from Moses Finley (1968: 308-

09), and has become an onhodoxy in Afncan slave studies. The fact that some traditions

(e.g., J.G.Okoro 1996; Mefo and Ibe 1972) and Equiano's (1995) narrative show that slave dealers to took windy paths to confuse victirns, seems to lend credence to this Mew. For deportees, such as dissidents and other "trouble maken," and kidnap victirns, this practice was essential. However, the idea that slaves were necessarily drawn fkom distant places has -1 15- no place in the .&O case. The Aro settlements in the Igbo heartland drew Whially al1 their slaves ffom a fifty kilometre perirneter in their northwest. People hmthis region, even when they were slaves, maintained kinship ties with people in their original homes. In fact, rather than run away, men of slave origin often married from where they came from (see Igwegbe

1962: 12; Kanu-Igbo 1996; Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 206). The findings also controverts the widespread view that kinlessness was a necessary condition for slavery, and demonstrates the extent to which the New World experience has been projected to Africa. As will be made clear in Chapter 5, these men and women also e~chedtheir Aro societies with cultural importations.

The other components of the evidence showing the Nri-Awka bias of Aro incorporation are sketchy and they denve from the Igbo Atlantic diaspora. One concems a recent argument that the vat majority of the captives sent to the Chesapeake before the

1740s came fiorn the Ni-Awka ais (Chambers 1996: 5 1). This was before the foundation of the Aro diaspora and the intensified incorporation of these people. Finally, whereas this New

World information claims overwhelming Nri-Awka provenance - perhaps a reflection of the regional composition of pre- 19' century slaving - 19' century Sierra Leone evidence gives a contrary indication (Koelle 1963: 8). The 19" century sample was intended to reflect the regional distribution of freed persons, but it is curious that none of the five Igbo informants cornes from this region. Among the fifteen Igbo "countries" reponed in Sierra Leone,

"Mudioka" (Umudioka) is the only group that falls in the Nri-Awka area (present Anarnbra

State), a region of eighty odd comrnunities. Using KoeUe7sdata, Northrup (1 978b: 62) and

Oriji (1981: 3 18) have traced most Igbo in Sierra Leone to Isuama (ho State) and Agbaja (). This dimension of regional slaving demands fbrther research.

Preferences 3: Gender

Children of both sexes between 8 and 16 cornmanded a special place in slave masters' scale of preference. Known as asamiri, children were easier to incorporate into the family than adults (e.g., Echemazi 1996; Igwe 1996; M. Ike 1995; Kanu-Igbo 1996; C. Okoli 1996).

Rich women without children "adopted" very young children. This category, ranging between 1 and 8, was known as aeapa (Fox 1964: 23-24). The founders of at least two major

Aro settIements, Ikelionwu Ufere and Owuu Mgboli, are known to have entered Aro society in this way fiom communities in the Nri-Awka area at times that Dike and Ekejiuba (1990:

178-79, 18 1,208) date as the first half of the 18' century. These boy slaves grew up, became fiee, rich and famous, and established nde-Ikelionwu and nde-Owuu respectively, in eastem

Nri-Awka area. The higher numbers of children and young adolescents in a slave system sold in the interna1 markets sugpest that indigenous slavery focused on increasing the existing population by integrating outsiders @ike and Ekejiuba 1990: 74, 250-5 1; Ekejiuba 1W2b:

12). Also, adults "were getting old and would not be able to do effective work for very long"

(Fox 1964: 23). These explanations embody grains of tmth. The importance of children and adolescents is consistent with Barry Higman's (1976: 190, 195) findings on Jamaica, which show that, to slave masters, age was the most fundamental demographic attribute of slaves.

But if in the Canbbean the labour potentid of youths informed the preference for children and adolescents, the basic reason for their preference in Biafra was the ease with which they were assimilated into kin groups. This calculation remained important even in the Iate 19"' century -1 17- when the labour consideration seems to have been predominant. Adults rnight pose social problems if incorporeted into the household. This observation will become clearer below under the discussion of the possible ways in which an adult could be enslaved.

In view of the preference for them, captives of the asamiri category were the most expensive. The fact that this category cost more thm the aeap, who were easier to assimilate, suggests that the higher irnmediate labour potential of the asamiri and the higher mortality potential of the apapa may have counted as well. Unfortunately, there are no senal data on prices. Most available prices are quoted in different currencies and without exchange rates.' Moreover, most sources seldom show the categories of captives whose prices they quote. For example, although British observers in Abo tell us that a 16 year-old cost sixty shillings in 1832 and a woman "something more", the sex of the 16 year old is unclear (Laird and Oldfield 1837: 103, 106). Another Abo pnce in 1854, is quoted at one pair of ivory for three captives (Baikie 1856: 56). In about 1855, four to six adult captives exchanged for one horse in the major fairs of the hinterland. Whatever may be the value of ivoiy or horses, it is clear that these prices were very low. These low pnces for adults are consistent with contemporaneous information on the hinterland fairs, where an adult sold for one bullock

(Ekejiuba 1972a: 2 1). Although the asamiri was preferred, the male ones were particularly so for reasons that will become clear below in the discussion on gender preferences. This observation departs fiom Uchendu's (1977: 125) observation that girls cost more than boys in Igboland, because boys were more likely to run away. As will be made clear below,

Uchendu's information obviously belongs to a later era, in the early colonial penod, when

'~eeLaw 199 la for the compleùties of computing pices in pre-colonial Afiica. slavers could no longer export kidnapped children. During the overseas trade, kidnapped

boys oAen ended in the slave ship, as happened to Equiano and Archibaid Monteith! Late

19~century information shows that adults above twenty-six years old, disparagingly called

otankwu (she who consumes palm nuts), were the least expensive. They sold for only 40

mkpona (brass rods) or f3, compared with 25 to f 10 for aDaDa and 400 mkoona or £30 for

asamiri (Fox 1964: 23).'

In spite of a local preference for children, the decline in male ratios and a

corresponding rise in child ratios between 18 15 and 1838 were major distinguishing features

of 19' century Biafian Atlantic captive exports. This trend may have reflected demand

situations and probably contnbuted to high coastal pnces for children and low pnces for

adults (Eltis 1986: 268; Eltis and Engerman 1993: 3 19, 320). In fact, Lovejoy and

Richardson (1995a: 99, 1 14-15; 1995b: 32-33, 5 1) have argued that prices generally

rebounded after 1820, and they attnbute the trend partly to a probable increase in slave use

within Africa.

1 have used four data sets in considering 18' and lgh centuries sex and age trends.

The Mixed commission entries, from slave ships arrested off the West African Coast by the

British Anti-Slavery Squadron and taken to Sierra Leone, provide a series for 182 1-22, and

1825-38 (from Northmp). Out of 109 slavers that embarked at Biafran ports, ninety-five

6~ccordingto Monteiîh, he was born in about 1799 and kdnapped and shipped to Iamaica when he was about ten, i.e., about 1809. It is likely that he was shipped eariier given that the British had abolished the slave trade in 1807. After emancipation, he becarne "a prominent Helper in the Moravia Mission of that island." Monteith told his story in 1853 to Rev. Joseph Horsefall, who then recorded it. See Monteith 1966.1 am gratefbi to Maureen Warner-Lewis for providing me with this material.

'~lthou~hFox gives the exchange rate at 1 mkwna = 1s. 64 the conversion of the figures redts in rates drastiay different from his £30 = 400 mki>ona.This works out at 13 -33 rnkwna = E 1. -1 19- concem the section of the Bight under consideration. The eleven others originating from

Cameroon, two fiom , and one that embarked both fiom and Old Calabar are excluded because the Cameroonian and Gabonese components would have denved from outside the sphere of Aro operation. This data set is represented in Tables 4.3 and 4.4. One characteristic of this data set needs noting. There are disjunctures between the numbers captured and numbers emancipated. The result is that the sex and age distribution of about

20% of rescued persons is unknown. In the years 1822 and 1826 the difference was more than 50 percentage points. The second and third data sets are represented in Table 4.1. One is supplied by Herbert Klein from British shipping dunng 1791-98 (26,167 captives). The other, supplied by Françoise Thesee, comes fiom a Bomy cargo (21 1 captives) intercepted by the

French navy in February 1822 and landed on Martinique. It must be noted that, although the

1822 sample is smaller than the Mixed Commission sample, it parallels the 19' century pattern accepted by such authorities as Eltis, Engerman, Geggus, Inikori, Manning (1998a:

30), Northmp (1978a), and Richardson. The fourth quantitative material (Table 4.2), fiom the Du Bois Dataset (Eltis, et al forihcomig), illustrates the deviation of the Biafkan sex ratio from the Mcan pattern.

Table 4.3 shows that, while the rnean proportion of children was 37.69% between

182 1 and 1839, 40% was typical from 1833. Noting that the percentage of children rose fiom

15 percentage points in the 17' century to 39 in the 19"' cenhiry, Northrup (1978b: 78) speculates that the overall proportion of children "may have been even higher since ... there was also a large market for children as domestic slaves because they were more readily assimilated than adults." Given this, coastal price increases in the 19' century help to - 120- understand the rising child ratios, as Eltis and Engerman show. This is aiso tme with their suggestion, shared by Inikori on Biafra, in respect of increased female ratio. Although these trends reflected both extemal demand and internai socio-economic dynamics, age and sex samples fiom shipping data show that the changes in the age composition had sex implications as well.

Increased child ratios reflected an increased proportion of girls and not of boys. In the same vein, increased female ratios derived in part from the greater increase in girl ratios.

These are clear indications of the region's greater readiness to export females and girls in particular. While Table 4.4 shows that the mean ratio of girls to boys was 48.32% between

182 1 and 1839, the mean ratio of fernales was 34.57%.' But the increase in children and in girls in particular comes out dramatically from direct cornparison between the 18th and lgh centuries. . . Table 4 1 IVP&d Pcriod All No. of % of Adult NO.of % of Female Aduits Adults Fcmale Chüdren Children Child r 1791-98a 26165 25346 96.56 43 -28 819 3.13 46.88 18226 21 1 126 59.7 1 35.71 85 40.28 58.82 t Sources: a. Calculated from H. Hein 1983: 3 1. b. Calculated fiom Thede (1986: Appendix).

Table 4.1 compares 1790s and 1822 samples. Whereas at 43.3 percentage points, the female ratio for 1791-98 was similar to that of 1822 (45.02 percentage points), the girl ratio for the dserent periods show sharp variations, at 46.8 and 58.8 percentage points respectively. Whereas the woman ratio dropped by 8 percentage points, that of girls rose by

8 This figure is computed from the Northrup data set useci in Table 1 and 2. -121-

12. At the same tirne, the boy ratio declined from 53.1 1 in the 1790s to 4 1.17 percentage points in the 1822 sarnple (infer from Table 4.1). The decrease of 12 percentage points in the ratio of girls is similar to the decrease in that of boys. The increase of girl and decrease of boy ratios reflected the male (and especidly boy) bias of indigenous institutions of the family and slavery. Boys were so important that, as Mbonu Ojike (1946: 6) grandly puts it, a man "must have a son or be written off the dynasty." The foregoing helps to explain the observation that boys cost more than girls in the Biafran hinterland. This observation is in contrat with

Galenson's (1986: 107-10) assumption that girls fetched higher prices than boys in Afncan markets.

The relatively high proportion of females among Biafra's export captives reflects the marginality of both female slavery and the female-biased Saharan market. Pressed dunng fieldwork among the Aro on the question whether men routinely acquired slave women, respondents told me that, even if a man retained a femaie trade captive in his household, the relationship invariably changed to that of husband-wife. Altematively, the man gave her to his wife as slave, or to one of his sons or dependents as wife. The following statement by

Ukobasi F. Kanu-Igbo (1996) clearly articulates a representative recognition by the Aro that women were a small part of slave holding: "there were [women slaves], but not so many. A female slave would be given to a slave man because a woman could not establish an ama

[lineage]" (see also Akpu 1996; Anyakoha 1996; M.S.Igwe 1996; E. Nwankwo 1996;

Maduadichie 1996; C. Okoli 1996; E. Okoro 1996; J.G.Okoro 1996; J.O.Okoro 1996; J.E.

Uche 1996). Moreover, one of the important reasons for the accumulation of male slaves is that they were used in fighting wars. Women were not (M.S. Igwe 1996). There was yet another reason.

Women were difficult. Their mobility was minimal. It was only practical to buy a woman and she became your wife or that of your son, or she became a fellow woman's slave. Except if she was sold to a far away place or overseas, it was not very practical. L certain circumstances, people bought female slaves, but they invariably ended as wives. 1 do not thilik, however, that a person set out to buy a woman so that she would become his wife. What 1 am sure of is that women bought women slaves (N.A. Anyakoha 1996).

Whether or not women were significantly less mobile, the mentality expressed by this respondent seems to have affected the choice of enslavers. Another respondent explained how slave women became wives: "a man could buy a woman fkom the market and bnng her home. You know that man-woman matters are complicated. ... If he was the sort that had a soft spot for women, he rnight decide to keep her longer and might marry her. ... a woman who came as a slave was effectively the man's wife once she got pregnant and bore children for him" (M.S. Igwe 1996). Susan Martin (1988: 25) has made a similar observation with respect to southem Igboland.

Many respondents told me in 1995-96 that these slave women were later labelled

'tiives" (*pu 1996; NA. Anyakoha 1996; M. S. Igwe 1996; lgwilo 1996; Martina Ike

1995; Maduadichie 1996; A. Nwankwo 1996; E. Nwankwo 1996; C. Okoli 1996; E. Okoli

1996; G.N.Okoli 1996; E. Okoro 1996; Umu~akwe1995). This is obviously why IQ

Amadiurne (1 987) has cailed this class of slave owners "female husbands" (see also Chuku

1995). Although current in present Igboland, reference to the institution as marriage evolved in the 20' century and did not at the time affect the basic slave/mistress relation. The tendency nom the lgB century of coastal men to accumulate a considerable number of

hinterland wornen did not offset tfüs trend.g

Regarding the marginality of the Saharan market in the region, which is the other

component of my explanation for the relatively high proportion of females that entered the

Atlantic market fiom Biafia, Robin Law (forthcorning) has recently observed that, uniike the

rest of the "Nigerian" hinterland, the Bight of Biafra "appears histondy to have been much

more weakly integrated, commercially and otherwise, with the remoter interior of the Central

Sudan." The virtual absence before the 19~century of the horse, which figured prominently

in the Saharan market (see Law 1980: 23), is relevant in appreciating the marginality of the

Saharan market. This animal became the main trade item fiom the north after it had becorne

well-known in the 1g6 century. Appealing to well-known linguistic and archaeological

evidence, Afigbo (1977) argued twenty years ago for a greater antiquity for the Saharan

market. Igbo and Ijo languages spoken in the region separated from other Kwa languages

(inciuding some Middle Belt groups) 5,000-6,000 years ago. Igbo-Ukwu artifacts, with an

gThe change mut be asrociated with slavers' response to the anti-slavery effort of the British colonial administration, which peaked in the 1930s. This was when chi14 especially girl, deding became endernic. Most of the transactions were clded as "marriage", confusing tlie colonial administrators who came to rcgard al1 hridewealth payrnent as slavedealing. 1 have elsewhere chronicled these developrnents (Nwokeji 1998b: 337). Emecheta's novel, set in the 1900s through the I920s, confirms that these "marriages" were indeed slavery. "Many of the market women had slaves in great number" (Emecheta 1977: 58). The female slaves refend to in the novel are al1 owned by mistresses. Even Chiago, who was sold by her father and purchased by another man, is presented to her buyer's wife (60-6 1). Yet, selling girls to mistresses is actually expressed in terms of "marry[ing] her away" (50). Marriage differed from slavery because, unlike a slave, a married woman and al1 of her labour power was not alienated from her lineage (Kiikenny 198 1: 158-59). In her important biography of a wealthy late 19" early 20" century Onitsha market woman, Omu Okwei, Felicia Ekejiuba writes that Okwei "aquired beautifiil girls - mostly 'adopted' children or children pawned to her by her debtors". In 1921, Okwei admitted that one Uyanwa was her slave as Okwei stniggled to retain the right of inheriting the property that Uyanwa's husband, a European United Afncan Company manager to whom Owkei had given her in "hage", would leave behind (Ekejiuba 1967: 637, 64334). Like in Emecheta's novel, the story revolves around girls. The idea that the Yedehusband" relationship is an ancient institution seems to have sprung from the unfortunate tendency, noted by Gloria Chuku (1995: 33, of much existing literature to view Igbo women as unchanging. - 124- antiquity going back to the grncentury, show that the region was a recipient of goods that may have travelled across the Sahara. Afgbo's primary concem is that textbooks implied that the region was quarantined fiom the rest of the world. However, the volume of the trade and the specific nature of exchange at diffierent times are important in understanding the significance of the trade to the sex ratio of Biafian captive markets. As Afigbo (1977: 123) himself notes, available evidence does not suggest the times of these developments "or even" help "to describe the stages." The relevant period in this study is the 18th to the 19" centuries.

It is true, that sorne of these goods rnay have travelled across the Sahara into the

Biafian hinterland via a northem route fiom the Middle Belt. Nevertheless, the goods which the region gave in exchange, whether captives or some other merchandise, are unclear. Also unclear is the question of whether the goods came from the north, east or West. In this comection, attention must also be drawn to Afigbo's (1977: 1 19) other point in the article.

He suggests, correctly in my view, the iikelihood of east-west routes. It is possible that some of the goods referred to may have corne through those routes fiom other parts of West Afnca and from West-Central and East Afica. The fact that people as far east as the Kongo operated a "week" of four market days (see Vansina 1961: 100), as did the groups in this region, indicates that we need to leam more about the east-west route, not only to uncover probable trading relations with other West African groups as Afigbo has suggested. The implication of this observation is that goods fiom the Indian Ocean commerce could have got to the Biafian hinterland outside the sphere of the Saharan trade. Lovejoy and Hogendom

(1979: 225) have suggested that the Little trade that operated in the 17' century by the -125-

Middle Belt Jukun kingdom was by the 18. century decimated by the Tiv of the Middle Belt and the Aro. In this regard, it is significant that al1 we can show about goods that may have travelled across the Sahara are ancient artifacts of the Igbo-Ukwu vintage. The foregoing shows that the influence of the Saharan market was marginal in the crucial penod under consideration. In this respect, the region's situation is consistent with Inikori's (1992a) argument that the Saharan effective demand could not offset that of the Atlantic market. But this fact must be read in conjunction with the marginality of female slavery in the region for an understanding of Biafra's deviant sex ratio in Atlantic captive export. In societies where the Saharan market prevailed, women were needed both for it and internal enslavement (see eg., Lovejoy 1983; Robertson and Klein l983b).

Given the virtual absence of the Saharan market, one rnight raise the possibility that

Igbo society absorbed through slavery and polygyny women who would have gone to that market. Like most societies in slave exporting Afnq Igboland absorbed many women through the institution of polygyny. However, evidence of large-scale enslavement of women in Igboland and elsewhere in the region is lacking. Equally weak is evidence of large-scaie polygyny (Nwokeji 1998a). The virtual absence of the Saharan market and the marginality of female slavery suggest strongly that the internal market for females would have been weak.

The relatively high female ratio in Biafian Atlantic export figures is therefore to be expected. -126-

Table 4.2. Mean Male Ratio by Twenty-Five Year Periods, 1751-1850

Period Biafi-an Mean Afi-ican Mean D ifference 175 1-75 60 (87) 62 (572) -2

Source: Eltis, et al forthcorning. The bracketed figures are the numbers of vessels involved.

As Table 4.2 shows, the Biafian male ratio is considerably lower than the Afî-ican mean, representing a statistically significant -5.1 percentage points for the entire period,

175 1- 1850). It is suggested here that supply processes were critical in detemining the sex ratios of Biafi-an export captives. We must now turn to a closer examination of the structure and processes responsible for this.

According to John Thomton, Afncan rulers calculated on not depopulating their societies by exporting mainly males (198 1: 695). He recognizes, however, that the groups who made the decisions were not necessady those losing their population (Thomton 1992a:

74). Whether or not they did, the Aro were consistent in their drive for the augmentation of their own population. They did so by a massive incorporation of outsiders - men as slaves, refugees and voluntary immigrants and women as wives. Women, whether slave or free, served a primarily reproductive function in Aro society. Consequently, whereas the society emphasized the acquisition of wornen as wives, their acquisition as slaves was marginal.

Owning of women was marginal because it was left for women ody, whereas men were owned by both men and women (Nwokeji 1997b, forthcorning). Sorne Aro women in the 18' - 127- and 19"' centuries are remembered to have owned many slaves. Exarnples include Mgbon in the early 18h century who owned Owuu, the man who as an adult founded the nde-Owuu settlement (see Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 208). As is made clear in Chapter 6 below, this trend escalated mainly as a result of diversification into agriculture in the late lgh century Aro-nde- hogu.

It is significant that low prices for females in hinterland markets did not stimulate large-scale female slavery in the region, as expected under perfect market conditions. Rather, slavers sent females to the coast where they fetched much higher prices (although still less than males), and indigenous slavery continued to focus on males. The absence of a large intemal market for girls would have contnbuted to the high proportion of females that entered the Atlantic traffic. While boy-pawns and boys sold by impoverished parents were easily acquired by slave holders (leaving mainly kidnap victims and some recalcitrant boys for export), the small social space for female slavery ensured that a high proportion of girls were available for sale. It is, therefore, no surprise that Emecheta's novel shows a large pool of girl captives in the early 206 century, &er the end of the Atlantic slave trade (Emecheta 1977).

It has been argued that captives from coastal regions had higher proportions of wornen and children than those fiom fùrther inland (L,ovejoy and Richardson 1995b: 282-83;

Manning 1990: 98; 1998a: 19). This means that the high proportion of children and females among Biafkan captives is due, at least in part, to the nearness of the main source areas to the coast. This point is valid, although a comparative perspective reveals its weakness. For example, while the Bight of Biafra supplied the highest proportion of females in Atlantic

Atnca, the area of Angola supplied the highest proportion of children. Nearness to the coast -128- does not explain this dissimilar distribution of women and children among captives from these two regions. Other issues, such as the ones considered above and the ones considered below, would have made a greater impact upon the age and sex structure of the Biafian slave trade.

Besides the choices of slave holders, some palpably non-market circumstances Limited their choices, compelling them to choose not to choose certain categories of captives, irrespective of gender or region. Like these considerations, these circumstances also related to slave-holders' idea of society. An examination of these circumstances clarifies the differences between household and market persons. Certainly, it was not al1 about money and markets.

Means of Slaving 1: War and Kidnapping

Warfare was important in captive procurement, although its intensity varied from region to region (Curtin 1990: 37-38, 1 19; Lovejoy 1983: 56,61, 68-78; Thomton l992a: 99, 1 10). In spite of the fact that Euro-American pro-slavery interests downplayed the role of warfare, a few of the British slave traders to a British parliamentary cornmittee investigating the slave trade between 1788 and 1790 admitted its relevance. The most graphic account from Biafra cornes from the testimony of one Isaac Parker. A ship's mate, Parker had deserted his cruel captain in Old Calabar, where he lived for five months with Dick Ebro of New Town in 1765.

Parker testified in 1790 that Dick Ebro organized routine raids for captives on unsuspecting communities. Parker participated (Parker 1790: 126-27). Warfare and other kinds of violence are said to have been so pervasive during the slave trade era that Peter Ekeh has postulated that they permanently changed the political sociology of Afka (Ekeh 1990). European - 12%

slavers on the Biafian Coast in the 1 century and British visitors to the Niger in the Igh

give some account of wars and slave raiding (for example, see Laird and Oldfield 1837: 106;

Parker 1790; Crowther and Taylor 1859). The Aro also made war in many parts of the region

(see esp. Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 161-95). This is not a place to recount these wars.

However, three observations about wars in the region bear particular emphasis because they

shed some light on the age and sex composition of Biafian captive expons.

First, most authorities have accepted that wars were not a major source of captives

(Afigbo 198 1 a, 198 1b; K.O. Dike 1956: 40; Northmp 1W8b: 65-69). Second, although the

majority of male prisoners produced by the wars likely ended in the Atlantic market, refugees

ofien rnigrated to other communities, especially the Aro settlements. The most dramatic case

uncovered dunng fieldwork in 1995-96 concems Owa, a community in the Nri-Awka region

(around Agulu Lake). I got curious about Owa when 1 found that many people in nde-

Imogu, the largest Aro settlement, claim ancestry to Owa. But 1 found that Owa no longer

existed because its four neighbours sacked it and shared out its temtory between them in the

early 19h century. These nde-hop people descended fiom refugees fiom that codict. The

third observation regarding warfare is that the Cross River Igbo wanior groups who fought

most Aro wars were primarily interested in headhunting rather than slave catching. In their

societies, cutting men's heads were necessary for full citizenship status, of being admitted to

such primary groups as the age-grades (Ijoma 1994: 43).1° This element has direct bearing on

the sex and age composition of export captives. Women's and children's heads did not do it.

'%Ay understanding of Cross River warfare has benefited from exchanges with Okom Ijoma (Febtuary 1996) and more recently with Ogbu Kalu. -130-

Therefore, wars like these resulted in a harvest of women and children, not of men.

Another violent form of slaving was kidnapping. Reaction to kidnapping varied with

the victim's relationship to the society. It was vehemently disapproved when the victirn was

fiom within. Equiano (1995: 35) recalled a case in which a man was arraigned for kidnapping

a boy. "[A]lthough he was the son of a chief or senator, he was condemned to make

recompense by a ... slave." Arnong the Aro, the culprit was either killed or sold away. The

punishrnent was invanably more severe if the victim was amadi, and extremely powerful

persons could get away with it (Anyakoha 1996; J.O.Dike 1996; Kanu-Igbo 1996b; M.S.

Igwe 1996; Igwilo 1996a; Maduadichie 1996; Muotoh 1996; E. Nwankwo 1996; E. Okoro

1996; J.G. Okoro 1996). In sorne areas, protagonists in inter-unit politics often sought to

reduce the populations of rival units by kidnapping and selling off their members to the Aro

@ike and Ekejiuba 1990: 248). The King of Old Calabar "was a partner with the manstealers

of other countries, while punishing a manstealer with death in his own" (Waddell 1970: 429).

Kidnapping was cornrnon enough; Igbo victims in Sierra Leone and at least two New World

locations recorded their ordeals (Equiano 1995; Monteith 1966). The marner in which they

were hamed to the Coast is supported in real life stories fiom oral traditions (e.g., E. Okoli

1996). No wonder, the slave trade era tenn panva survives in Igbo folklore as forceful

removal to the unknown." Kidnapping was behind much of the secrecy that attended slave

transactions (Oriji 198 1: 3 17).

Although scholars who use samples from export captives tend to over-emphasize the

ll~anvaringwas not rynonymous with kidnapping, but its usage in current Igbo corresponds to it. For descriptions of panvaring, see G. Williams (1897: 584); Blake (1861: 112). -13 1- element of kidnapping in enslavement as a whole, most regional specialists de-emphasize it

(see Afigbo 1980: 86; 198 la: 2 1; 198 1b: 267; K.O. Dike 1956: 40; Dike and Ekejiuba 1990;

Ijoma 1986a). The means of enslavement were diversified. Equiano (1 995: 38), who acknowledges kidnapping and was himself a victim of it, insists that "[s]ornetimes ... we sold slaves ... but they were only prisoners of war, or such among us as had been convicted of kidnapping, or adultery, and some other crimes, which we esteemed heinous." Although he recognizes that the means of enslavement were diverse, M. Effiong Noah (1980: 74-75) misses the point in thinking that de-emphasiùng the role of warfare and kidnapping implies that "any of these sources was not .... disruptive to society." As we have seen, for example, the acitivies of Cross River Igbo wamors were disruptive enough, but they produced fewer captives than would warfare elsewhere, where the primary purpose of fighting was not to secure human heads.

Means of Slaving 2: The Politics of Law and Order

The starting point of this analysis of law and order is the truism that politics economic practice, and legal and belief systems interacted explicitly in pre-colonial Afiican societies.

Sale into Atlantic slavery was an extreme form of punishment in many places (Bay, forthcoming; Davidson 197 1 : 65; Lovejoy 1994a; Miller 1988: 1 16, 128; Thornton 1991).

Captain William Snelgrave's (1 730: 506) observation that "the Negroes .. . dread foreign slavery above al1 things" sums it. This dread was particularly acute in Biafra. Asked pointedly in January 1790 whether captives fiom Calabar and Bonny "shew reluctance at being ched off the coast," Captain James Fraser who had twenty years expenence in the slave trade and -132- had since 1772 been cornmanding ships to Biafra and Angola answered: "They shew more reluctance than the Angolan slaves.- They are too often of the opinion that the White men intend to eat them.2 (Fraser 1790: 34, 38). Equiano's rnid-18' century experience tallies with these assessments. This is consistent with the account of Alexander Falconbridge (1788:

30-32), as slavets surgeon who made several trips to the Afncan coast in the same period.

Because "there was much dread and trembling ... and bitter cries" arnong Equiano and his fellow Biafra captives in slavery when they anived in Barbados in 1756, the planters got experienced slaves to assure the newly arrived that they would not appear on the menu

(Equiano 1995: 57). In Old Caiabar, captives dreaded being "sold over the great waters, or eaten at sea" (Waddell 1970: 32 1). Up until the 1840s, the Igbo still widely believed that the captives sold to the New World "were killed and eaten, and that their bodies were used to make red cloth"(Niger Expedition 1842: 56). The members of the 184 1 Niger Expedition informed Obi Osai of Abo in August 184 1 that "Wicked white men corne and buy slaves; not to eat them as your people believe, but to work them harder than they can bear, by flogging and ill-using them" (Allen and Thomson 1848a: 221). This extreme fear of the Atlantic world, coupled with indigenous religious ideas, would Iikely have played a part in the well-known suicida1 tendencies of New World based enslaved Igbo. Belief in transmigration was deep

(Equiano 1995: 41). William Baikie, who comrnanded the British Niger Expedition of 1854, repons from Abo that believed "that after death, those who have been good on earth may either go to Oisî and abide with him, or they may, if they like, visit any country on earth; and so slaves often, when dying, Say they will go and revisit their land; iS on the other hand a wicked man dies, it is understood that he is driven to O'komo" (Baikie 1856: 3 12). How else can one explain the appeal of suicide arnong them, whereas it was a great

abomination in contemporary Igbolmd?

Beyond popular culture, merchants and other prominent people in the region that

regularly sent people into Atlantic slavery were sufficiently informed about what happened to

captives in the New World. Edna Bay has recently given an account of Dahomey, where the

ruling groups saw sale into Atlantic slaves, as a worse punishment than execution, reserved

for the bitterest rivais of triumphant princes (Bay, forthcoming). There is evidence that

Dahomians in the 1720s were sending into overseas slavery the categories of convicts that

had suffered capital punishment in the 1680s (Law 199 1b: 184). Although unlike Dahomey

and Senegambia where people travelled back and forth fiom the Arnericas (see Ashcroft-

Eason, forthcoming; Law and Lovejoy 1996: 14-16), the Bight of Biafra seems to have

lacked a significant number of resident European traders and Afiican retumees fiom

~merica.'~Some information fiom the outside world nevertheless infiltrated far into the

interior. For instance, Paul Lovejoy relates that the Muslim jihadist of early 19'h century

Sokoto Caliphate, Mohammed Bello, discussed the specific characteristics of individual

European and Amencan countries (Lovejoy 1994b). In the Bight of Biafra, Old Calabar

merchants were in persona1 contact with correspondents in by the 1770s at the latest

(see Lovejoy and Richardson 1996; G. Williams 1897: 543). The king's advisers in Bomy

styled themselves "parliament gentlemen" dunng the 18' century (Falconbndge 1788: 8).

Even hometowns of European sailors, however remote, were known. For instance, in 1804,

"Captain Hugh Crow reports about taking a 15 year-old boy, Finebane, who was iravelling hmBonny to England in early 1793 (Crow 1830: 45). Ah, John Afnca, a Bonny courtier, "had been several times in England" by 1807 (Crow 1830: 139). -134-

King Pepple of Bonny teased Captain Hugh Crow of Liverpool about the smallness of the

Isle of Man, Crow's original home (see Crow 1830: 87). It is no surprise then thaf decadcs later, Pepple's exiled son at Fernando Po stumed William Baikie (commander of the British

Niger Expedition of 1854) with the names of al1 the British ministers and much detail about the exploits of Napoleon Bonaparte and Wellington (Baikie 1856: 3 33). This awareness of the outside world is relevant to this discussion because such information likely fiitered to the hinterland through the Aro. Throughout their participation in the slave trade, the Aro were regular visitors to the coastal states and maintained temporary settlements there

(Anthropologists' Papers 1927: Appendix 1V; Aro-Okeigbo Ancestral Almanac 1996; G.I.

Jones 1989: 3 5-36; Kanu-Igbo 1996; K. Oji 1972). In tum, coastal ruling classes regularly visited the Aro oracle to settle criminal cases and nilership contests (Baikie 1856: 336;

Hutchinson 1861: 46-47, 54; G.I.Jones 1963 : 69, 87, 147, 152, 210; A.G. Leonard 1906:

486, 254). Baikie reports King Pepple of Bo~yas saying that he (Pepple) and his people made "pilgnmages" to Aro (Baikie 1856). Indeed, more than direct cross-fertilization of information was involved. The oracle was able to mesmerize its coastal customers with the knowledge of "everything - the narnes of al1 ships trading in the river, of the [overseas-based] rnerchants to whom they belong, and of the supercargoes" (Hutchinson 1 86 1: 53). If coastal merchants knew about Europe and the Arnericas, so did the Aro who dealt with them on a daily basis. Thus sending away people or retaining them was not always randorn.

To take away (mmevu) was the idiom for sale into Atlantic slavery, invoked primarily in questions of intra-Aro social control (e.g., N.A. Anyakoha 1996; J.O.Dike; Echemazi

1996; Kanu-Igbo 1996; Nwaokoye 1996; Ufere 1996). One respondent captured this practice in a popular saying meant for the purpose: "Onve umunna va si na O ve-eie. O ve-eie." (He whose kinsmen have decided would embark on a journey must travel.) (N.A. Anyakoha

1996). The Aro equated sale to the Atlantic market with being used for human sacrifice (see

J.G. Okoro 1996). The practice of selling people as punishment was not restricted to the Aro.

It was widespread, but the Aro mediated the transactions. Colonial anthropologists of the early 20'" century saw the Aro as having perfomed the function of removing such categorized persons (see J.G.C.Allen n.d.: 149; Grier 1922: 35). Oral traditions from rnany parts of the region support this assessrnent strongly. Respondents fiom different parts of Igbo and lbibioland report the same practice of selling away "evil doers" or "trouble makers" or

"stubbom children" (E. Akpan 1972; L.U.Akpan; Ebu 1972; D.K. Eshiet 1973; kok 1973;

J. Inokun 1972; S. Isangedighi, et al 1973; U.U. Obong 1972; I.A. Odung 1972; A. Okon

1972; Russell 1972; J. Udo 1972; Udonyah 1972; Wamuo 1973). In fact, by the early 19& century, Bonny chiefs "were able to sel1 any person convicted of crime into the Atlantic slave trade" (Hargreaves 1987: 108, 1 14-1 5). As J.G.C.Allen (n.d.: 149) puts it,

persistent troublemakers were not tolerated. The simple village code ody permittecl execution of thieves and witches: other minor offences were punished by the enforced payrnent of a fine or compensation to the vîctim. But if these penalties proved insufficient to control the more intransigent characters the ultimate punishment was to be sold into slavery, and the Aro "missionaries" waxed fat on these sales?whereby the villagers effectually disposed of their incomgibles and the slave dealers profited by the transaction.

The sale of this category of captives was not necessarily instrumentally inspired. In Ibibio communities, the handling of proceeds fiom such desranged fiom being buned under

a plantain and not be used to being deposited in the comrnon fùnd (see Ebu 1972; J. Inokun

1972; Udonyah 1972). In some Igbo comrnunities, "those people who were not wanted, such

as trouble makers, would be handed over to the Aro free of charge" (Mefo and fie 1972).

My Aro respondents, both in Aro-Chukwu and in central Igbo settlements, confirmed that

crirninals were sold away. Koelle's Polvnlotta sample &es us one such exarnple. Okon (or

John Thomas, as they called him in Sierra Leone) frorn the wamior community of Ohafia,

north-west of Aro-Chukwu, was sold at Bomy for adultery in about 1820. He was married

to two wives and had a ten year-old child (Koelle 1963: 8).13 Another way that the Aro

mediated the disposal of incrirninated persons fiom the cornrnunities was through the judicial

role of their oracle. While none of the victims was ever sighted in the region over the

centuries, Baikie recorded in 1854 that one informant had alone Iocated up to twenty

Ibiniuk~abivictims in Cuba. Another had bumped into several in Sierra Leone (Baikie 1856:

3 13). This role seems to have been unique in the Biafian case. However, the earlier emphasis

on the oracle as & major direct source of captives has given way to perspectives that

'koelle does no( ura the tcnuOhafïan. Insicad, he iises "hibofia", which hc dcscribcs to bc laated south of Ebinba [], east of Bende, north of Otutu ptutuj. The only thing inaccurate with this description regarding Ohafia is that it is south-east of Abiriba, instead of south. But this is as accurate as any description can go. Another indication that Ohafia \vas intended is the fact that Okon spoke a language "simiIar to that of Aro." The term "Mbofia", used by Koelle, creates problerns. It is not specific to any particular locaie or community. "Mbofia" - meaning "bush country" - was pronounced in ways that varied with dialecticai areas. The variant "Mbofia" was used by the Cross River Igbo, exciusive of Aro-Chukwy and by northern Igbo, most of the Nri-Awka area, and the Niger nverine and West Niger cornmunities. The Isuama area and southern Igboland pronounced it "Mbohia". The Aro and the Awka pronounced it "Mbovian. The Aro used it to refer to the uncouth, badly behaved. In some contexts, they used it as a generic reference for the non-Aro, especially the people in the present Imo State (mostiy isuama and southern Igboland). The Aro do not appear to have used it specincally for the Ohana, who were one of the most reliable allies of the Aro. Mbohia, as recorded by Baikie during 1854, lay "north or north- north-west of O'nizu",which in turn lay north-west of Ngwa, and close to Ogoni (see Baikie 1856: 309). Onini lay no&-west of Ngwa (p. 308), it would not be close to Ogoni, which lies south of Ngwa. "Onini* is a term Koelle used to refer to yet another Igbo group in Sierra Leone. It is aWya community, West of Ngwa. - 137- allocate a minor role to it (Mgbo 1980: 86; 1981 b: 267; Dike and Ekejiuba 1990; Ijoma

1986a). The oracle nevertheless played an important role in dealing with dissidence and crirninaiity. Faced with the option of owning up to a crime and being sent to be "eaten" overseas or denying and, therefore, risking being "eaten" by the oracle, tha state of an accused or guilty person must have been one of extreme fear.

The difference between crirninality and dissidence was a thin line. Both ofken concemed men of prime age and ofien resulted in sale into the Atlantic market. However, the procedures for both offenses differed. Unlike dissidents, who were sold surnrnarily, incriminated persons were disposed of after the completion of some form of legal procedure performed by competent authorities. Criminality included, not only thefi and murder, but also witchcraft and adultery (see Akpabio 1936: 47). Enforcement was not always comprehensive or fair, especially when a suspect was an outsider. For instance, on 9 August 1786, Old

Calabar chiefs put on board a slaver one "gentleman" from neigbounng Bakasi, on the apparently baseless siispicion that he had killed their der, Duke Ephraim (Duke 1956: 47,

98).

The procedure for dissidence was different. Once dissidence had been noticed in a person, people deemed competent to take such sumrnary measures sold hirn immediately.

Such an action did not require elaborate consultations or ceremonies (see eg, Igwilo 1996a).

"The Aro buyer came as a casuai visitor to the house of the seller and both of them began to negotiate for the Aro's walking stick as if it was the article to be sold. When the price was settled, the person to be sold was called in and suddenly grabbed" (0.Okoroafor 1972). Such antics were also employed in the open market (Igwilo 1996a; Okoli 1996). Often, Mctims of -138-

such sale were known dissidents in their communities. Captain John Adams, who carried

captives from the Bight of Biafra between 1786 and 1800, noticed "a class of Heebos

[whom] masters of slave-ships have always had a strong aversion to purchase." These

captives, according to Adams, had enjoyed an "exalted rank ... in their own country" (Adams

1832: 4 1; Crow 1830 199). These were ozo men, holders of the highest social rank in the

Nri-Awka area. They were sold although, according to Adams, supercargoes would rather

not buy them because of the danger they posed. This category of captives were the victims of

what has been described as the Aro power of "removing any one opposing or 'even desirous

of opposing' [Aro] authority (see Steel 1908: 7). The summary nature of dealing with

dissidence suggests that dissidents would have fomed a large part of exported captives.

Summary sale into the Atlantic was also common with a serving slave whose master no longer wanted. Many of these re-sales had been enslaved intemally at a more amenable age. With a history of being rejected, these captives had little chance of being retained in the region during the Atlantic slave trade era. Although insisting that such sale was not sumrnary, the 18" century British commentator on Afnca. John Hippisley (1764: 1 1-12), reponed that slaves were sold "for very great crimes". It is evident from the diary entries of the prominent late 18' century Old Calabar merchant, Antera Duke (1956: 43, 75, 94), that one slave named Toother was specifically earmarked for exportation. He was shipped on the

Combesboch, which sailed frorn Old Calabar on 8 February 1786. My Aro respondents were unanimous in testifying that re-sale was the most common punishrnent for slaves. In about,

1805, an Igbo boy, Adibe (or George Rose, as he later becarne known in Sierra Leone) was kidnapped and sold. He lived with an Aro-Chuh master and spoke the Aro didect. His -139- master sold hirn in 1826 to Atlantic slavery. The British navy intercepted the Pomguese ship that was conveying hirn to the New World. Freed from captivity, Adibe told his story as one of the many Igbo in lgh century Sierra Leone (Koelle 1963: 8). It is instructive that his master sold hirn at this age and to the Pomiguese at Bomy. There must have been reasons for re-sale to the Atlantic. The practice of re-selling insubordinate slaves to the Atlantic extended far into the hinterland. Similar to Adibe's fate was Macaulay's. Macaulay had been boni in Mamagi (Nufi) just south of the Niger-Benue confluence where, as a boy, he was

"stolen by the Filatahs." His kidnappers sold hirn to a mallam at Egga, who sold hirn again to a Buddu woman. Her husband insisted at a point that Macaulay must be sold off. She sold hirn to the king of Abo. This king soon re-sold Macaulay to King Pepple of Bonny who then sold Macaulay to Spanish slavers, fiom whom he was rescued der the interception of the illegal cargo (Allen and Thomson l848b: 1 18). In Bonny, this category was sold into New

World slavery, even if they were hardworking (Hargreaves 1987: 10 1, 108).

Walter Rodney sees legal and religious matters as the "greatest weapon in the hands of the Mcan ruling class" (Rodney 1967: 10). Eighteenth century European observers reported about some people getting sold following conviction on tmmped up charges (see e.g., Blake 186 1: 1 13, 1 14- 15, 1 18). If this is the case in many other parts of Afnca, the

BiaFran evidence suggests fùrther that this category was quite significant. Social scientists have begun to realize that so-called Igbo egalitanan noms ofien lent themselves to abuse

(Anikpo 1985: 35-38; P.C.Dike 1986; Ahajioku Lecture 1986: iii). Sometimes, people got sold simply by crossing the path of powerfùl men, sometimes over cornpetition for women

(Maduadichie 1996; J.G. Okoro 1996). The sale of people by "great men, who hated them" - -140-

or feared them - had been known widely among 19' century OId Calabar people (see Waddeli

1970: 429). Arnong the Efik Ibibio, the Aro and Cross River Igboland, powerful men were

invariably Ek~ernembers. " A specialized political class that exacted tribute and labour found

the resources and time to engage in "political manipulation" (Anikpo 1985: 35-38). The key

point here is that, whether sold on tnimped or real charges, people were not always disposed

of because of their market value. Many were disposed of for reasons relating to conceptions

of the political and social order.

Means of Slaving 3: Economic Necessity

Another means by which captives were procured was economic necessity. John Barbot

reports that only "a very few [are] sold to us by their own kindred, or parents" (John Barbot

1732: 352). For his pari, Captain Snelgrave reports that the people sold their own only in

times of extreme need (Snelgrave 1730: 505; 1734: 1 59). This information accords with what

we know about the Biafran hinterland of the period @ike and Ekejiuba 1990: 249, 255;

Isichei 1976: 46-47). Even in this case, the fate of the intended victim was rarely discussed

with him or her. Often, he or she did not know, but would unsuspectingly follow the would

be seller to the market (Nwokoye-Ernesuo 1996). One of my respondents told me how his

father, an Aro-Chukwu free person, had been used by his elder brother (ie., respondent's

uncle) ostensibly to pay for losing a gamble to a trader fiom Aro-nde-Imogu. The

1%embership did not connitute immunity to sale. An Ehe member could be seized and sold in a foreign cornmunity, the people of which may not know or care about his Ehstatus. Also, an Ehmember could be sold officially as punishment for serious malfiasance. In any case, seizing a person for sale was steding, and thieves did not discriminate, except ifthey could forese severe tepercussions (Igwe 1996; Kanu Igbo 1996; C. Okoli 1996). -141- respondent's uncle promised to retum on the next fair (24 days' time) to redeem the respondent's father, but never did until he died. This was at the Bende market in about the

1870s (J.O. Okoro 1996). Carnouflaging the unpopular sale of relatives and wards as temporary means of solving a financial emergency seems to have been common. At about the same time when the respondent's father changed hands, Aro-nde-hogu merchant Igwegbe

Odum sold to one Oji his apprentices, some porters and a relative in the Bende market afler he had lost his wares to an overtlown river. Igwegbe told them:

This man, named Mazi Oji, is kind to me because of the disaster that has hit me on this trip. He has therefore told me that it is a shame that 1 have tost al1 my wares, and for me and al1 my porters to go back to our land empty-handed. Because of this, he has suggested that 1 and some of my porters retum home today so that this my relative and some of my other porters [go with him] for three days to enable him to to give you things to carry back to me, to which 1 would hang on to survive (quoted by Nwana 1950: 7).15

Aithough pawnship proper was an important subset of those whose enslavement resulted fiom economic need, it appears to have been a relatively recent development. As a source of captives, pawnship was marginal before the 19' century. Support for this position is found in the fact that scholars who have done research among the Igbo insist that pawnship was not slavery (see Ekechi 1994: 86-89; I.R. Okeke 1986: 95; Uchendu 1977: 126). Even in the Niger delta, where the distinction between the pawn and slave was blurred, "it appears that amers of pawns exercised more caution in their treatment than they did with slaves"

(Alagoa and Okorobia 1994: 72). As a result, contrary to Geggusyssuggestion, pawnship

'%le text was translatai by the present writer. - 142- was not directly an important element in high child ratios in Biafian captive exports (Geggus

1989: 40). When it developed, pawnship was primarily a means of rectuiting persons of the household rather than market persons. It was a regular means by which Aro traders recovered debt owed them by other Aro traders in other settlements. The scenes were mainly the fairs (J.O. Okoro 1996). Indirectly, however, the presence of a large pool of pawns fiorn which intemal child slavery drew released kidnap victims especially for the export market.

According to Susan Hargreaves, Bomy chiefs did not routinely sel1 their slaves because they provided labour and rnilitary service. However, they sold their slaves sometimes to liquidate debts. To whom they sold them is unclear from Hargreaves's account. She writes, however, that "most of the slaves who became heads of houses had been slaves of a previous head" (Hargreaves 1987: 104, 1 14-1 5), we can assume that slaves re-sold out of economic necessity were not exported. Apart fiom pawns and children sold by their relatives, there were other ways by which intemal slavery drew its recruits. One of such ways involved children, whose biological fathers were different fiom their social fathers, who were oflen sold by the latter (J.G.C. Allen nad.: 148-49).

Conclusions

This chapter has drawn attention to the determinants of the structure of Atlantic exports fiom the Bight of Biafra fiom c. 1750-c. 1890. In particular, it has focused attention on the marginality of the female-onented Saharan slave market and, more importantly, of the institution of female slavery in the region. These twlli points about female captives have been neglected in the Biafian Atlantic literature. Further, attention has been brought on mode of -143- enslavement. The element of the exiles, for instance, does not lend itself to cost analysis.

Neither foreign buyers nor indigenous buyers would have to outbid each other for this category of captives. The recognition of this exile element and role of persons of the household in lineage expansion (especially among the Aro) transcends conceptions of people merely as commodities or even labour units. Outbidding was not the cnicial element in whether dangerous war captives, kidnap victirns who could find their way back home, rebellious slaves, incriminated persons, or rivals would be sold into the Atlantic. Intemal slave users did not compete for these categories of captives because they were deemed as undesirable and were hardly available on the local market. Sirnilarly, the decision of the Cross

River Igbo wamor to slay his victim, rather than make money off his sale, has no basis in economics. A certain dimension of New World slavery shows similar insensitivity to rational economics. The gender-insensitive use of slave labour negates a key rationale for the male bias of Euro-American demand for Afican captives. The challenge posed to both Afncanists and, especially, Americanists is: If men and women did similar tasks, why did buyers demand for more men and pay significantly higher prices for them at Afncan ports? If this requisite econornic basis has been found to be baseless, the realm of psycho-anaiysis may shed some light on the question. It may have to do with the male dominant perceptions of the age - a mentality that did not place women at par with men.

1 share Geggus's general position that "it is difficult to disentangie the forces of supply and demand in shaping the composition of slave cargoes" (Geggus 1989: 40).

However, contrary to his implication, neither pawnship nor kidnapping explains the problem.

To start with, none of these was peculiar to the Biafian hiterland. As akeady said, kidnap - 144- victims are over-represented in expon data because they did not generally sel1 in the local market. As suggested too, pawns were preferred as persons of the household. The reason for the higher girl ratio, as this chapter has suggested, is the marglliality of fernale slavery.

Geggus has given more weight to kidnapping than it deserves because his analysis is based on export samples, where kidnap victims are over-represented. He also speculates that the region may have exported in less sex-specific regularity "by virtue of being so weli supplied"

(Geggus 1989: 38). Compared to other regions, this region does not seern to have been uniquely heavy in slave holding during the slave trade - the Aro, coastal and Niger nvenne

States notwithstanding. It was not being well supplied per se that generated the sex composition of exports. It was selection. This selection was part of everyday reality.

In spite of the foregoing, this chapter has not atîempted to deny the importance of

New World demand. New World demand was the root of the Atlantic slave trade. Further, although specialists differ on supply issues, they agree that such major wars and governmental regulations periodically increased the cost of merchant shipping, which afEected the volumes as well as the sex and age configuration of the trade (Eltis 1986: 268; Eltis and

Engerman 1992: 253; 1993: 3 12,3 14-1 5,317; Eltis and Richardson 1995b; Galenson 1986:

102, 103, 110- 14; Inikori 1992a: 13 1-33). These conditions generally applied to al1 regions, including the Bight of Biafra. Nevertheless, Biafra's sex ratios remained rernarkably consistent throughout. The character of indigenous wars and the emphasis on males - sons were valued more than daughters as heirs in the predominantly patnlineal and patrilocal societies, and the fact that male slaves were used more than female ones - must figure in any assessment of the sex and age composition of the Biafian Atlantic slave trade. Both the Aro -145- and coastal States acquired many women, but seldom as slaves. Information about coastal slavery invariably raises the spectre of the "canoeboys". Thus, unlike findings in some other societies, it was not the female-oriented Saharan market and, especially, extensive female- biased indigenous slave systems that dictated the sex composition of export captives, and informed the Biafian composition. Rather, it was the marginality of these instructions, and the character of warfare, which wasted men's lives and produced considerable numbers of women and children. Table 4.3. Age Composition, l821-22,1825-39 Y ear No. N0.Ema.n- Adults % Adults Child'n % Captured cipated Ernanc' ted Emanc'ted Emanc'ted Ernanc' kd

Totals

Source: Calculateci from Northnip (1978b: "Appendix Dn).The bracketed figures are the numbers of vessels involved. Table 4.4. Cliild Sex Ratios, 1821-22, 1825-39

Year No. Children Boys % Boys Girls % Girls Captureci Emanc'ted Emanc'ted Ernanc'ted Emanc' ted E-c' ted

267 (3) Totals 2 7334 (95)

Source: Calculated from Northmp (1978b:"Appendk D"). The bracketed figures are the numbers of vessels involved. CHAPTER 5 CULTURE FORMATION IN THE TRADING FRONTIER, C. 1750 TO C. 1860

This chapter examines the cultural context of Aro expansion. 1 argue that the diasporic dimension of the Aro provides the key to making sense of this question and the expansion of the Biafian Atlantic trade. To begin with, trade diasporas (such as the Aro) are sites of cultural exchange (A Cohen 197 1; Curtin 1975: 59- 152; 1984). Of necessity, new cultural forms within a diasporic system refiect cultural materials fiom both the metropole and specific host societies. The Aro diaspora, scattered throughout the region, reflects these localized forms. Within Igboland, where most of the settlements were located, several scholars have viewed the Aro commercial system as the successor of the Nri cultural hegemony (see Afigbo 199 1c: 1-2; Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 16 1-90; Ekejiuba 1991 ; Ijorna and Njoku 1991). This view places the Aro cultural question in the broader context of Igbo cultural evolution. The establishment of Aro diaspora settlements in central Igboland fiom the mid-18' century marked the first intensive encounter of the Aro and the Nri "culture area".

The terrain of concem here is the upper Imo River region. Nevertheless, the relationship involving Aro and Nri cultures was not simply one in which Aro culture replaced the Nri one.

The process involved the active interaction of Nri and Aro cultural forms on the one hand and between these and cultural material fiom other groups. The massive incorporation of outsiders had implications for culture formation in a manner perhaps more intense in nature or, at least, different fforn that expenenced by other trade diasporas. Drawing much empirical materid fiom nde-hogu, the largest Aro settlement, this chapter exanunes the development of a fiontier culture, fiom c. 1750 to c. 1890. Like nde-hogu, other Aro fiontier -149-

communities incorporated large numbers of non-Aro groups. Nevertheless, as Bentor has

observed, the ability to incorporate outsiders was "the major characteristic of as

an Aro settlement" (Bentor 1994: 120). Thus, this settlement offers us an opportunity of

studying the Aro fiontier in its elaborate expression.

The Aro diaspora settlernents present a challenge for contemporary south-eastem

Nigenan cultural studies. For example, one cannot place these settlements within the

influential culture-area taxonomy into which Daryll Forde and G.I.Jones (1950) have

categorized the societies of the region. Regarding the Igbo, Forde and Jones identiQ five

categories: northern or Onitsha, southem or Owem, western, eastem or Cross River and

nonh-eastern. While this spatial fiarnework has advanced regional cultural studies, it is

singularly inadequate for thinking the Aro cultural expenence. To start with, Forde and Jones

restnct their consideration of Aro settlements to Igboland, whereas many Aro settlements

existed and still exist in non-Igbo areas, such as Idorna, Igala and Ibibio. Inokun in Ibibioland

is one of the largest Aro settlements. Secondly, within Igboland, the authors locate the "Aro"

in the eastern or Cross River group where the Aro metropole of Aro-Chukwu is located, and

place Aro diaspora settlernents in the cultural categories of their respective neighbourhoods.

By not applying the Aro cultural category to these Aro settlements, this approach collapses

Aro (a group) with Aro-Chukwu (a place). Also, it ignores the settlements in non-Igbo areas and impiies that al1 Aro settlements lacked cultural personalities. In short, the fiarnework ignores the distinctiveness of the Aro.

Eli Bentor (1994) recognizes clearly the distinction between the terms " Aro-Chukwu" and "Aro".He locates Aro as an identity, primarily a way by which groups of people - 150- represent(ed) themselves, rather than a cultural reference per se. This point is partiaiiy valid.

One might refhme it though to read that "Aro" is primarily an identity and secondarily a

cultural reference. Overlooking the cultural dimension of Aro-ness, Bentor goes on to argue

that the cultural and linguistic forms of Aro settlements are similar to the ones of their

immediate neighbours. In other words, the Aro diaspora settlements cannot be located within

an Aro cultural fiame. Although Bentor does not make it explicit, his approach is similar to

that of Forde and Jones, who gloss over the cultural dimension of Aro-ness.

Bentor's focus on masquerading, which has become the most spectacuIar aspect of

the Aro annual ïke-ii festival that he studied, influences his general concIusions (see Nwabueze

1984 for masquerading in Igboland). Deviations from Aro-Chukwu practices are particularly

striking regarding this festival (see K. Ike 1972; C. Okafor 1986: 127-28; N. Okoli 1972). On

this specific practice, Bentor (1994: 2 1 1) mentions, correctly in my view, "a complex mixture of Aro, local, and imovative cultural practices." There is a problem, therefore, to conflate

Am diaspora cultures and those of their imrnediate neighbourhood, or define Aro-ness solely in identity tems, as Bentor has done. Further, close similadies in masquerading between the

Aro dimpora settlements and their neighbours are unrepresentative of diaspora culhird formation, especially in the nde-Izuogu case. In faimess to Bentor (1994: see esp. 208-13), however, his work is histoncal as evidenced in his analysis of the evolution of Aro diaspora practices to the present. Sorely needed still is a heworkthat accounts for the complexities observed in the empirical matenai and which also accounts for the major cultural influence frorn Nri-Awka outside nde-hogu's immediate locality. Although the irnrnediate cultural environment has made sorne impact, nde-Izuogu culture developed more out of the -15 1-

interaction of dominant Aro ethos and the cultural input of persons who came into the society

through slavery and voluntary immigration. Most of these immigrants came from the Nri-

Awka region. While resembling Aro ways in some critical respects, nde-hogu cultural formation reflected this orientation.

By examining cultural exchange involving the Aro and other Igbo groups, one is not attempting to overplay what might appear to the 20" century observer to be a relationship merely involving one Igbo sub-group and others. This is not the case. Throughout the penod covered in this chapter, the Aro as a group did not identify themselves with any particular ethnic group in the region. They settled arnong al1 groups, and consciously promoted a distinct identity and cultural personality. Following Abner Cohen (1 969, 197 l), Curtin (1 975,

1984), and Janet Landa (1 994) 1 have noted in Chapter 1 that this strategy was characteristic of trade diasporas. Diasporas begin and take shape in fiontier situations.

The Frontier Context

For some decades, the term "fiontier" has been used to charactenze certain African societies.

Until very recently, however, it has been used in comection with the interface zones between indigenous Afncan groups and intmding Europeans, especially in South Afncan studies (e.g.,

Lamar and Thornpson 198 1; Neumark 1957). Only a few have employed the concept in characterizhg relationships among Afncan groups (e-g., Kopytoff 1987a; De Gregori 1969;

V.B. Thompson 1995). Others have identified the genus, "slaving tiontier", refemng to the imermost reaches of Atlantic slaving operations (Lovejoy and Richardson 1997: 3; Miller

1988: 148-53). Wendy James (1988:) uses the same concept to describe relationships -152- involving slave-using and slave supplying societies in the Upper Nie region. None, Kopytoff excepted, however, conceptualizes the fiontier. Among the many insights that Igor Kopytoff

(198%: 12-13) brings to the subject is the idea that fiontiersmen "came to the fkontier not with a sociological and political tabula rasa, to be shaped by its forests and plains, but with a mental model of what constitutes a good society." Other contributors to the frontier theory agree (e.g., De Gregon 1969; Neurnark 1957: 4; Thompson 1995). But Kopytoff (l987b: 13,

17- 18) goes further to argue that the reasons for fiontier formation in Afnca are "cultural and sociological." In his model, the frontier continually shifted outward as the more established sections of society became "compted."

As a result, the formation of new social groups as offshoots of old ones has been a constant theme in the histories of Afncan societies - histones filled with the movement of the disgruntled, the victirnized, the exiled, the refugees, the losers in intemecine mruggies, the adventurers, and the ambi tious. Several cultural principles and social mechanisms are and were behind the centrifuga1 forces, many of them being themselves products of frontier conditions or at least consonant with them (Kopytoff l387b: 17- 1 8).

Kopytoff s formulation captures the important fact that frontiers people corne to the frontier with their cultural baggage fiom the metropole. But problems arise from the formulation, not simply that the Aro empincal matenal deviates fiom Kopytoff s model. The problem is, in the first instance, a theoretical one. First, Kopytoff gives the impression that frontiers people engrossed themselves in the search for rnetropolitan cultural orthodoxy and not rnuch else. Second, the projection of the "mental model" of the metropoütan immigrant obscures the fact that non-metropolitan immigrants were not a tabula rasa and, therefore, -153- were also carriers of cultures. Third, Kopytoff s model marginalizes such structural questions as the environrnent and economic change. Kopytoff relies theoretically on Marc Bloch's

(1961: 248) idea that "the manorial regime was destined to reach a state of perfection only in the countnes where it had been imported bag and baggage."By applying this statement to support his idea of a "mental model" of fiontier cultures, Kopytoff is actually operating at a different level of abstraction from Bloch. While people set out to fonn a manorial or any other sociologically comparable society, hardly anyone sets out to form a fiontier society.

Frontier cultures anse out OC, and are, above all, shaped by an encounter with a new environrnent, with people of different background and with macro-economic change. Even when frontier pioneers loved adventures, contributes Neurnark (1957: 5), "they kept a very sharp eye on the pecuniary side of their 'romantic' exploits." Consequently, Hopkins

(1973:20)notes that West Afîican traditions "emphasize the importance of mobility as a means of escaping aiien control or of acquiring new wealth in the form of land, gold or salt."

The recognition of the instrumental dimensions of fiontier formation marks Hopkins' forrnulation from Kopytoff s emphasis on the mental model. Kopytoff s essentialist model, of metropolitan culture mongers immune fiorn instrumentai and structural concerns, is inadequate for understanding the Aro fiontier.

Arnong the Aro of the upper Imo River, it was not just a cornmitment to culture, or for that matter the lack of it, that detemiined the evolution of culture. The determinants were also rooted in historical processes, not least of which were changes related to the Atlantic slave trade and its decline. The outward growth of the fiontier was a product of people's quest for living space, personal and group freedom, and econornic oppominities, principdy - 154- trade. It was not just to project an Aro metropolitan model. The forces that conditioned the

Am fkontier culture included the new environment, the cultural packages which both immigrants fiom the metropole and those of other background brought. The Aro did not meet a terra incosmita in the diaspora, upon which to impress their "mental model". The non- metropolitan provenance of many cultural practices in the Aro settlements is so salient that

Bentor (1994: 1 18-26) has gone as fiir as declaring the practices to be preponderant.

In companng nde-Izuogu with Aro-Chukwu, however, proper distinction must be made between the historical Aro-Chukwu fiom which the founders of the settlements came and the contemporary Aro-Chukwu with which today's ethnographer can compare the settlements. The Aro-Chukwu state was just more than 100 years old when the major settlements were founded in the mid- 18' century. Aro-Chukwu institutions continued to evolve thereafter. In the fiontier environment, some Aro-Chukwu customs became anachronistic and gave way to different ways of doing things. To demonstrate the above contentions, it is necessary to first attempt to reconstruct the ecology of the upper Irno region

- the site of the largest Aro diaspora settlement - and pre-existing groups' social organkations. This procedure is also a sine oua non to understanding in the next chapter how the agriculturally inexperienced Aro coped with the stnictural challenges that imposed agriculture on their political economy fiom the late 19' century.

Pre-Existing Societies: Ecology, Social Organuations, and Relationships

The upper Imo River valley had been settled by four distinct sets of groups before the 18' century. To the east, north-east and south-east were the Otanchara and Otanzu groups, both of which straddled the upper Imo. Umuobom was located to the south of the area that nde-

Iimogu settled initially - 30 kilometres West of the Imo. Findly, the "Isu" communities were

located to the west through the north. Unfortunately, data are scantiest on the older

communities of Isuokpu, Uni, Osina, and Umuobom. However, the colonial intelligence

reports of the 1930s and the traditions in the theses dealing with some of these communities

are helpful in understanding their early history.' One way of reconstructing the early history

of these t auto ch thon ou^"^ groups is to relate the available traditions to studies of

consanguinous groups, and to certain generalizations that have been made about this era in

the general context of Igbo history.

The landscape and 20' century systems of social organization might produce usefûl

guidelines if applied with due caution. The landscape is best captured in the observation made

in 1935 by the British administrator, C.J. Mayne, whose jurisdiction included the area. In

spite of more intensive exploitation of the environment between the 1890s and 1935, Mayne's

observation helps us in Msualizing the region.

The country is of a broken character throughout and imposing landscapes are general. It would not be out of place, perhaps, to

'~heterm "Isu" is used here for want of a better name. It is generic tern with derogatory connotations, with which the Aro referred to their neighbours in the Upper Imo River region. A colonial anthropologid oficer suggestcd in 1927 that this derogatory term "may have aquired some such meaning as 'peasar~t'."See NU 611927A-CSE 1/12/1:Anthropological Officer, , to District O&cer, Okigwe, 23 Febniary 1927. Theses dealing with "Isu"groups indude Alaka 1984; M.M. Anaedobe 1977; S.O. Eke 1978; F.N.Egbo 1987; P.N. Ogbuozobe 1986; U.E. Ohaegbu 1991; S.C. Okoli 1977; Onyenkpa 1981; Onyiuka 1983; S.I. Uche 1988; C.O. Udeagha 1978; N.N. Udeagha 1980; A.E. Udueze 1982; C.S. Umeh 1984; P.N. Uwmmike 1987.

'niis term refers to the groups in the Igbo hdandwho have lived so loag in their area that thcir traditions do not derive their origins far fiom their present abode (see J.O. Ijoma 1986~:11; lfemesia I98O:S 1; Isichei 1976: 67; G.I. Jones 1963; Ohadike 1994:12; Oriji 1994). The traditions from these groups that 1 have seen show the same trend (e.g., Alaka 1984; Ipere 1983; Ihimnaegbu 1986; Uwaniniike 1987). The 1930s intelligence report dealing with the "Nkaiu"clan (inciuding Akpuni, OMO-Ukwu,Osina, Uzii. Uda)reported that "the Nidu claims to have been where it is now since the beginning of the" (Heslop l936?: 1 1). mention that one view particularly impressed the writer by its grandeur, and brought to mind a certain landscape in Scotland, which was represented by Millais in his fmous masterpiece "Over the hills and far away". A number of smali rivers, tributaries of the Imo river, joumey in a southedy direction through the Ndiniogu country and add to the beauty of the scenery. The water supply for Ndimogu is derived from these sources but numerous springs are available and the supply of water is plentifil (Mayne 1935:3).

Much of the " Sylvan wealth throughout the area and . . . the number of iroko trees"

survived to impress Mayne (1935: 3). Since much of the area was inhabited by Isuokpu of the

"Isu" group, its people were the custodians of this wealth. The many raphia palm trees

(raphia vinifera) in the area provided them with plenty of wine (as also did oil palm) and the

bamboo thatch with which they made their roof The tradition of tapping palm wine is still

strong in Isuokpu. The rich vegetation also contained semi-domesticated edible plants as

castor oil beans (ricinus communis), breadfniit ([artocarpus?] Treculia afncana), ube

(dacrvoides edulis), starapple (ch~ysophvlurnalbidum), uchakiri (vitex doniana) and oil bean

(penthacclettara macroohvlla). There were also edible wild vegetables, hits and spices, such

as utumkparn (~terocamousmuldbraedi), uziza (piper mineense), utazi (goniqronema), okazi

(petum), utu. mkpodu, oil palm (elais mineensis), etc.'

Animal husbandry has considerable antiquity in the Igbo heartland. According to

Equiano's (1995 :3 6) mid- 18' century account about Isieke, some sixty kilometres south-west

of nde-Iniogu, the "marner of living is entirely plain . . . bullocks, goats, and poultry supply

the greatest part of their food. These constitute likewise the principal wealth of the country,

3These botanical names are taken from A.O. Anya (1982), Basden (19 12) and B.N. Okigbo (1980). The Igbo and botanicai terms are presented above where the English translation of any plant is unknown. and the chief articles of commerce." They lived in relative abundance of agricultural product

and poultry (Equiano 1995: 35). Share-raising of domestic anirnals, such as goats, dogs,

chicken and ducks, seems to have become a part of their social organization.' Although this

practice has been declared cornmon (see S.U.Uche 1988:18), there is no conclusive evidence

regarding when it becarne an important part of social organization in the area. With respect to

labour organization, a division of effort by family has been generalized for the Igbo (see

P.N.C. Okigbo 1986: 10). Possibly, the groups practised domestic slavery,' with social but an

absence of occupational differentiation. The tendency, of Isuokpu people in particular, which

survived into the 206 century, of keeping numerous dogs with which they hunted game may

have already started at this time. British colonial officers found that "the ancient Ibo game

laws still count[ed] for something" among the pre-existing groups (see Heslop 1936?: 8).

One striking feature of the social organization of the pre-nde-Izuogu upper Imo River

communities rnight have been the presence of certain specialists who produced for the

market. One such group comprised the commercial butchers (oebueri~hi),which literally

translates as "he that kills but does not consume." Another group of specialists with

*~hareraising was a form of accumulation. The operating principle was to give a fernale baby animai to another person to keep in custody so that the owner and the keeper shared the expected offspring that the animal wouid begin to bear upon maturity. The offqring were shared equally. if the number of any set was odd, the person who had the smaller share would make it up during the sharing of the next set of siblings. It was used as a way of advancing the inter- of the wealthy who othenvise would have too many animals to cater for as much as to forge and promote social ties. Sometimes, the animals were given to very young cluldren, even babies, who could not themselves cater for the animais. The social service aspect was no les important. The haves gave to the have-nots while transfemng al1 of the labour demands.

'~nAkokwa scholar suggests that slavery existeci among the people before the Atlantic slave trade (see S.U. Uche 1988: 29). But this is unlikely, given that the tradition of origin of this socieîy accepted by this and other scholars indicate that Akokwa %as fomded between the early and mid-18" century, long after the Atlantic slave mde had begun. This is likely an indication that slaving for the Atlantic market began effectiveiy in Akokwa after the arrivai of nde-hogu. considerable antiquity in the area compnsed winetappers (ote mmi).The winetappers and

butchers would likely have combined these activities with some farming. The existence of

winetappers provides a framework for pre-colonial wage labour. The existence of a group of

wine owners, who were not tappers, was a condition for the employment of the

professionals.' Tappers received their payrnent in kind. The tapper solely took the produce

until such a tirne that the wine had started to flow well. This time was usually at his

discretion. The owner of the palm wine tree received the produce in two days out of the four-

day s(Eke and Ove), while the tapper took the wine on the other two (Awho and Mcwo).

If wine owners could afford to consume their wine and use it to entertain visitors and their

workers, the tapper could not afford to consume the product of most of his labour time. In

any case, he would have to dispose of the surplus. There is strong evidence that this was the

case. John Barbot (1732: 461) reponed as early as the 1680s that palm wine, of which there

was a "great plenty," fonned one of the comrnodities that the Igbo supplied the coastal

peoples. This rneans that by 1866, when W.E.Carew of the Church Missionary Society

(C.M.S) reported the abundance of palm wine in a lower Imo River market (cited in Isichei

1976: 66), the comrnercialization of palm wine was already cenhiries old.*

%tarting at dawn, the tapper went round the trees routinely three times in a day. Each time, he opened up more stem for wine. During the dawn and dusk visits, he opened up more fresh stem and took away the wine that had collected in the calabash. This professional group had been wellestablished among the pcople ihat later became Aro-Chukwu. The Ujari limage-group is said to have descended hmprofessional winetappers (see Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 60). For a contemporary description of palm wine, see Equiano (1995: 37).

'~histerm has often been awkwardfy ~anslatedas "native week". The two uni& a and week, are incommensurate. The four days nins in this manner: Eke, ûye, Awho and Wo.Baikie (1856: 3 16) records this inco~ectlyas Eke, Oye, Nkwo and Awho.

'writing abut Akokwa before the advent of nde-Imogu, Akokwa rholar, S.U.Uche (1988: 2.7). tells us that Akokwa had practised farming and hunting; that they also did some blacksmithry and weaving; and tint Akokwa Being part of the Igbo heartland, these pre-existing groups had long practised settled

agriculture. The people cultivated cowpea (viana unauiculata), benniseed, potatoes, "Indian

corn" and white yam9 Yam was the king of crops. By the 1770s, the practice of maintainhg

small gardens around the house - suggested to have been camed over from Igboland - was

already well-established arnong the mainly Igbo slave populations of in todayts

United States (Chambers 1996: 357, 366-67). Up until the 18& century, pressure on land

does not seem to have been intense. "When there was still pnmevai forest, it was customary

that any man farming on the verge of the forest had the nght to reclaim part of the forest

bordering on his fm"(Heslop 1936?: 9). This picture of abundance had, however, begun to

change by the late 17" century with the amval of intrusive elements in the upper Imo.

The ecology of the upper Imo River valley seems to have been a "pull" of a

palimpsest of immigrants. Traditions from Umuduru, Umunze, and Akokwa show that they

had recently rnigrated into the region - the first from the Nri-Awka region and the last two

from the Cross River. These groups engaged in occupations similar to those of the pre-

existing groups. In addition, the newcomers seem to have brought new occupations. For

instance, Akokwa is said to have corne with blacksmithry skills (SU.Uche 1988: 2, 7).

Umunze on the nonh of Isuokpu seems to have established itself as the dominant power in

the north of the region, probably through the help of Ohafla and ~ro-Chukwu.~O began to trade afier the amival of nde-Izuogu.

'The use of only this species of yam for new yam festivals and other rinials in lgboland underline its antiquity (see O.N.Njoku 1991: 117).

1°~lthoughMaduagwu put the date of Umunze's advent in the region at 2000 yean earlier than the 1960s when he wrote, the daim of Umunze traditions, which Maduagwu accepts, that the group descended from 0M1a neutralizes the claim. Ohafia itself was still king established in the 16~centuq (see Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: ch. - 160- Settiement and Lineage-Group Formation

Izuogu settled on the elevation in the contested zone, interfacing Umuobom, Uzii and

Isuopku, and Akokwa. Dike and Ekejiuba attribute hogu's intervention in the area to a

conflict between "Isu" group and Ora. According to them, the Isu were moving towards the

Imo River valley fiom the Awka-Orlu upland. The "Isu" people asked Izuogu to intervene in

their favour, an opportunity that Izuogu exploited @ike and Ekejiuba 1990: 177). Ora

several kilometres east of the Irno and about 40 from the place that Izuogu settled initially in

the West Imo area. Akokwa traditions, however, profess the cordial relations that the

cornmunity had with nde-Izuogu (e.g. F.N. Egboh 1987: 3 1, 34-35; S.U.Uche 1988: 5, 21,

22, 32, 39-40).

The lineage organization was a hierarchy of hegemonies, based on entry statuses of

early settlers as charter group members, clients, ordinary immigrants, or slaves. As the

population increased, nde-Imogu people fanned out and more lineage-groups emerged. Each

free man needed a homestead, and each lineage-group a hamlet. A complex systern of

boundanes delineated the temitories of the nde-Izuogu lineage-groups around the area they

sited the Eke Obinikpa market. The precise dates when the different groups came are not

available. The traditions present their formation synchronically. Nevertheless, other issues

arising fiom the same traditions and the length of the relevant genealogies contradict the

synchronie picture. For instance, we leam that the mid-19~centuiy wamor-merchant, Okoro

2). Equally relevant in understanding Umunze's antiquity is the claim that Urnunze was able to subdue their enemies with the help of Ohafia and the Am (se B.O.J. Maduagwu n.d : 12- 15,25). B.O.J. Maduagwu of Umunze, the author of Bnef Histow of Umunze, informed me in February 1996 that Umunze pays annuai hornage to the Cross River warrior group of Ohaffia - an indication of Umunze's provenance. -161-

Udozuka, paid the fee required for the enfianchisement of his lineage-group, nde-Akunwanta.

Before this time this lineage-group had existed with another junior lineage-group, nde-llkwu, as one unit (E.N.Okoli 1977: 35). This incident underlines the fact that some other lineage- groups had already been enfianchised. We also leam from another source that the son of the founder of the nde-Nduvwuisi lineage-group, pioneered their present abode in the east Imo.

This time must have been the tum of the 208 century, given that my respondent, an over 100 year-old Nwambego Okoli, herself married Nduvwuisi's dependent's son. My respondent and her husband partook in the migration (G.N. Okoli 1996). One is therefore able to estimate the entry date of the lineage-group's prima1 ancestor, Nduvwuisi, at about 1840. The fact that the mle of precedence places nde-Nduvwuisi ahead of two other lineage-groups, makes it possible for one to place their respective founders' entry dates sometime later. When the rule of precedence was waived, as the shunting observed in steps 5 and 6 in Figure 5.1, this is explicit in the traditions and recognized by ail parties. Apparently, the reason was the abiiity of the fonnerly junior lineage-group (nde-Akaeme) to pay a certain levy ahead of the formerly senior one (nde-Ogbuonyeoma). Although the traditions do not Say so, this payrnent may have been the franchise fee. No other kind of levy would likely have been taken so seriously. The incident Ied to war, the cause of which no one has disputed. We also know that certain lineage-groups themselves were founded by sons of the pioneers, after a first- generation set of lineage-groups had been founded. Based on this kind of information and genealogies, therefore, we can establish a rough chronology, using seniority and patterns of settlement. Figure 5.1 represents a rough sequence of lineage-group proliferation and fission.

Using the sequence of entry into the frontier as a yardstick for fission is consistent - 162-

with the logic of Aûican societies. Kopytoffs (1987b:36, 52-61) observation that "being

first" was a critical index of lineage senionty applies in the ride-lzuogu case. Overall,

therefore, proximity to the original location suggests the sequence of the arriva1 of their

prima1 ancestors. The two lineage-groups originating from Izuogu's two sons, nde-Uche

(first) and nde-Awa (second), both of which are located away from the original settlement,

are exceptions to this nile. Still, even these abrasions help to periodize the settlement of other

lineage-groups. Disinhented Uche never succeeded Izuogu in the first area of settlement, at

the Eke region. As a result, nde-Uche was the first to move, after Izuogu's death in about the

1790s.l1 For some reason, nde-Awa moved into their present location early in the 1gh

century.

The following lineage-groups were established at the initial area of settlement, an

indication of the time of their respective progenitors' time and sequence of amval in nde-

Izuogu. The lineage-groups of nde-Iheme, originating from Izuogu's dependent and pioneer,

Iheme, occupy almost the entire place in due time. Nde-Iheme later nucleated into seven

lineage-groups. Nde-Amam, originating from another of Izuougu's dependent and pioneer,

Amazu,12 settled the region to the irnmediate north-west of the initial area. Nde-Ejezie was

located on Isuokpu land slightly rernoved from the initial area in the north-eastemly direction.

''This area is the site of the present site of National High Schwl and Ojike Mernorial hospitd. Thereafter, the lineage-groups relocated to the Umuoborn country (B. Asuzu 1992; D. Igwe 1992; E.U. Igwe 1992:4; E. Uche 1992; J.E. Uche 1996).

120netradition collected at nde-Axnazu relates that Amazu, f?om Oro in the , was Ir~ogu'strading partner (M.S. Egwe 1996). Other traditions hmacross the board relate that he was Iniogu's first direct dependent. The basis for this assertion is that, though Iheme may have mived before Amani, Iheme had corne in the fht instance as Imogu's wife's slave boy whom she gave to her husband. It is said that the name Iheme derived hm the prayer, "ihe emene di mn (let no harm befall my husband) (Kanu-Igbo 1996a). -163-

Nde-Adumoha, originating from Adumoha whom nieme had aven Izuogu for self-

redemption, settled initially by nde- Amam.Nde- Adumoha later moved eastwards into the

manhy Umudum country in a location removed from the initiai area.

At first sight, the sequence of fission, that is, the order by which the various groups

actually became lineage-groups, is unclear. The genealogies and the traditions, however,

permit a more accurate representation of the sequence of entry into nde-Izuogu society.13 The

migrations that accompanied lineage-group formation implied continua1 expansion and the

setting up of new fiontiers eastwards and northwards in the direction of Isuokpu.

Given this pattern, it becomes clear why the youngest lineage-groups whose founders

entered the society after 1840 (step six in figure above) did not have a place in the favoured

upcountry, West of the Imo. Although the founders of these younger lineage-groups had

entered nde-Imogu society in the rnid-1g6 century, it was not until very late in that century

and early in the 206 that their descendants could secure settlements of their own. By the time

they matured only the east Imo had remained unoccupied by nde-hogu groups. Lineage-

group formation was not an open business after the pioneers. It must have the sanction of the

rest of the lineage-groups. Nde-Akunwanta had to pay 3,600 "monies"/"markets"(mu ahia

teehete or £1 8O), one barre1 of gunpowder and one cow to secure recognition as an

autonomous lineage-group in about the late 1870s (E.N. Okoli 1977: 35).

13€or instance, it is also taken for granted that nde-Ogbuonyeoma arrived before "de-Akaerne, but losî this seniority later due to their inability to pay a certain Ievy on tirne. Hencefonh, about 1815, nde-Akaerne supersedeci them (steps 3 and 4). For another example, the traditions hold that nde-Akunwanta is the "youngest" limage- group. True, nde-Akunwanta was the last to be franchised as a limage-group, with the Udonrka transaction related in the preceding paragraph. But in actual fact, Akunwanta made his enûy into the society in about 1825 (see step 5) before three other lineage-groups. - 164-

The Frontier and the Nri-Awka Region

One practice with implication for culture formation was the specific and consistent interest

with which the Aro settlements in central Igboland cultivated people fiom the Nri-Awka

region. Through partial exogamy, Aro men of central Igboland married women from the

region in large numbers. The present nde-hogu people take this aspect of their histoiy for

granted. The following is typical of the kind of explanations that 1 got during fieldwork.

The Anambra people . . . were more prudent than the people from many communities in our imrnediate neighbourhood. And they did not have food . . . At that tirne, there were no cities. Many people anived here due to yam cultivation possibilities.14 These people multiplied in the process. At that time too, Mazi Imogu Mgbokpo traversed that country in his slave dealing business. Mer he had settled here, he got his own people Rom the same place that he got trade slaves. He retained those with good character. Those retained in this process may have corne ovenvhelmingly from Anambra (M.S.Igwe 1996).

The enterprise associated with people fiom the area recommended them as wives, dependents

and immigrants. The traditions of the communities involved recognize these movements into

Apari from Aro special interest in Nn-Awka people, the social and econornic

conditions in the Nn-Awka region exposed the people to enslavement and emigration. Needy

parents sold their children. Igbudu and Ebuteilo of nde-Akunwanta in nde-Izuogu were

'*Farming became important from about the last decade of the 19'" century. This is an example of teleswping in traditions. "Anarnbra" is the present state in Nigeria, wbich corresponds roughly with the Nri-Awka region.

15~mongthe traditions that 1 have seen, Awka ones seem most explicit on this matter. They mention large- sale "migrations"to nde-Izuogu (Agu 1985; 1. Oguocha 1996). -165- brothers by the same mother in Nimo. Ebuteilo in particular later himself acquired many people from the region (Maduadichie 1996). Similady, the nde-Eni Aro acquired people heavily from close vicinity (see Chinyele 1972; J. Ike 1972; noha 1972; C. Kanu 1972; J,

Kanu 1972; Ngene 1972; Nwene 1972; F. Obi 1972; N. Okoli 1972). One of my respondents declared that nde-Izuogu people "were going to Nkanu-kwuru-Nkanu. 1s there any place in this nde-Izuogu where you would not find Mtanu people ... ?" (Akpu 1996).

It was not only through slavery that people of the Nri-Awka region inundated nde-

Izuogu. Kinship ties played a large part in this process. For example: "A person may decide to many fiom where he came frorn. He could also introduce another nde-hogu man to a woman in his original home. The aim was for him to have a relative in nde-lmogu" (Kanu-

Igbo 1996b; M.S. Igwe 1996). 1 found during fieldwork in 1995-96 that the amadi (nobility) of the lineage-groups take proper care to distinguish this group in discussions about slavery

(see M.S. lgwe 1996; T.O.Okereke 1996). Not surprisingly, the immigrants fiom the Nn-

Awka area made lasting impact on nde-Izuogu culture. Before tuming to their cultural impact, we must first establish the outline of the Aro cultural network.

Linkages

An analysis of the Aro cultural network is an analysis of linkage institutions. The forma1 institutions through which the metropole regulated the operation of the diaspora - the Aro central Council (Okoa Nk~o),the Ekpe secret society, and the Ibiniuk~abioracle - have been discussed in Chapter 3. Left to be discussed at this juncture are those that govemed conventions and rites. The Aro diaspora was not organized on the basis of mere informa!ities, -166-

as Northmp (1978: 143) has suggested. According to him: "Generally the most important

Aro trader in an area was regarded as the informal leader by his Aro relatives. He would cal1

general meetings to CO-ordinatetrading policy by his Aro relatives." This scenario fits into

Northmp's framework of "trade without mlers", but it overlooks those linkage institutions,

such as the system, which maintained political precedence and routine contact within the

diaspora populations and between the metropole and the diaspora. Northrup obviously

rnissed this information when it was given to him in 1973 by his Aro respondent, Fidelis

Emmanuel Sunday Okoro of Nung Okoro, an Aro senlement in Ibibioland where the

respondent had been bom. In Okoro's words, "[elvery year we would retum home [to Aro-

Chukwu] for the New Yam Festival. l6 Other meetings would be held arnong the Ndi Okoro

settlers to discuss trade matters and aid traders who had ill luck" (F.E.S. Okoro 1973). This

information accords with the concIusion of other scholars who have studied the Aro (see e-g.

Bentor 1994; Dike and Ekejiuba 1990; C. Okafor 1986: 124-25; J.G. Okoro 1985).

The Aro diaspora paid regular visits to Aro-Chukwu to conduct and discuss trade,

take the non-Aro to lbiniuk~abi,receive instructions fiom oracular priests, partake in the

annual Ikeii festival, join the Ek~esociety or partake in its rites, and visit kin members (see

NA. Anyakoha 1996; Chinyele 1972; Dike and Ekejiuba 1990; C. Okafor 1986: 124-25; J.G.

Okoro 1985). The Aro made it a point to cal1 these visits "returning home." This practice was

anchored in reality that has suMved deep into the 20~century. Each time I overlooked this

subtlety during fieldwork in 1995/96,1 was quickly corrected. Many persons fiom the

16A.sBentor (1994: 213) has correctiy nota the name New Yam Fesïivai (or ikeii) is an anachronism because the festival had nothing to do with yams in a trading society. - 167-

diaspora have remigrated back to Aro-Chukwu and fitted back into the Iineages which their

sojouniing ancestors had left behind in Aro-Chukwu. Many others maintain dual residences.

Today, the Eze-Oao (mler) of Arnankwu in Aro-Chukwu is an nde-hogu man whose

ancestors left Aro-Chukwu in the lgrncentury. He left his nde-Njohi lineage-group in nde-

Izuogu to assume that role (Obinani 1996). Many nde-Izuogu persons, such as Jacob Okoro,

I.J. Emma and C.N. Obioha maintain residences in Aro-Chukwu. These linkages did not

result fiom later developrnents. In early 1996, the nde-Arnazu lineage-group of nde-lniogu

won a major court case over the house which their prima1 ancestor, Am=, had retained in

Aro-Chukwu. One Aro-Chukwu man had attempted to claim the property. Nde-Amazu won

this case through Jacob Ogbonna Okoro @. 1897) who has maintained double residence in

nde-lzuogu and Aro-Chukwu since 1927." Nde-Arnani people collect rent corn this

property and put it in their common fund.

Imogu Mkpokpo himself, who set up nde-Izuogu, never resided there permanently.

Tradition is unanimous that he participated regularly in Aro-Chukwu council meetings. Most

Aro in the diaspora maintained residences in Aro-Chukwu and many were buried there. The

practice of burying diaspora Aro in Aro-Chukwu continued until the imposition of British

colonial rule. As late as 1900, Chief Okoroji, the founder of nde-Okoroji near nde-lniogu,

was buned in his home at Ujari in Aro-Chukwu (see Okoroji 1996; Dike and Ekejiuba 1990:

308). Even many individuals who became Aro in their lifetime and those who were bom as

first generation Aro in the diaspora wished to be either buried in the metropole or that some

"I perronally conveyed letters from Okom to some nde-l\mani leaders, in which he reported the end of the case. -168-

of their fimeral rites be marked there. lu

The best example of the institutions that linked the Aro metropole and its diaspora is

the rite. In this rite, every adult fi-ee male regularly renewed obeisance to his oldest male

relative (in the irnmediate farnily), ex-master, patron or host. @J was specifically tied to the

annual cycle of the Ike-ii festival, and the rite of passage. The physical ernbodiment of

consisted of a particular assortment of seven mat parts of the ritual beast, usually a goat or a

cow." celebrated inter-personal and group hierarchy. According to one of my

respondents:

The system of this person acquinng that person and that person acquiriiig yet another was quite complicated. The way that people clarified who was who was the ihu which was observed during the Ike-ii festival in nde-Imogu. For instance, my father came to nde- Imogu [hmAro-Chukwu] through Anumba. When he celebrated the Ikeji, he gave ose ihe to Anumba as h.For his part, Anumba gave to Mari Ufere [of nde-Amm] because it was Ufere who had brought Mazi Anumba. He, Mazi Ufere himself, had an eldedsuperior under whom he was. That person was a descendant of Mazi Imoy Obunukpo amma Nnachi. Mazi Iniogu was the person who lefi this Aro-Chukwu to open up the way up to nde- hogu to establish a settlement (J.O.Okoro 1996).

-Ihu was tied specifically to two occasions: death and the annual Ikeii festival. In the well-

researched and rnost detailed analysis of the -ii festival available, Bentor has sketched how,

''~n Aro-Chukwu elder. Kanu-Onuoha (1996) dledthe 1928 second burial at Aro-Chukwu of Okoro Udonika of nde-Izuogu. Bentor (1994) has suggested that "only wealthy families could dord the expense." There is no doubt that ihis was the case for the late 19' ccntury onwards. Before that time, the diaspora people were hardly too prto sponsor this important rite of passage or to have that sponsored by relatives.

" These parts are nb cage (with çewn ribs on each side)(ase mu), chest (ntinana), upper bowel &i aimakwuru), a tiny portion of the liver, a small portion of the spleen (anyin~a),a small flesh fiam the upper abdomen (ofXe enu), and a amail part of the lower abdomen (ofùfe ana).l am grateful to Orini Nwokeji (1996) for this information. - 169-

like other Aro practices in the diaspora, the festival has been domesticated over time (Bentor

1994: 2 1 1- 13). Re-ii has been described as the "annual festival of thanksgiving and

propitiation" (C. Okafor 1986: 124). Each free adult male took to his imrnediate superior.

According to individual circ~mstances,the superior could be the oldest relative in the

immediate family, ex-master, patron or host. Although many societies exact tribute fiom

incoming elements, stands out because its observance was not restricted to any status

gr~up.~'Ikeii marked an annual renewal of loyalty to masters and seniors in the lineages. As

the renowned folklorist and musician, ANbuike Nkemakonam Nwokoye-Emesuo (alias

Pemcomo) told me, &u was a "census" of surviving dependents (Nwokoye-Emesuo 1996).

Thus, clarified relationships within Wn groups, whether by blood or by association. It

routinized precedence and seniority. served to perpetuate ex-slaves as political and social

subalterns aiter their ernancipation at the level of production. This subaltem stahis also

applied to clients and guests.

As a gesture of gratitude, & was obligatory. As a measure of precedence, it was also

compulsory. 1 asked my respondents what would happen if a person rehsed to give & and

the following answer was typical. "A human being could not even discuss that ... failure to

give amounted to rebellion. The punishment was removal from society - mmevu (wasting)

- which could be sale or execution. Did he who refiises to observe ihu fa11 fiom heaven?"

(Arodiogbu 1996). Udike the feudal tithe, & was not economically exploitative in any

significant sense for men, but was designed as a ceremonid observance to essentialize access

to productive resources in past and present relationships. The system exploited women

201owe this insight ta Michel Mn. - 170- directly. The wornen of a household were required to pay fked annual contributions fiom

proceeds fiom the economic trees they controlled. The household head used these proceeds,

and added to it when necessary, to buy the sacnficial beast. In short, women may have borne

the economic brunt of-?, although the demands seem hardly significant - given the material

requirements for the annual sacrifice vis à vis the possible number of women in a household.

The $J rite was centrai to a system that required every male entrant to have either a

master or patron. The secured for the guest, client or ex-slave a permanent place in the

lineage hierarchy. It encouraged slaves to work towards their emancipation and acquire

wealth and dependents. is still practised widely today, although its fùnction has become

virtually perfun~tory.~'

In the face of these relationships, British colonial anthropologists noted the following.

"The Aros were clan-conscious rather than tom-conscious, and today the average man will

declare with pride that he is an Aro before he gives the name of his tom, recalling the spirit

of St. Paul triumphantly declaring 'CiMs Romanus sum', followed by the information '1 corne

from Tarsus, no mean city"' (Anthropologists' Papers 1927:16). Later, a colonial officer

reported that the people of nde-hogu had "retained their Aro custorn~."~While these

realities controvert denials of strong linkages, they mask the deviations fiorn the Aro cultural

grid. These deviations, however, have to be understood as historical processes rather than by

any fùnctionalist assumptions of assured absence of organizational pnnciples, almost

210nlynvo recent studies (Bentor 1994: 167; Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 210,274), have mentioned - although they do not anaiyze it in detail.

a~~~EP 1248 1-MINLOC6: 1. 306: Intelligence Report on the NdVniogu Village Area, Orlu District Okigwe Division, Owem Province: Resident's Covcring Report." suggestive of anarchy.

Deviations in the Frontier

Despite the linkage institutions, the Aro diaspora also showed signs of cultural deviation. At the time of the formation of nde-hogu and the other major Aro diaspora settlements, many milestone events and developments that shaped and reshaped Aro-Chukwu institutions had not yet occurred. The evidence shows clearly that status groups identified in the 196 century

Aro-Arochukwu had not yet crystallized in the middle of the 18h century. For example, the ascendancy of the lgbo faction of Aro-Chukwu (see Dike and Ekejiuba 1990:63, 67) was yet to happen fi@ years after Izuogu had founded the upper Imo River valley settlement. This development marked a watershed in the Aro-Chukwu political culture. It is noteworthy, as obseverved by Dike and Ekejiuba (1990:68, 71, 91), that arnadi nkume asaa (Amadi of the seven Stones - euphemism for the founding lineage-groups), the upper crust amadi (nobility), denved from the number of the Aro-Chukwu clans (Otusi) which reached seven (asaa] oniy after 1850. In Aro-Chukwu symbolism, one Stone denoted one clan. As a result of these historical developments, the following simple three-class structure had developed in Aro-

Chukwu by the 19' century. The highest echelon was the amadi, which "was rigid enough to amount to caste." This group consisted of the direct descendants of the foundation families of

Aro-Chukwu society. The second group was the amuda, immigrants, their descendants and those of slaves. The ohu, the first generation slaves, were the lowest group (üku 1993: 3, 18-

20; Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 79, 284). It follows from the above scheme that the status stmcture of the diaspora was bound to take a dEerent course that reflected the specific - 172-

circumstances of each settlement.

As already noted, the starting point of the status distinction in Aro-Chukwu was the

foundation families. Al1 Nneteen Aro-Chukwu lineage-groups were either foundation

communities or direct offshoots of these? Consequently, al1 the lineage groups had their

arnadi and the corresponding lower orders. Not surprisingly, therefore, status formation in

nde-Izuogu took a different turn where the historie-specific phenornenon of the seven stones

was absent. The differences in status formation in nde-Izuogu and Aro-Chukwu reflected the

differing circumstances of societal formation and the fact that Aro-Chukwu institutions

continued to undergo transformations. The nde-Iniogu case was more complicated. Nde-

Imogu was fonned with just Izuogu's family and the persons of his household: Arnazu,

Iheme, Ejezie, Adumoha, Anyake, Ucheagwu, Nduvwuisi and Uwaonu. Out of the resulting

original nine lineage-groups, eight were founded by persons of hop's household. Today,

Izuogu's direct household accounts for the ruling minority of only two of eighteen lineage-

groups, nde-Awa and nde-Uche. The ruling minotities of fifteen lineage groups resulted £?om

Izuogu's dependents. The ruling groups of the remaining two lineage-groups corne from the

descendants of Izuogu's brothers, Njoku and Udensi. These last groups, nde-Njoku and nde-

Imoko-na-Onu, immigrated late into the region respectively during the 1850s and 1870s, as

separate and autonomous Aro settlements (see T.O.Okereke 1996)~~'hogu's direct

%e best informai discussions of this subject are Dike and Ekejiuba (1990) and J.O.Ijorna (1986~).

'%us detail menslightiy from that offered by J.G. Okoro (1985: 12) when he writes: The success of [Iniogu's] business adventures soon attracted his brothers Njoku and Imoko, to the commercial centres. They also joined in the business and latcr founded their omcolonies which, with time, becme merged with that of Mazi Iniogu under one name by mutual consent" It was the descendants of hogu's brothers and their dependents who founded the settlements. The dates are my estimates, working hmthe genealogies of the settlements concerned. -173- descendants constituted the minority mling elite in nde-Awa and nde-Uche. By virtue of their position, this elite also rded the rest of the lineage-groups, forming the amadi both in these lineage-groups and over nde-hogu at large. The direct descendants of the other lineage- group founders, for their part, constituted the minority mling classes within the respective lineage-groups. Thus, they formed the amadi in the lineage-groups. Social stratification like

Aro-Chukwu's did not apply to nde-hogu. What obtained in nde-Izuogu, by contrast to this simple three-class hierarchy described above for Aro-Chukwu, was a complex hierarchy of hegemonies or hierarchy of hierarchies.

The diaspora settlements in central Igboland deviated from the metropole in incest rules. In the Aro rnetropole, lose incest rules permitted marriage between second cousins. But in the fiontiers in central Igboland, ngid incest rules prevailed. Among the Aro, women could only marry men of the same or a higher status - never below. and the multiplicity and diversity of equal ranking charter groups ensured easy mamage of high status women. One contradiction inherent in this practice must have been the social isolation of unmamed women among the original Aro migrants to the frontier, who could not many from the majonty of mortals. Because the originally Aro in these cornmunities descended fiom one person and, sometimes, a few close blood relatives, this practice created an artificial scarcity of women and ensured that many male slaves concluded their earthly sojourn without female partners. In the context of partial exogamy, by which Aro men mamed outside women without giving out any of their own, the rest of Igboland was ruled out for high status unmarried women. In nde-Iniogu, as in the other fiontiers, men outside Izuogu's pedigree were outside the eligible pool, as were comparable classes in both Aro-Chukwu and in the - 174-

diaspora. These women were left to marry only men fiom the arnadi nkume asaa, but this was

a very small exclusive group only found in Aro-Chukwu and those diaspora settlements

whose founders were Aro amadi. This sort of discrimination was the first to break down, on

inter-lineage-group (rather than on an intra-lineage-group) and lineage bases.

Another area of deviation is the Ikeii festival itself. Initially, the Aro everywhere

retumed to Aro-Chukwu to celebrate the annual festival. It is not yet clear when this practice

ceased. Chinyere Okafor (1986: 127-28) has pointed to the proliferation of masquerades in

diaspora Ikeii, a reflection of the practice of pre-existing groups. Another aspect of change

regarding keii in the diaspora vis à vis the metropole relates to the festival season. Initially,

the diaspora communities did not have their separate festivals. Later they began to celebrate

theirs at different times, which allowed them enough time physically to participate in the Aro

general Ikeii. In nde-izuogu, the season changed fiom August, when the metropole celebrated

it, to April. Initially after the change in seasons, the different nde-hogu lineage-groups had

celebrated the Ike-ii variously, but consecutively during the long season fiom March to

~pril.~'In fact, nde-Iniogu sources maintain that the need for masquerading in the diaspora

caused this change; rainy August was unsuitable.

Other necessary considerations, especially those relating to frontier conditions, may

have been relevant. The need to protect and legitimize the settlements among the pre-existing

cornmunities called for a more demonstrative presence that Ike-ii provided. Since the

fiontierspeople had to mind their fecurity against the occasional hostile neighbour, it would

"since the ernergence of the Arondizuogu Patriotic Union (APU) in the 1930s, the whole of nde-hogu celebrate the festival at the same time in April. not have been in their interest to ernbark on a predictable annual mas trip to the distant

metropole. Simultaneously, Ike-ii provided opportunities for diplomacy. People in the

diaspora and those of pre-existing communities exchanged visits during festivals. Ikeii gave

the Aro the opportunity to reciprocate these invitations (C. Okafor 1986:124). Intemaiiy, the

festival offered the mling members of the diaspora with a regular opportunity to renew and

routinize their hegemony over their wards. At any rate, the changes rnust be understood in

the first instance as domestication in the diaspora.

Another deviation From Aro-Chukwu practice was in the people's attitude to twins.

Living up to their appellation as Umu-Chukwu (Children of God), the Aro placed great value

on human Iife, in spite of their slaving operations. Unlike the rest of the Igbo world, the Aro

did not kill children who cut their upper teeth first and people with other naturai

"misfortunes". However, like the rest of the Igbo world, the Aro considered twin birth as a

major ab~mination.~~The members of the British Niger Expedition of 1841 give us a view of

this practice among the Igbo.

The little victims are no sooner born than one or both are taken away, placed in the neighbounng thicket in earthen pots or baskets, and left there to become the food of hyenas or other wiid beasts. The unfortunate mother is separated for ever fiom her conjugal alliance; she is obliged to pass a long period or repentance and purification, in a rude hut some distance fiom the town; and if she outlives ail these trials, mental and physicai, and returns once more

*%lus practice is still very strong in AmChukwu today. For insiance, the Eze-Ogo of the Ujari Lineage-group in Aro-Chukwu and his lieutenants first wnîïrrned hmmy Am-Chukwu companions, Okoro Ijoma and Ohiaeri Okoro on 26 Febniary 1996 that 1 was not a twin before 1was aiiowed to enter O&uti Okoroii (the house of the late 19& century slave trader, Okoroji, a national monument sinœ 1971!). I would not have been aiîowed into the onbuii if 1 was born twin. to society, she is regarded as an especial object of Fetish wrath, and no woman will knowingly sit in her Company, or hold communion with her (Allen and Thomson 1848a: 243).

Nde-hogu traditions relate widely the community's deviation fiom Aro-Chukwu's twin

discrimination. In about the 1820s, a woman fkom Abatete in the Nri-Awka area found her

way to nde-Izuogu, in flight from the consequences of twin birth. She had her male twUi

children whom she concealed in a long basket covered with fiesh leaves. Uchendu the ex-

dependent of Akaeme, the founder of the nde-Akaeme limage-group, granted the woman and

her children asylum. The names of the twins were Achusim and Onyevwuchi. This woman

and her children were granted refuge in nde-Izuogu under the usual condition of

dependen~y.~'Today, nde-Achusim and nde-Onyevwuchi, descendants of these twins are two

of the principal lineages in the nde-Akaerne lineage-group. By deviating from the Aro

practice, nde-Izuogu deviated not only fiom Aro-Chukwu, but also fiom the rest of the Igbo

world, notably the Nri-Awka culture area from where most of the fiontier populations were

drawn.

Another area of deviation was the Osu phenomenon. Osu referred to an individual

deemed to "belong" to a deity and had no social contacts with the regular community. People

who became a remained so with their descendants for ever (see Nwokeji 1998: 323n).

Although Aro-Chukwu did not evolve the institution, indications are that it proliferated

27 This date is an estirnate from genealogies. Traditions ïc!ated by various respondents in ciiffixent lineage- groups show the same basic pattern (Arodiogbu 1996; Ekwobi 1996; Igwegbe 1962:30-3 1; Igwilo 1996a; C. Okoli 1996). Whatever tmth may be to this story, it suggests to me that the idea of accepting twins is entrenched in nde- Izuogu folklore and, therefore, has an antiquity antedating the 20"' century by nearly one cenhiry. None of my respondents gave the slightest impression that they were conscious of the fact chat the act deviated hmthe Aro nom. They simply used the incident to illustrate the principle of mrnuba. Igwegbe (1962) renders the traditions in the same mamer. - 177-

in nde-hogu. The institution is said to have been a priestly office initially (J.G.Okoro 1996;

Umo n.d. :20).Every market had a priest who was also cailed after the name of the

market that he served. Thus, there were Osueke (for the Eke market), Osuawho (Awho

market), Osunkwo (Nha market) and Osuo~e(ûye Market). In other words, nde-hogu

people used to designate the pnest. Just "like uko-chukwu means servant of God,

means servant of a " (J.G. Okoro 1996). These narnes, originating early in the 19~

century at the latest, are common in present nde-Imogu sumames.

Concrete instances of families who became gs~unwillingly are, however, a feature of

the Iate 19th and early 2oL centuries. These cases relate to flight from oppression. Aggrieved

Mgbawho Ogirisi, one slave of Ikodie (wife of Okoro Udomka), fled to the Ududonka shrine

with her children during about the 1890s. One free family, ruming away from their creditor,

sought refuge in the Haba deity in another lineage-group (M. S. Igwe 1996; Kanu-Igbo

1996b; Maduadichie 1996; A. Muotoh 1996; J.G. Okoro 1996). At the destination deity, the

refugee would say the ntual: "Amsi. mbaa!" @eity, 1 submit myself to your prote~tion).'~

The prevalence in the late 19~century of refugee suggests increasing pressures that

resulted fiorn the end of the Atlantic slave trade. Thus, the end of the slave trade may have

impacted indirectly, but radically, a pre-existing institution.

In some ways, the evolutionary process above resembles that described by Elizabeth

Isichei (1 976) and, especially, Romeo Okeke (1986) for the rest of Igboland. They have

suggested that was a pnestly function before the Atlantic slave trade, and that the trade

281Xsparticular dimension was given by Kanu-Igbo (1996b). He could not tell the meaning of the word "mbaa."- It is probably not an Igb word. - 1 78-

changed the character of the institution." If the character of the institution was changed by

the Atlantic slave trade in other parts of Igboland, it seems to have been changed by the

trade's end in nde-lniogu. But the major difference is that the Nde-Izuogu version of the QSJ

concept, when it developed, differed from that of the rest of Igboland. Some of my

respondents stressed that, unlike in other parts of Igboland, nobody sacrificed to the deities

persons who becarne W. The victims themselves chose to become albeit under indirect

duress (e.g., M.S. Igwe 1996; Igwegbe 1962: 102; J.G.Okoro 1996). Also, contrq to the

situation in most Igbo societies, al1 of my respondents stressed the fluidity of the pt~

institution in nde-Iniogu and that it no longer existed. This difference touches at the core of

the system, the immutability of the p- condition in other parts of Igboland. White in

other places the condition was (and still is) immutable, the performance of the necessary

rites nullified the condition in nde-Imogu (M.S. Igwe 1996; Kanu-Igbo 1996b; Muotoh

1996; C.Okoli 1996; J.G.Okoro 1996). The fluidity of the nde-Imogu variant of the

institution probably led the historian J. Okoro Ijoma (1 994: 4 1) to even deny that the gs~

institution existed among the Aro.

The emergence of the institution was but only one consequence of broader

cultural impact on nde-hogu of people from the Ni-Awka axis and other areas. It had no

necessary co~ectionwith the Atlantic slave trade. The institution is associated with Nn

%u Umo (n.d.: 19) has claimed that the deities that produced the institution became part ~f nde-Izuogu "after the decline of 'Chuku'" (ie, the lbiniuimabi oracle). Ibinidmabi did not decline unid after the British Aro E.vpedition of 1901-02. As late as 1878, the Belgian mariner on the Adolphe Burdo had noteâ Ibinidmabi's influence as fàr as the Niger River (see Burdo 1880: 159-6 1). The deities in nde-Iniogu coexisteci with Ibiniukwbi. Ibiniukpabi's main fùnction was judicial, for the non-Aro. The Am,bath in the rnetropole and in the diaspora, had the deities they worshipped. cultural influence, a fact that helps to explain its persistence long after the overseas trade in

persons. Individuals, whether slave or ordinary immigrant or refbgeq came to nde-hogu

with various cultural packages. The historian J.G. Okoro told me in English that "nde-hogu

did not result fiom the migration of one race. People came with difFerent kinds of manners

and customs. There is no single way of shrine worshipping in nde-hogu" (J.G.Okoro

1996). The result is that every lineage-group has deities that refiect the provenance of its

population or sections of it. These "various importations", as Umo (n.d.: 19) calls them, were

adoptions of the parent deities of corresponding names in various pans of the Biafkan

hinter~and.~'One of the significant aspects of these deities is that it was not only persons with

shared origins that subscribed to them. Nde-Izuogu people across the board respected and

feared these deities. Any of the deities served for the determination of cases on which judges

could not agree. A colonial intelligence report of the nid- 1930s records that seeking the

settlement of disputes in Aro-Chukwu was merely an option in nde-Izuogu (see Mayne 1935:

12). Such cases were only ones on which an agreement could not be reached. These deities

where the final reson on cases where evidence was lacking. By implication, therefore, these

deities from immigrants and slaves served as a higher couxt to Arnankwu (the parent Aro-

Chukwu lineage-group) in at least this one category of cases.

One should not read this account literally to mean that immigrants fiorn the Nri-Awka

'!For example, a pioncer member of nde-Izuogu and founder of the nde-l\mazu lineage-gmup, Amani, came from Oro in the Oji River region of today's Enugu State with Iwi-ûnba. Another, Iheme fkom Nise near Awka, came with Ajagu. Udonwu of nde-Ejezie came fkom Eziama, the original home of Ejezie, the founder of the limage-group. Nde-Ukwu =Ochichi from Achi. Many subordinate gmups within these limages also bmught deities corresponding to their on@ homes. For example, Nkwo Adazi of nde-Amani was brought by the section btimmigrated to nde-Amazu from Adazi near Nri. The same was the story of Haba in nde-Aniche. Haba was adotped fkom Agulu. -180- and other areas transposed their cultures in nde-hogu. As noted in the cases of the institution and twin killing, nde-hogu deviated not only fi-om Aro-Chukwu but also from the Nri-Awka region. Aro influences and practices remained. For instance, in spite of the massive immigration of originally non-Aro elements, nde-Izuogu did not develop a specialist deity for agriculture. A colonial officer interpreted the non-existence ofthe Ana deity (the god of land and agriculture) as evidence of the fact that nde-hogu people were "strangers"

(see Mayne 1935:8). This view is inaccurate. If what Mayne meant by being "strangers" was that nde-izuogu was comparatively recent in the region, many other Igbo communities have recent histories as well, histories underlined by migrations. These cornmunities invariably evolved the Ana cult if they were agrarian. It was not residency status that detedned the adoption of the earth goddess. Nde-hogu did not adopt it because agriculture was, until a decade before British colonial conquest, marginal to the trade-based political economy. They depended on their neighbours for the supply of provisions. Although it is often encountered in oral traditions, the idea of "strangers" is not a usefùl category in the Igbo historical conte* outside its ideological import. As part of a strategy of colonial domination, the British played up nde-Izuogu as "strangers" to continuously intimidate an intractable community and to isolate them from neighbouring non-Aro communities. In itself, the "strangef' status is certainly not usefûl in understanding the prevalence or othedse of the Ana cult. The cult's diffusion was not CO-terminuswith the senes of migrations that mark the histories of many

Igbo groups. Mer all, most ofnde-hogu people originated from areas in which the Ana -181-

cult prevailed? They could have brought it with them, but, as already mentioned, the cult

had little reason to exist in a trading frontier. Dike and Ekejiuba observe that ancestral cults

were ofien central arnong trading groups, such as the Aro @ike and Ekejiuba 1990: 132). As

in the case of the adapted deities, these ancestral cults were important in nde-Izuogu - even

among immigrants.

A trade-based explanation is itself problematic in the light of evidence fiom the nde-

EN, a commonwealth of other major Aro cornmunities in central Igboland. Ajali, nde-

Ikelionwu and nde-Owuu still subscribed in the 1920s to Aiana, the earth goddess of the

respective pre-existing groups that their ancestors conquered one century and a half earlierb3?

One of the reasons for this difference between nde-Izuogu and nde-Eni may have been a

more thorough subjection and displacement of pre-existing groups by nde-Izuogu. Although

nde-Izuogu people sometimes married women and acquired people fiom these communities,

nde-lmogu shared few politico-religious institutions with them. Rather than the pre-existing

groups, it was people from the Nri-Awka area who had significant influence on the evolution

of nde-Izuogu culture. Yet, their influence did not affect the emergence of the Ana cuit.

Although every culture results fiom the interaction of several and, therefore, a synthesis, the

nde-Izuogu case is quite palpable. Their situation makes them not only a distinct community

in their neighbourhood, but also marks them out fiom metropolitan Aro-Chukwu and fiom

other Aro diaspora cornrnunities, each of which has its own distinguishing characteristics.

3 1For the centrality of the cuit, see Meek (1937: Ch. 2; Green 1964: 26-28, 100). in Aro-Chulnvy the trade cul&Invarnavia, prevaited.

32~~~ONPROF-7/16/150:Awka Division Intelligence Notes on the Towns of Ajalli Native Corn Area 1929. See abstract of file, p. 2. - 182-

Dislectical Formation

Language is an important distinguishing characteristic of nde-hogu society. As we have

seen in the foregoing, in the upper Imo River region, Aro culture met those of the pre-

existing societies and of immigrant elements hmother Igbo areas, principally the Nri-Awka

region. The nde-hogu dialect of the igbo language is a reflection of these historical

interactions involving religion, commerce, large-scde incorporation of elements fiom other

societies and mamage. Nde-Izuogu mothers, many of whom had outside ongins, played a

striking role in the evolution of dialect. This role makes one local historian, Kanu Umo, to

refer to them as "mistresses of language" (Urno [ 1 948?] n.d. : 18).

One way of measuring the distinctness or otherwise of any Aro diaspora comrnunity is

by cornparhg its dialect with those of its irnrnediate neighbours, the metropole and the major

source of originally non-Aro immigrants. So far, this comparison has not been done

systematically. The task is better done through a comparison of vocabulanes - lexico-

statistics. Typically, the lexico-statistical technique involves that cornpanson of two

languages or dialeas in order to establish their relationship and the time when their respective

speakers began separated one Rom the other. In the Aro-nde-hop case, the comparison

must deal with more than two societies. Also, the question is not merely to establish whether

the relationship exists. It is to determine the extent to which each of three major diaiectical

areas afl'ected a fourth group, in this case nde-Izuogu. However, an attempt to do this reveals

the limitations of the Igbo orthography." Igbo orthography does not capture some basic

"~lthoughinterested in the historical development of language, both traditional and modern linguistics ignore the socio-cuiturd contexts in which languages emerge. Yet patterns of speech shape and are shaped by "domhance and exchange patterns of kinship and other idioms of speech" W.C. White 1995: 541). In the Igbo case, the rigid phonemes in Igbo diaiects. This limitation is stnking in the case of nde-hogu. Such a limited

orthography assumes or infers that inter-dialectical comparisons are unnecessary. It wili even

render comparisons impossible, if accepted. A failure to adopt an orthography that is

appropriate to the demonstration of the development of Aro-nde-hop dialect will render,

not just difficult, but impossible the historically significant task of comparing the society's

dialect with those of the sources of its population. To do this, one rnust necessady transcend

the existing orthography. Elizabeth Isichei (1978: 67) apparently had to employ a unique

consonant (wh) to represent a word from the Awka dialect (whum). 1 have adopted, in Table

5.2, the consonants and @oth as in the Urhobo orthography) to represent the nde-

Izuogu phonzmes not otherwise represented.

Language mutation has continued since the establishment of nde-Izuogu. In spite of

the non-Aro influences on nde-Imogu dialect, "pure" Aro-Chukwu dialect remained the one

of wisdom and for philosophical reflections, to be invoked on appropriate occasions. The

process and pattern of immigration that produced the pre-1890 frontier culture under

discussion were, of course, arrested by the imposition of British coloniaiism veiy early in the

20' century. Whatever other consequences of this development, the nde-Izuogu dialect has

moved much farther from that of Aro-Chukwu since. The ability of the present elderly

population in nde-Izuogu to switch to archaic Aro attests to this proposition. As a result,

approach in Igbo orthography ignores socio-cultural realities. 1 once rai& this matter on the electronic interactive medium, I~bnet,early in 1995. The views of the other contributors, including an Igba linguist, favoured the existing orthography. They rested their case on the need for Igbo integration. This discussion illustrates the comection of language and politics. Under such circwnstances, cdtural interaction and histoical context are relegated. This view is at variance with the "pst-modeniist"reality of multiplicity of identities and certainly hampers the historieal understanding of Igbo societies. indeed, as Harrison White has recently articulated, "differentiationsin fonns of discourse elude linguists' prescriptive recipes of grammar and synia." (H.C.White 1995: 42). - 184-

Table 5.1 may be an imperfect reflection of the dialect(s). Nevertheless, the sarnple vocabulary arises from the fiontier history described and still bears the mark of that history.

Conclusions

1 have attempted to characterize the evolution of nde-Iniogu culture(s). Some implications of voluntaiy and involuntary immigration and marriages into nde-hogu were made clear. One basic political implication is that the outcome of the dispute for Izuogu's succession depended on the support of Iniogu's principal dependents, Amam (Rom Oro in the Oji River region of the present Enugu State), EjePe (fiom Eziama in the Orumba region in the present Anambra

State) and, especially, Iheme (fiom Nise in the Nri-Awka region of ). The input of the elements fiom the predorninant Nri-Awka in the evolution of nde-hogu culture(s) stands out. There is the occasional farnily that originated fiom slaves acquired fiom the pre-existing communities (T.O.Okereke 1996). More fiequently than slaves, women From these societies, were brought into nde-Izuogu as wives. However, mamages with women from pre-existing communities pale to insignificance when compared with those with women fiom the Nri-Awka area. Even cultural artefacts, such as masquerading, with seerning provenances fiom pre-existing groups, require cross-analysis and observation with the corresponding Nri-Awka data. On the basis of cultural interaction, it is clear that, while the non-Aro elements were becoining Aroked, the Aro themselves were being Igboized in the same process. Aroization and Igboization occurred pan pasu.

Nde-Uche, one of the two lineage-groups that descended directly fiom hogu's own children, developed dong separate cultural lines. Nde-Uche's distinct cultural development -185-

has not been captured in this chapter. Although contiguous to nde-Izuogu temtories, nde-

Uche's dialect today reflects those of the pre-existing societies. This situation is in turn a

reflection of their history. Just Iike nde-hogu people married women, acquired slaves and

welcomed immigrants ovenvhelmingly fiom the Nri-Awka area, nde-Uche's populations

derived mainly from pre-existing communities. Besides, nde-Uche assimilated and

incorporated pre-existing groups, such as Umuago. In part, nde-uche's focus reflected

possible marginalization from trade with the densely populated cornrnunities of the Nri-Awka

region. On the other hand, nde-Uche may have developed a bias against persons from that

area, given the indictment that nde-Uche traditions heap on thern regarding nde-Uche's

marginalization in nde-Imogu. This was patently unlike the rest of nde-Izuogu who would

not do so in spite of the imperative of group expansion. Aiso, nde-Uche assimilated

mercenaries who had corne with their families. Equdly uncaptured is the cultural

development of the later amving Aro of nde-Njoku (1850s) and nde-Imoko (1860s). The

multiculturaiism of nde-Izuogu must have struck these ~ro?

Contrary to Nort hnip's argument that the Aro diaspora settlements severed regular

ties with the metropole ffom the onset, the metropole and the diaspora were linked, and this

linkage can only be understood as a historical process. One must separate earlier periods

from later ones, when host and immigrant cultures (and in the 20' century, colonial, capitalist

and Christian presence) had made their marks on the diaspora settlements. The situation for

diaspora settlements that came into being in the mid-18" century would have difTered by the

34 Although they incorporated signincant numbers of non-Aro, their dialects are fespectively closer to that of Aro-Chukwu. In an implied cornparison with nde-lzuogu, Mazi Thomas Okereke of nde-Imoko tord me early in 1996: "Our tradition and customs are purely Aton (T.Okereke 1996). - 186- rnid-20th century as when Kanu Umo remarked the following: "Ndizuogu settlers are

naturalized or, in other words have become planted in the settlement that the average medial

Settler (sic) is not very much interested in home Aro and her ways" (Umo n.d.: 2 1). StiU, the

severance of relations had not even by the nid-20' century gone as far as Northrup claims for

much earlier periods. As Umo himself - despite his synchronie tendencies - points out for the

period: "an infinitestima1 rninority in cursory comparison with the block population, are being

deadly concerned with home flairs. During the 'fie$ annual festival some outside settlers ...

usually go home to enjoy the 'Ek~e'and 'Avanma' displays" (Umo n.d.:22). When these

observations are considered together, it is problematic to continue to argue, as Northmp

does, that the Aro lacked a system. Contrary to Northrup's claim, there is nothing "irregular"

in pan-Aro observances. The Hausa diaspora in mid-1960s Ibadan had little pull back home.

Many came to look for a relative who never visited home (A. Cohen 1969: 39-42). The Aro were always made welcorne back in Aro-Chukwu, although many did not opt to retum home perrnanently. They enjoyed the mobility option that the system afliorded them, often rnaintaining dual residences. Consequently, Northrup's (1978: 1 18) idea of Aroness "merely" as a function of "cornmon identity and a predilection for commerce", in spite of himseif, underscores two key characteristics of a trade diaspora. According to him, the Aro had "a single marketing grid", and that "to attack one Aro was to attack them au" (Northrup 1978:

142, 143). The examination of Aro organization as a trade dispora explains the ways by which cultural processes, commercial politics, and institutional change shaped the Biaf?an

Atlantic trade and vice versa during the era of expansion. Figure 5.1. Sequence of jksbn of rade-Iwogu lineage-group?'

5. c 182s Uche(a 1) Awa(a2) Amazu(b) Aniche(c1) Ejezie(d) Onuoha(c2) Ikpa-Eze(c3) Adumo ha(e) Anyake(0 Akaeme(c4) Ogbuonyeoma(c5) Ukwu(c6) Akunwanta(c7)

7. c 1850 Uche(a1) Awa(a2) Amazu(b) Aniche(c1) Ejezie(d) Onuoha(c2) Ikpa-Eze(c3) Adumoha(e) Anyake(i) Akaeme(c4) Ogbuonyeoma(c5) Ukwu(c6) Akunwanta(c7) Nduwisi(g) Ucheagwu (h) Uwaonu(i)

"The above figure does not show nde-Njoku and nde-Imoko because they were separate and independent fiom nde-hogu throughout the period. It was the British colonial administration that merged them with nde-hogu in the 1900s. That association remains to this date. Lineage-Group PrcExisting Community(ies) nde- Adumoha Akokwa (initially) Umuduru 2,5,8 (eom c. 1850) 1 nde-Akaeme 1 Isuokpu, 2,5,7,8 Urnuoborn 2,7

1 nde-Amazu 1 Akokwa 2,5,8 Isuokpu 4

nde- Awa Agbobu 1,2,5,8 nde-Ejezie Agbobu 5,8 Ikpa-Eze Isuokpu 2,4,5,8 nde-Irnoko-na-Onu Agbobu 2,5,8 1 nde-Nduwisi 1 Umudum 3 nde-Njoku Agbobu 2,5,8 Umuduru-Okwe 2,5,8 nde-Ogbuonyeoma Umuobom 2,5,7,8 Isuokpu 5,8 1 nde-Onuoha Same temtory as Ikpa-Eze & Umuobom (initially) 6 Umuduni- e 2,5,8 (c. 1 790-)

nde-Uwaonu L-LIIII------o--- Sources: 1. Eze J.O.Dike (1996); 2. NAE OKIDIST-19/1/1 1908-25 Intelligence Book, Okigwe Division, 1908-25:21; 3. G.N.Okoli (1996); 3. Kanu-Igbo (1996b); 5. NAE ORLDIST-14/1/3;6.1. Uche 1996; 7. NAE 351 1920-ûKIDIST $1213 2: Land Cases; 8. NAE 3 8/22 OKIDIST-4/4/29: Political Report on Ndeziorgu, 14 April 1922: 13. -1 89-

Table 5.2: Lexico-Statisties of Aro-Chukrvu, ndclzuogu, non-Aro Cornmunitics around

Aro-Chukwu Nri-Awka English avia &a, avia market, 1 trade ana land

ukori efifie, evivie ukori

inyamavia I NA god of trade mmeni mmewhu to waste 1 mmewhu mmebi mmebi to spoil mmegbu mmegbu mmewu mmegbu to oppress nkume okwute okwute, nkumhe nkume Stone, rock -- -- ntakiri obele ntakiri obere small -- ego rnoney ukwu ukwu okpa okpa were nnaa, welu were ngaa, wem take 1 ovo owho

-- - uto uno uluo, ulo uno house

nekwa MO welcome a *Note: None of the three denvative dialecticd areas that are compared with nde-Imogu presents a homogeneous diaiect. Aro-Chukwu is closest to homogeneity. Nri-Awka is farthest. The people of the pre- existing gtoups nasalize most of îheir sounds. CHAPTER 6 SLAVING AND OVElUAPPING TRANSITIONS: TRADE, PALM PRODUCE, AND AGRICULTURE, 1808-1905

The abolition of the British slave trade in 1807 did not end the slave trac. The development, however, signalled the beginning of the end of the Atlantic slave trade, and the replacement in the course of the 19' century of the overseas slave trafnc by the commodity export trade. These changes were accompanied by a series of political and social changes in

Afiican societies. With respect to the Biafran hinterland, some of these changes are implicit in the analysis offered in the previous chapter. Although Aro expansion impacted the Biafran

Atlantic trade, the suppression of this traffic affected that expansion.

In the serninal work on transition, which was on the Bight of Biafra, K.O. Dike

(1956) has submitted that the transition fiom the overseas slave trachad dismptive consequences for the coastal societies that he studied. Subsequent to Dike's work, the transition has been the subject of several mastefil reviews, deaiing with the entire Atlantic

Afi-ica or regions within it (e.g., Becker 1988; Davidson 1961; Eltis 1987: 223-42; Eltis and

Jennings 1988; Hopkins 1973: 125-35; Inikori 1979, 1986, 1994a, 1994t; M. Klein 1968,

1971, 1972; Law 1993, 1995b; Lovejoy 1983: 159-83; 1989; Lynn 1981, 1997; Manning

1986, 1988, 1990: 11037; Martin 1989; Newbuiy 1969; Noah 1980; Northnip 1976, 1978,

1979; Oriji 1982, 1983; Reynolds 1974; Sundiata 1996; Zeleza 1994: 370-89). Two principal questions are often raised: (1) whether African societies switched to cash crop or food production; and (2) whether the deciine in slave prices caused a withdrawal nom slaving.

Anthony Hopkins (1968, 1973) has essentially generalized Dike's idea in what Hopkins terms -191- the "crisis of adaptation." Despite differences of interpretation, there is a consensus that the development had differential impact on coastal middlemen, who were solely engaged in trade, and societies of the hinterland, which engaged in both production and marketing (Law 1995b:

4). This chapter addresses these concems as they pertain to the region, especidy the Aro, who had dominated the Atlantic slave trade.

In the Bight of Biafia, palm oil displaced captives as the main export. The paim produce industry involved new systems of production and marketing, and ancillary industries.

Several scholars have argued that the Aro lost control of trade with the rise of palm oil exports (Hopkins 1973: 145; G.I.Jones 1963: 73; 1989: 43; S. Martin 1988: 29; Northmp

1976). As Hopkins (1 973: 145) put it, "collecting tolls hma convoy of slaves travelling on an established route was easy enough, but, as the Aro ... found, levying duties on palm oil was an entirely different matter, for oil was produced and traded in small quantities at many diverse points." Unlike Hopkins, who assumes that the slave trade ended with the suppression of the overseas slave trade, G.I. Jones (1989: 44-45) takes account of the fact that the interna1 slave trade was not easily suppressed. However, he is of the view that slave sellers came to outnumber buyers. Following the "abmpt end" of the slave trade "by about 1839", the Aro lost their "principal comrnodity".

Tme, as Hopkins and Jones observe, the Aro did not dominate the palm oil trade as they had dominated the export slave trade (see also Ofonagoro 1972: 77). However, contrary to their assumption, the slave trade did not cease to be a serious factor in the regional economy after 1839. To start with, although the Atlantic slave trade declined sharply after

1840, the trafic did not cease before 1860 (see Table 6.1). More importantly, the domestic - 192- trade in captives remained viable throughout the 19~century (see Dike and Ekejiuba 1990:

253-58; Ekejiuba 1972b: 13; Northnip 1978b: 207, 220; 1979). The end of the Atlantic slave trade "was not followed by a sudden recession of trade in slave[s] but by a graduai worsening of trade'' @ike and Ekejiuba 1990: 257; Ekejiuba 1972b: 12). According to Northrup

(1978b: 207), "the end of the overseas slave trade did not bring an end to [the Aro] trading prominence." They retained their regional hegemony until British conquest in 1902 @ike and

Ekejiuba 1990: 259; Law 1993: 100). Why was this so?

The key feature of 19' century regional economy consisted not rnerely of the commercial mechanisms involved in the change from slave to palm oil trade but in the nature of production. Palm produce production was labour intensive. The region met the labour demand of the expanding palm produce market without a revolution in technology. Based on her study of the Ngwa of Igboland's palm belt, Susan Martin (1988: 33-34) has explained this technological stasis on the basis that production did not strain the labour force. True, the use of slaves in production was restncted to the privileged sections of the cornmurtities and production was based on household labour (see Northrup 1979: 8; Lovejoy 1983: 177-78;

Oriji 1983: 3 18, 3 19). Still, viewed from the region as a whole, labour pressures existed - contrary to Martin's observation. As Martin Lynn (1997: ch. 2, 124) has emphasized, the labour demand of the palm produce industry came at the expense of other production. The multiplier effect on regional labour supplies of the palm produce industry has been emphasized by Northrup (1978b: 215-23; 1979). This situation was mediated by the slave market, which moved labour from areas of high to those of low population densities. This development defined 1grn century regional political economy. -193-

In spite of the foregoing changes, Aro experience deviates from the "crisis of

adaptation" mode1 in two major ways. First, their principal cornrnodity, the captive, did not

disappear with the suppression of captive exports. Second, they did not go into production

immediately following the suppression of the overseas slave trafnc. When they did so in the

late 19" century, it was not for export crop agriculture and not in direct response to the abolition of the slave trade. They embarked on food production in response to the situation created by the involvement in palm oil production of hitherto food producing groups and to an increase in the regional population. Lacking adequate provisions themselves, the Aro were compelled to engage in food production agriculture by the 1890s. The palm producing groups provided markets for Aro agricultural surplus. Still, Aro involvement in food production did not supplant their involvement in trade. Rather, it signalled the diversification of their economy, in which agriculture overlapped with commerce.

Captives, Pdm Oil, and Economic Change, 1808-60

For three decades afler British abolition, captives remained the region's principal export, in spite of the British anti-slavery naval operations. Rather than spell doom to the traffic, the withdrawal of the British, paved the way for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Brazilian traders. This rnemory suMves in an Aro tradition collected in early 1996: "When the British bamed [the slave trade], the Portuguese continued to buy. ... [Indigenous] people continued to sel1 in order to accumu!ate money" (Oji and Okereke 1996). The quinquennium 181 1-15 witnessed the exportation of 33,100 captives. - 194-

Table 6.1: Captives Exporte4 by Quinquennia, 1811-60 (AU Chers; figures rounded)

Source: Eltis 1987: 250-52.

The quinquennium 18 16-20 witnessed the exportation of as many as 60,600 captives. In the fifteen months up to 182 1, 162 cargoes of captives left the shores of Old Calabar and 190 from Bomy (Hutchinson 1858: 1 12- 13). According to Richard Mather Jackson ([1826]

1934: 67, 145, 155-56), surgeon of the Kin~ston,a Liverpool merchant ship that visited

Bomy during 1825-26, the French, Spanish, Dutch and the Portuguese "have yearly taken away, as many, or more Slaves, than were ever exported f?om thence when such Tr&c was accounted lawful." Out of thirteen vessels at Bomy in Febniary 1826, as many as ten were slavers. Jackson estirnates that in the nine-month period, 29 October 1825- 1 August 1826, thirty-five slavers left Bonny with a total of 10,820 captives. In October 183 1, the British -195-

naval ship, the Black Joke, encountered five French slavers in Bomy, carrying a total of

1,622 captives. In November of the same year, ten French slaven were seen in Old Calabar,

"the srnailest of which would embark four hundred [captives]". Under the anti-slavery

treaties, Black Joke could not apprehend any of the slavers (see P. Leonard 1833: 150).

Chieka Ifemesia (1 959: 25 1-53) reports that the British were convinced that Spanish and

Portuguese slave traders' attempts to counter British anti-slavery rneasures weïe proactive

enough in the 1830s and included support of Niger nvenne mlers to attack British explorers.

Captive exports remained more or less at the 18 16-20 level until the years 1833-38 when

77,800 captives were exported. This figure was the highest quinquennium volume in the 19" century (Eltis 1987: 172).

The expansion of captive expons in the 1830s coincided with the expansion of palm oil exports. Macgregor Laird and R.A.K. Oldfield (1837: 102), who sailed the Niger between

1832 and 1834, observe that the "staple trade of the Eboe consists of slaves and palm oil."

Although it is said that the anti-slave trade treaty which the British government entered with

Old Calabar chiefs was "faithfully observed" (Walker 187 1: 137), the trade managed to suMve the treaty. As late as July 1852, six Spanish and French vessels were seen in Old

Calabar "prospecting for slaves with plenty of doubloons and mm" (quoted by Ekejiuba

l972b: 13). Treaties with New Calabar and Brass were not signed until 1 85 1 and 1856 respectively (Alagoa 1986: 126). Nevertheless, captive exports never recovered fully nom the downward slide that set in after the 1830s. By 1856-60, when captive exports finally halted in the region, only 4,400 were exported (see Table 6.1). Palm oil had become the region's chief export by the 1840s. P,-!zr c~mexirlexports of paim oil had begun in the second haif of the 18&

century, during the peak years of the slave trade. Captain John Adams (1832: 42-43), who

made trips to the Bight of Biafra in the last twenty years of the late 18' century, estimates

that 700 or 800 tons of palm oil were being exported annualiy from Old Calabar. The diary

entries of Antera Duke (1 956: 40,42,92, 93), illustrates this development. One Captain

Fairweather sailed with 250 captives and two tons of palm oil on 14 December 1785, and

"Tom Cooper's tender" sailed with 383 captives and four tons of palm oil on 22 January

1786. Although Ryder (1980: 242) suggests that "the slave trade [in Old Calabar was]

overshadowed by palm-oil and barwood" in the late 18~century, the palm oil trade rernained

small until British abolition in 1807 (see McPhee 1971: 32). Thereafler, British traders on the

coast concentrated on palm oil. By 1840, palm oil had outstnpped captives as the region's

chief expon. Its export value had by the 1870s nearly matched that of the Atlantic slave trade

at its peak (Eltis and Jennings 1988: 9461.'

Latham (1986: 271-72) has argued that the Aro were active in the palm oil trade and

had become so by the early 1840s. He supports his case with a reference made by the

mernbers of a British expedition dong the Cross River in November 184 1. They were told

that palm oil produced there "was disposed of to Eboes on the opposite side of the river,"

who sold it to coastal traders (Becrofi et al 1844: 272). Latham takes this statement to refer

to the Aro. Nor is he alone in thinking so. Admitting that the transition from the Atlantic

slave trade "was marked by a shifl to srnall-scale units," Lynn (1997: 58, 59, 63) has argued

1For reasons regarding the rise of the palm oil trade, see K.O.Dike (1956: 97-99), Latham (1986), Lynn (1997: 26-56), Nair (1 972: 30), and Northnip (1976, 1978b: 183-86). - 197- that "the longer-established elites of West Afnca were still able to assert their power" over the palm oil trade. The Aro, according to Lynn, "continued to play an important role in the export economy" of the Bight of Biafra. Felix Ekechi (198 1: 36,41) has found that the Aro acted as rniddlemen between producers around Oguta near the Niger and European hsin the delta. Even Northmp (1976: 361), who argues that "the palrn oïl trade produced a quite different inland organization" from that of the slave trade is of the view that the Aro "were not entirely shut out of the new palm oil trade;" they employed their network, expenence, capital and organizational ski11 to good use in the trade in palm oil and other comrnodities

(Nonhmp 1978b: 207). An Ibibio tradition has it that the Aro "would buy whatever they saw" when they visited the local markets (N. Obok 1973). This would include palm oil. To be sure, the Aro traded everything. But how practicable was it for them to trade heavily in palm oil?

In the absence of overwhelming empirical data, we might first explore the econornics of the palm oil trade. In doing this, 1 assume, like Hopkins, Law, and Lynn, that Aro concems were large-sale enterprises, while most of the non-Aro inland dealers in palm oil operated srnall-scale enterprises. Law provides a calculation of the outlay involved in the palrn oil trade vis à vis the slave trade. Coast-bound captives were self-transporting, whereas palm oïl needed to be camed by porters. Based on an observation made by Hugh Clapperton in the

1820s regarding the Yoruba country, Law (1995b: 10) calculates that one guard supe~sed up to five captives. This ratio is remarkably consistent with a 190 1 observation of Aro operations in the Cross River regi~n.~In contrast, the nodload of palrn oil per porter was

40-501bs, about five gallons. Where 320 gallons of paim oil equalled one captive in the 1830s,

the quantity carried per poner amounted to less than one-sixtieth of the value of one captive.

Thus, it required sixty-four porters to transport the equivalent value of one captive and 320

porters to transport the equivalent value of five captives, the work rate of one guard. This

means providing subsistence for 320 persons, compared to only six (one guard + 5 captives)

in the slave trade. Overland transportation cost for palm oil was, therefore, more than fifty

times as great as the cost of the equivalent value of captives.

Waterbome transportation cost for one ton (320 gallons) of palm oil involved

subsistence for 360 paddlers, whereas the transportation of an equivalent value of captives

(eighty souk) plus forty paddlers involved subsistence for only 120. On the basis of

waterbome transportation, the cost of palm oil was still three times that of the slave trade

(Law 1993: 98; 1995b: 10-1 1). The foregoing calculation shows that economies of scale in

palm oil marketing, the factor that would have given large-scale enterprises an edge over

small-scale ones, were negligible. Such as they were, cost economies applied only to river

transportation, a turf on which the Aro showed no flair whatsoever. The problem of cost

economies apart, Law (1995b: 12) observes that the palm oil trade allowed the participation

of small traders because it adrnitted of a small capital outlay. One unit of palm oil was less

than one-sixtieth the value of one captive. Based on econornic rationality, we can predict that

the Aro did not play a major role in the direct marketing of palm oil.

'~ouror five men were used in Vansiting twenty captives. See Co 520/8/30543:Morrisey, "Cross River Division, Slave Markets," 1 August 190 1. Clapperton reportai of 10-12 medguards for each batch of 50 captives (Law 1995b: 28 note 34). - 199-

A second reason why the Aro did not play a major direct role in the palm produce trade is empirical. Unlike the Atlantic slave trade era when their activities were essentially confined to the Coast, studies by Cookey (1974), Ekechi (1981), Lynn (1997: 63, 65,77), and Wariboko (1991) reved that traders from the city-states of Bo~y,New Calabar, Opobo, and Brass made sustained forays into the hinterland markets, buying, bulking and transporting palm produce. What implication wouid this development have for Aro participation in the palm oil trade? The coastal traders comrnanded river transportation, the only means by which large-scale movement of palm produce could make any economic sense. Although Lynn

(1 997: 168) argues that the Aro dorninated the pdm produce trade, his finding can be used to buttress the above contention: "Indeed, the volume of oil and kernels traded made coastal brokers' ability to provide labour and transport essential for the operation of [the inland trading] networks." The above observations, i.e, the cost economies problem, the role of coastal traders in hinterland palm produce markets, and their use of river transportation, are consistent with Northrup's (1 976) argument that the oil trade depended on trading organization different fiom that of the Atlantic slave trade era - although Northmp does not integrate the crucial role of coastal traders in his analysis. The Aro may have played a role as creditors to inland oil marketing groups, but this matter awaits future research. What is quite clear, as virtually every interested scholar (irrespective of position regarding the specific Am role) observes, is that the Aro continued to play a role in the export economy. This role was rather indirect. The Aro controlled the labour market through the slave trade, upon which their economy continued to depend. -200-

Markets and Slaves

The produce export trade, especiaily palm oil, had a salutary effect on the domestic slave trade. Eager to prornote trade in produce, the British in the Bight of Biafra welcomed the use of slave labour. The British Consul in the 185Os, Thomas Hutchinson, praised Kings Eyo and

Eyarnba of Old Calabar for seeking in 1842 technical assidance in their intention to employ their slaves in the cultivation of coffee and cotton, and to manufacture sugar. "These men, with a sagacity which did them much credit, saw that the slave population, becorning superabundant by the forbiddal of their exportation, would require employment to keep them fiom mischief, as well as to contribute to their daily sustenance." Apparently, the flag officer of Royal Navy's SP~,Commander Raymond, with whom coastal kings made an anti-slave trade treaty at the tirne, was equally impressed (see Hutchinson 1 858 : 1 13). In fact, the

British Consul saw slavery, not only as a means of producing export staples, but also as a direct solution to the Atlantic slave trade. He argued that

the extemal as well as internai slave trade will only be effectually put an end to when the chiefs and masters in Africa are taught, and understand, how far more profitably to themselves they cm exercise slave labour in the cultivation of their soil, than by selling it. They will then be brought to see, that it is not consistent with common sense, transporting away the native Afncans to Brazil to cultivate and manufacture sugar, to America to grow and pick cotton, to Cuba to aid in the tilling of tobacco, when the very same products can be obtained fiom their own ground at home (Hutchinson 1858: 264).

In about 1875, a British trading agent on the Niger, John Whitford (11 8771 1967: 163) urged an Abo prince to "make your slaves collea palm-oil to exchange for those desirable things

[European products]." Palm produce industry was the greatest employer of labour. -20 1-

The Bight of Biafra was the world's most important pdncil exporter in the 19'

century (Hartley 1977: 8). The development of the palm oil trade came with significant

economic growth. Growth was greatest in this region in dl of West Afnca (Nonhmp 1979:

5). Nevertheless, the production of palm oil was extremely labour intensive and inefficient.

The process required someone to climb the palm tree to cut the fruit, the hit to be gathered

and cut out from the bunch, shaken out and picked after a few days, and stearned and

pounded. Squeezing out the oil then followed (for details see Hartley 1977: 716- 18). Oil

makes up only 10% of the hit (A. Martin 1956: 12), and the prevailing practice of squeezing

oil by hand extracted only 55% to 60% of the oil (R.K. Udo 1970: 73). Using this method in

1980, it took two women one hour to squeeze out only one gallon of oil fiom already

pounded hits (S. Martin 1988: 33). Clearly, palm oil production would have stretched

household labour to the lirnit. This scenario was conducive for the growth of slavery.

Nonhp has identified three economic zones in the region dunng the 19' century - coastal, palm belt, and northleastern (see Northnip 1979: 5- 11). Put together, the labour demand in al1 three zones sustained a sizeable slave market. First, the coastal region utilized rnanpower for trading and for manning canoes employed by the traders in their trade

(Northnip 1979: 6-7, 12). For example, King William Dappa Pepple of Bomy is reported to have accepted captives increasingly in liquidation of debts owed him and increased his own holding (Hargreaves 1987: 222). Wealthy merchants in the coastal city-states established food producing, slave worked plantations of mainly yams and plantains (see Becroft, et al

1844: 268, 271; Cookey 1974: 15, 63; Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 252; Ekejiuba 1972b: 14;

Latharn 1973: 91-96;Lovejoy 1983: 178; Nair 1972: 37,4243; Walker 1875). -202-

The second zone consisted of the densely populated centrai Igboland (much of which

fell within the palm belt) and the more stratified inland trading comrnunities. The palm belt

also encompassed the entire Ngwa, lsuarna and much of the Cross River areas. Much of the

oil extraction work was done by women (see Becroft, et al 1844: 274; S. Martin 1988: 32;

R.K.Udo 1970: 73). Consequently, the cessation of that trac had a salutaxy effect on

labour in a region that exported by far the highest proportion of fernales in the heyday of the

Atlantic slave trade. It is noteworthy that the demand for captives in the palm belt appears to

have been on the increase in the 1860s (Onji 198 1: 3 18). In addition, the populations of the

trading groups in this region "were swollen by the addition of slaves" (Northrup 1979: 8).

The third zone identified by Northmp was the area north and east of the palm belt, the slave-

dependent food basket of the region. Characterized at the beginning of the 19' century by

low population densities the settlements in this region spread and expanded as the century

wore on (see also Floyd 1969: 50-5 l).' Significant natural population increase was

complemented by the addition of "large numbers of slaves" bought fiom Aro traders

(Nonhp 1979: 9- 10; W.R.G.Horton 1954: 3 1 1; G.I.Jones 196 1).

The labour needs in al1 three regions were directly or indirectly related to the palm oil

trade. Slaves constituted much of the region's labour force, fumishing a slave market.

Northnip's taxonomy does not allow for the Aro, who cnss-crossed the three zones. As in

the 18' century, the Aro continued to overlap the zones through their trading and oracular

operations. The Aro were the largest slave holders of the hinterlaqd. In addition to sheer

'~heseprocesses were a source of bloody conflit% the groups in this region, z~chthat were still prevalent in the early colonial period (see Bridges n.d. : 68-69). -203- labour need, communities ravaged by small pox replenished their populations with captives imported from elsewhere. In the late 19¢ury, captives were also demanded for such non- economic purposes as use in human sacrifice, a function of economic prosperity (see Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 252-53; Ekejiuba 1972b: 14; Ofonagoro 1972: 80).

Another reason for the continuing prominence of the Aro is that they expanded existing diaspora communities and established new ones. For example, as many as four new lineage-groups were added to nde-Imogu between 1840 and 1850 (see figure on fission in

Chapter 5). Nde-Eni Aro, especially nde-Ikelionwu, added new linaege-groups from migrants from the Nn-Awka area, and assimilated some of their neighbours wliile expanding (Agu

198% 17; Chinyele 1972; Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 180-8 1; J. Ike 1972; M. Iloha 1972; J.

Kanu 1972; Ngene 1972; Nwene 1972; C. Okafor 1986: 122; N. Okoli 1972). In about the

1850s, the nde-Eni settlement of nde-Ikelionwu established a setîlement in Ihiala in southern

Nri-Awka region (see 1.0. Nwankwo 1986). In the 1850s and 1870s respectively, two Aro groups, nde-Njoku and Nde-Imoko, moved into the upper Imo River, just east of nde-

Izuogu. Soon, some elements of the former group joined another Aro group at Ihube in the north-east (see Umo nd.: 57). Increased Aro operations in north-eastem Igboland in the second half of the 19" century (see W.R.G.Horton 1954: 3 1 1; G.I. Jones 196 1; Northmp

1979: 10) should at least account for some of the many Aro settlements in that region.

As the Aro were establishing more diaspora settlements, existing slave marts continued to wax and new ones seem to have been opened. The Middle Belt and the Niger markets are relevant in this connection. Although the Aro had been active in the Middle Belt markets siice the 18' centuy, it was in early 19' century that they becarne influentid in the -204- region (see Ijoma and Njoku 1991: 208) and the west Niger. The Aro are said to have been

"everywhere among ... Okpoto, 1ken-i and Egedde [of the Middle Belt]: the latter had a law prohibiting the killing of Aro and threatening any village who did so with war. Ogumali sold them exclusive rights against foreigners in these markets" (Mathews 1922: 9). Traditions and records lefl by European explorers, traders and missionaries have described Niger slave markets. A few markets operated in the Onitsha vicinity, where captives from the west Niger, the Igala area and other northem communities were sold (see Chukwura 1977; Kwentoh

1977; Mefo and Ibe 1972). The main Onitsha market attracted 800 to 2,000 persons from the rivenne communities, from the Igbo heartland and as far as Igala (Crowther and Taylor 1859:

256, 288). Another Onitsha market, an island mart, recurred in eyewitness reports throughout the 19' century. British Consul John Beecroft mentions "Kirree" in the report of his 1836 trip on the Niger, as "a small place, where a market is held every fourteen days" (Becroft 1836:

425). The members of the 1841 Niger expedition reported about the same market (Allen and

Thomson 1848a: 270-7 1). It may be this same market to which the Abo-based British trader,

William Cole (1862: 79), refers in a book published in 1862 as the Onitsha-based

"Ohvos's'so~ the principal palm-oil and slave depot in the Niger." In 1890, Major Macdonald

(1890: 94) reports that sixty to seventy captives were being brought from Igala each month and sold to the Igbo and the delta peoples at the same market. In descnbing the market, also in the 189Os, Harold Blindloss (1 898: 295-96) observes: "men and women were bought and sold at the rate of one hundred a-month until the Niger rising with the rains swept the maritet and slave-dealers' huts away." Called Ikiri or Okiri by the Igala (and Onva by the Abo), this market was at the Niger-Anambra estuary north of Onitsha (Afigbo 1977: 125). Whether or not the Aro participated in this Onitsha market, its existence is usefil in

understanding Aro operations. Some of the Niger riverine states which had access to it

seived the Aro network (see Ekechi 198 1: 36; Isichei 1976: 62; G.I. Jones 1989: 36;

Northrup 1978b: 130; Ofonagoro 1972: 89). Aro involvement in the Niger states can be felt

from the reports of exploring Europeans and Afncan repartriate rnissionaries. In July 1857,

Samuel Adjai Crowther and other rnissionaries saw an "Aron" man at Osomari (Crowther and

Taylor 1859: 23). Baikie mentions the Aro dialect as one of "those of which we heard during

our voyageyyof the Niger in 1854 (Baikie 1856: 308). The Obi of Abo gave one of his sons

the narne Chukwuma, sipifjing a person whose birth was co~ectedwith the Aro oracle,

Chukwu (or Ibiniuk~abi).~In his study of Aro settlements, Kanu Umo (n.d. [1947?]: 90)

mentions "Benin Aro" but gives no details. Aro influence in the Niger rivenne states of

Oguta, Atani and Assay during the 1890s were of much concem to the British (see Anene

1959: 22-23). When in 1899 the Aro "proclaimed a % Ju' of barremess on al1 women who

should crack palm nuts and deal in kemels ... the kemel trade in sorne localities fell off 50 per

cent or rn~re."~~he British High Cornmissioner, Ralph Moore, reponed in 1902, that as

many as 800 persons visited the oracle yearly from the Niger cornrnunities dunng the 1890s.~

The area of the strongest Aro influence remained the east of the Niger.

The Aro-controlled fair at Bende remained the most important for sometime after the

%ames of persons bom after connilting Chuwku were Chukwuma, Uz- Ukpabi. Chh(Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 150).

'CO 52016133280: More to Secretary of State. 11 Oaober 190.

'~eeCO 520114: Memorandum Concerning the Aro Expedition Derailhg Circumstances that Led to It and the Etesults Which It is Anticipated WU Ensure Therefrom," 24 April 1902:lO;Moor 1908: 22). -206-

suppression of the Atlantic slave trade. Baikie (1 856: 309- 10) lemed about Bende in 1854

on the Niger: "When the foreign slave trade was behg actively carried on, this town was in

the Zenith of its wealth and importance, and even since has declined but little, as it still

remains the centre of the home slave mart for the cou?, and the south of I'gbo." Up to six

trading caravans of 100-200 each lef€ nde-Izuogu for the Bende fair every twenty-four days

in the 1890s @ike and Ekejiuba 1990: 120; Ekejiuba 1972a: 18). Uzuakoli, located in the

north-west of Bende, had become a serious rival by the nid- 19' century. Aro traditions relate

that Okoro Idozuka of nde-Izuogu, probably the richest Aro merchant of his day,' moved his

buying centre from Bende to Umakoli in the mid-lgh century (Maduadichie 1996; E.N.

Okoli 1977: 33). However, Uzuakoli does not seem to have superseded Bende until 1896,

when the Aro moved their operations permanently to Umakoli, as punishment for Bende for

receiving British Major Leonard who had corne on an espionage mission (see A.G. Leonard

1898 for details of this trip). Umakoli was located closer to the major Aro settlements in the

central Igboland, the frontier of the palm oil rich Isuama and densely populated Nn-Awka

region, a major source of captives.

Related to the ascendancy of Uzuakoli was the imponance of local slave markets in

central Igboland. Traditions collected by various researchers from the comrnunities

neighbounng the Aro settlements in central Igboland describe the operations of these markets

'~raditionsrelate that this merchant once mopped up the money in circulation in the hinterland by seiiing out aii his wares and refusing to buy any goods (Balogun 1991: vi; Mbadiwe 1991: 5-6; Monye 1991: 2; E.N. Okoli 1977). -207-

in graphic details.' Nkwo-Inbo of Igbo-Ukwu, in the part of the Nn-Awka region closer to

the Aro settlernents, was a particularly important market. Considering the complexity of

Igbo-Ukwu's economy, this market is likely to have been well-established long before the

establishment of the Aro diaspora comrnunities in that Mcinity during the rnid-18' century. A

direct route linked Igbo-Ukwu with nde-Iniogu's slave emporium (Onokala 1994: 122). A

network of ancillary slave markets abounds on, and in the proximity of, this route (see CS.

Umeh 1984: 13, 32). Traders converged at the Igbo-Ukwu market fiom al1 of the Nd-Awka

region, Aro-Chukwu other and places. Igbo-Ukwu traders and agents assembled captives for

sale fiom many places within the Nri-Awka ais(see Ezenyem 198 1 : 20-22; Ezenyenenwe

1976; H. Ezeone 1976; E. Umeafonta 1976). Aro traders were seen with "baskets of

tobacco" in these cornrnunities throughout the 19* century (see Akpu 1996; Igwilo 1996a;

Monye 1991; E. Umeafonta 1976).

The mode of 19' century Aro trader identified as "Ekwenkaiu" gives us an idea of the

manner of the transactions at Wo-Igbo. "He would buy the slaves on an MNJo day, then

on the following day [Awho], he paid his customers. When al1 his customers had assembled,

he brought down the basket of tobacco with which he paid his customers for the slaves" (U.

Ezeijezie 1976). Said one elder: 'Wdizuogu traders ... used to stay in our town fiom time to

time with baskets of tobacco with which they bought slaves7' (E. Umeafonta 1976). Okoro

Idomka is said to have made the best fiom these arrangements (Akpu 1996; Igwegbe 1962;

'~eeFor e.xample, E. Asiegbu 1985; Ezeijezie 1976; Ezekwerempi 1976; Ezenwadiugwu 1976; H. Ezeone 1976; C.E. Igwe 1992; niimnegbu 1986; Ire 1981; J. Mbaekwe 1977; Mgbeahurike 1977; Nwo ji 1986; J. Ogbuozobe 1985; N. Ogbuozobe 1985; D. Oji 1978; D. Okpala 1976; RO. Okpara 1979; Onokala 1994; Onyilagha 1985; Nkagbu 1981; E. Umeafonta 1976; Umeukeje 1976. -208-

E.N.Okoli 1977). "He was staying in his mothets land while trading [in] slaves because his grandfathets relatives were helping him to get enough slaves and there he decreased the population of the inhabitants by canying them away" (Igwegbe 1962: 34).

Social and economic conditions in the Igbo heartland are relevant in understanding why it supplied a high proportion of Biafra's captives. These conditions were products of cultural practices and pressures on resources. Owerre-Ezukala, north of the major central

Igbo Aro settlements, provides a mode1 by which the interaction of religion, mariage, work and credit effectively enabled enslavement in the lgh century. Mathias Ukonu describes the pressure under which men were to marry. Mmiage was so important for men that an unmarried man was the object of derision. Even on death, the leaders of the women bom in the extended farnily (umu ada) cursed his body, forbidding hirn from re-incarnating. Men were under great pressure to marry, but bridewealth included two heads of cattle (Ukonu

1979: 17). Suitors often had to borrow money as a result. For their part, creditors sold irredeemable debtors. In a society where mamage was so important and men paid excessive bridewealth, sellable debtors would be in plentifid supply. The system obviously also produced a small class of lenders who doubled as slave dealers. Thus, men routinely engaged in production relations that often led to their enslavement and the reproduction of a creditor- slaver class.

One strong indication of the continuing viability of the slave trade is found in the Aro apprenticeship system. The Aro made their children trade lesser wares in preparation for trading ultimately in captives. These children "learnt to trade by trading" through a progressive system of tutelage and apprenticeship before the age of ten. Igwegbe's -209-

description of this system needs to be quoted extensively because the system reflected the

commercial dynamics of the region: the continuing professionalization of trade, the

importance of the slave trade to the Aro economy, the nature of the retail trade, and

consumption patterns.

Children started to trade at the age of six. Their first stage was the Lizard Trade (Mgbere Mgwere). ... Our children caught liards and sold them [in neighbouring non-Aro markets where there was high demand for them] at a penny each - thirty cowries. ... before a year was over, Our boys had sold out nearly three to four million lizards. They saved up their proceeds for the next stage in their trade lessons which they entered at the age of ten. The second stage was the tortoise- trade. This trade was devised by parents to teach their children trade crafts. The tortoise is a crafty animal, and unless a boy would be as crafty, he could not continue. [The people of the Nri-Awka region] dei@ the soi1 and consequently had the belief that the tortoise belonged to the god of the soi1 - Aja-Ana. Therefore they did not even touch it. The tortoises were collected by Our boys without any interference [because] Our people had mamage aflinities with most of the villages. The tortoise thus collected were sold at 1s each - 400 cowries. The towel trade was the third stage and was started at the age of 12. It was a more advanced trade confirming the courage and resourcefulness Iearnt at the lizard-trade stage, and the crafl and determination acquired in the tortoise-trade. The young traders travelled to Nkwo-Nunyqg popularly known as Oduogo, to buy bales of towels which they retailed at home. This trade took a very long tirne, for a boy would continue in it till he assumed the age of 20 or 21. At 22, he looked on to the final stage - The Slave Trade (Igwegbe 1962: 49-5 1).

Before plunging into the slave trade, the young trader still had to serve a bief period of direct

apprenticeship under an established trader, "during which he would leam and observe the

secret doctrine of 'Our rod is Our truth, and our truth is Our wealth'." This 1st stage ushered

the trader into manhood (Igwegbe 1962: 5 1). Still, the young trader remained attached to his

'This market was situated ktween Okigwe and Umuahia and is said to have been a slave market (see C.O. Odeagha 1987: 82). -2 10-

mentor's enterprise until he accumulated enough money to make him feel secure to trade

independently. If he did well as an independent trader, impressed fathers gave him their sons

in apprenticeship (Nwana 1950: 2). This system produced the merchant-warriors of the late

19th and early 20' century. The best example is perhaps Igwgbe Odum, alias Omenuko

(provider in time of scarcity) (see Afigbo 1966). Igwegbe was a prominent trader in the late

lgh century and he later played a significant role in the colonial politics of a number of major

central Igbo Aro settlement^.'^ The apprenticeship system also diffused to other Igbo groups.

For example, Onyeama of Eke, ex-slave dealer and renowned early colonial warrant chief of

Agbaja who wielded influence on all of northern Igboland, was a product of the 19'" century

apprenticeship system (Onyeama 1982).

Two developments in the 1860s placed krther pressures on regional manpower and

sustained the slave market. First, palm kernels were exported for the first time either in 1862

(G.I. Jones 1989: 53) or 1869 (Latham 1986: 270). To the labour intensive palm oil

production, additional labour time was needed for what Isichei (1976: 95) has described as

"cracking thousands upon thousands of palm kemels." Cracking kemels meant a lot of further

and largely unrewarding work for women and children (G.I.Jones 1989: 53; Lovejoy 1983 :

176-77; R.K.Udo 1970: 72-73). The second 1860s development with implication for

manpower was the foundation of Opobo in 1869. Henceforth, Opobo, an offshoot of Bonny

strategically placed at the mouth of the hoRiver, attracted much hinterland trade that had

gone to Bonny (see Alagoa 1986: 126; Cookey 1974: 89; Cotterell n.d.: 60; Oriji 1983: 320).

Opobo acquired many people in establishing itself as a regional power. Aro traditions indicate

1%or Igwegbe Odum's biography. see Nwana (1950). -21 1- that Opobo was the leading coastal port in the late 1gh cenhiry (see N.A. Anyakoha 1996;

Oji and Okereke 1996, J.E. Uche 1996). Further, both Opobo and Bomy obviously recouped the heavy human casualties (see Cookey 1974: 67; Cotterell n.d.: 59) occasioned by a particularly destructive Bo~ycivil war that led to Opobo's establishment. According to Dike and Ekejiuba, Opobo's population grew fiom 1,500 in 1869 to about 20,000 in 19 1 1 (see

Dike and Ekejiuba 1990: 252).

As the slave trade continued, the Ibiniuk~abioracle remained a major instrument of

Aro influence. European visitors reported about the fame of this oracle throughout the lgh century (see Baikie 1856: 336; I.A.B. Horton 1868: 183-85; Hutchinson 1861: 46-47, 54;

G.I. Jones 1963: 69, 87, 147, 152,210; A.G. Leonard 1906: 486, 254). mer Opobo had been established, King Jaja, described as "the most powerfbl potentate the Oil Rivers ever produced" (Cowan 1935: 400; Johnston 1923 : 178), was desirous to court and protect Aro trade. He "made certain that those within his sphere of influence respected the authority of the Aro oracle." In one instance, he had one leading citizen of Ndoki, north of Opobo, flayed alive for ignoring the injunction of the Aro oracle (Cookey 1974: 90).

While the intemal slave trade went on, Aro economy began to change fùndarnentally in the late 19"' century. It was not simply Aro inability to participate in the produce trade. The new dynamic consisted in the consequences of the production and marketing of produce - the same forces that sustained the intemal slave trade. Thus, the main problem that confronted the Aro was not the end of the Atlantic slave trade per se. but the response of non-Aro groups to the palm oil trade and the macroeconomic consequences of the palm produce industiy. The Aro responded to these developments by diversmg into agriculture. -212-

Transition to Agriculture: Slavery and Expansion, 1890-1905

Both in number and size, the concentration of Aro settlements was highest in central

Igboland, in the vicinity of the palm belt. The large settlements of nde-Izuogu and nde-Eni were located at the northern periphery of the beit. The concentration on palm produce by societies that had supplied the Aro with provisions in the hey day of the Atlantic slave trade created a structural problem for the Aro. This is because, like the coastal trading communities, the Aro neglected farming during the overseas slave trade @ike and Ekejiuba

IWO: 255). Also, as one nde-Izuogu respondent, Eugene Enekwa (1966), testified recently,

"palm trees constitute an impediment to farming when there are rnany of them. These people had more oil than we did." Further, the population of the entire region was increasing as a result of the suppression of the Atlantic slave trade. The labour intensity of palm produce production ensured that population increase did not necessanly translate to surplus population.

Because of their fixation with group expansion, the Aro population, especially in the large diaspora settlements, was growing at an even higher rate. Aro-nde-Izuogu was sometimes mistaken for Aro-Chukwu itself in the 19" century. For example, based on intelligence gathered at Abo, the interpreter for the British 1854 Niger Expedition reported as follows:

The principal place of worship is called Anno; and is much larger than Aboh. The houses are high. The general trade is in slaves fYom the intenor. The town is situated on the banks of the River Immo, which, above, flows through a rocky country; the water is clear, and very rapid. Canoes can communicate with River Immo at Anno, by means of co~ectingcreeks from Aboh, by way of nDoki (quoted by Allen and Thomson I848a: 270).11

By about 1890, the population density of nde-hogu was about 1,832 persons per square

mile over an area of twelve square miles.'* Other Aro settlements experienced a sirnilar

process of growth and consolidation. While this population growth was on, palm produce,

upon which much of the region depended, entered a period of depression. From the 1860s,

the development of oil substitutes elsewhere in the world depressed palm oil prices (McPhee

1971: 33-34). This depression lasted into the 1890s (Hopkins 1968: 586) and was still

obvious to British Major A.G. Leonard (1898: 205) who went as far as Bende in 1896. The

value of tobacco, from which the Aro had made a fortune and which was a central

commodity in the hinterland, had depreciated significantly.

By the l89Os, when the "worsening of trade ... reached its climax" (Ekejiuba 1972b:

12), the Aro had begun to respond to the food problem. They transforrned from a food

consuming to a food producing society within a generation. This development is still fiesh in

Aro traditions. "Our people began to move into the fertile areas for the purposes of

'"The Onitsha-ûased missionary, Taylor, was told that "Aron" was three days'jowney from Onitsha. Upon fûrther enquiry, Taylor was told that Bende, which was one day and a half nearer to Onitsha from Aro-Chukwu, was six days from Onitsha and four days from Inzi (probably Uzii near nde-izuogu) (Crowther and Taylor 1859: 252,341). Taylor was confiised. These were exactly the journey times from nde-Izuogu to Bende and Onitsha respectively (J.O.Okoro 1996).

12~colonial anthropological report of the mid-1930s estimated 9 16 persans per square mile for the part of nde- hogu corresponding to the area occupied by the whole of the cornmunity during our pend of coacern (see Mayne 1935: 3). This estimate was made after the massive emigration to the east Irno region sUice the 1890s. Nde-Izuogu population would have been extremely dense before this dispersal. This report, like most colonial reports on nde- hop,did not cover the east Irno region, where the majonty of nde-Izuogu people had corne to live by the 1920s. Al1 limage-groups are represented in that region; most had the majority of tbeir population in the region and some limage-groups settled exclusively there. Naturai population increase would have boosted the population bemn this tirne and the 1930s, but not enough to refill the population to its pre-1890s density. The 1,832 figure given here is double the one in the report. -2 14- agriculture. Masters began to send the persons of their household to produce food. These areas were also uzo iie [trade routes]" (Kanu-Igbo 1996b). According to other Aro elders,

"many of our kinspeople .. . rnigrated in order to fmbig yarns" (M. S. Igwe 1996; Akpu

1996). The establishment by the nde-Eni settlement of Ajali of nde-Nwafo in the upper Irno

River in the late 1gh century was connected, among other things, with yarn and cocoyam (see

Umo n.d.: 67). Dunng his trip to the hinterland, Major Leonard (1898: 201) saw "elaborate and extensive yam fiames" in a small Aro "colony" near Aba in southern Igboland during late

September 1896. This penod is associated with new waves of Aro movement - including those Rom nde-Izuogu -into Ngwa communities (see Ariaba 1988: 15). Donald MacAlister

(1 902: 63 l), a militay officer of the British Aro Field Force that conquered Aro-Chukwu in

190 1-02, reports seing yam fields. Wealthy Aro men began to be known not only by the number of their dependents, but also by the size of their yam barns. For instance, Igwegbe's peasant parents were regarded as poor because, "although they had yams, [these yams] were not numerous" (Nwana 1950: 2). Wealthy women were also identifiable by the size of their harvests of cocoyams, beans, cassava, corn and other such crops regarded by the men as ancillaiy .

The agricultural revolution was most pronounced in nde-Izuogu. As G.I. Jones (1989:

44) has observed, it also started earlier there than in ho-Chukwu. Early nde-Izuogu farms produced food crops "for sale to families of Ndizorgu men trading abroad and to the overpopulated communities on the surrounding highland." The banks of the howere favoured because of their arability. The ho,its many tributaries and the swarnps also provided plenty of aquatic resources. It is possible that the later arriving Aro groups in the -215-

upper hoRiver area, nde-N'oh and nde-Imoko-na-Onu, who began to settle on the banks

of the Imo from the late 1850s worked the land. They had moved fiorn the dry and infertile

eastem Ni-Awka region (T.O.Okereke 1996). Later, elements fiom most of the nde-hogu

lineage-groups moved closer to the West bank of the hoRiver in search of land. Aro

historian, J.G. Okoro (1 985: 3 9, writes in the case of nde-Izuogu: "As population increased

... expansion beyond the original boundaries became inevitable. This led to changes in the size

and complexion of the colony. Individuals, families and groups of families soon began to

move across rivers and swamps, embracing obstacles and planting new agricultural sub-

colonies here and there. "

Migrations into agricultural land were still taking place in the early years of the 20'

century at the tirne of British amval. The British rnisrecognized as large-scale immigration

from Aro-Chukwu the post-primary migrations within and around nde-hogu in the first two

decades of 20" century. As late as February 1912, Captain W.G. Ambrose who commanded a

British patrol reported that "Ndisiorgu - the large Aro settlement on the western boundary ...

is gradually absorbing al1 the surrounding villages. .. . The surplus population of Arochukwu

are flocking into the corner of the district - and obtaining lands in al1 directions from the

1bos."l3

In Aro-Chukwu, wealthy traders established farm villages ("plantations") on its

outskirts on both banks of the Cross River, using mainly slave labour (Ijoma and Njoku 1991:

"~eeNAE Conf. E 1711 1-CALPROF 13/4/7:Weekly Report of Okigwe Exon for Week Ending 11/2/12.For some of the land cases chat resulted, see NAE 35/19204KIDIST4/2/32: "Land Cases;" NAE 32/21-OKIDIST W3/38. "Quaterly Reports," p. 2; NAE OKIDIST-4/4/111711922. "Various Petitions and Complaints;"NAE 46/1920-OKIDIST4/2/41. "Land Cases & Instructions &c. - Re;" NAE 65/1924-OKlDIST4/6/58. "Okigwi Division - Annual Report 1924;" NAE 101/1928-OIST 4/10/74."Annual Report 1928." -2 16-

303-04; G.I. Jones 1989: 44; C. Okafor 1986: 1 15; K. Oji 1972; Dike and Ekejiuba 1990:

252; G.I. Jones 1989: 44; E. Okoro 1996). As absentee landlords, merchants, such as

Ijomanta, Okoroji and cocoa planter Okoro Ume al1 played significant roles in the emergence of these communities in many agricultural regions (Ijoma 1994: 42). Initially, Aro people temporarily settled and fmed these farm villages during the farming season, but they began later to settle there permanently (C. Okafor 1986: 1 15-16). Each of Okoroji's three fan settlements is said to have numbered 1,600 inhabitants by 1900 (Ekejiuba 1972b: 14). This man also founded a settlernent, nde-Okoroji, in the upper Imo River region in about 1900.

The settlers initially came from Aro-Chukwu as protectors of a local group against a powefil neighbour, but they soon settled dom to farming (see Chikezie 1977; Irokobe

1977; Kalunta 1977; E.O. Mmeregini n.d.; G.C. Mmeregini 1978; R.O. Mmeregini 1977;

Nlebedum 1977; Nzom 1977; Oduman 1977; Onukwube 1978; Onyeahankeya 1977;

Onyemara 1977; Umo n.d.: 78-80). Although available traditions from nde-Eni do not identify it as late 19" century change, many are consonant with John Ike's (1972) account that one of the reasons the people now "lived very far away from one another" was the

"search for fertile land".

The Aro did not simply produce food for local consumption; they produced surpluses for the market. Nde-Imogu in particular became well-known for agriculture (O. Arodiogbu

1996; Enekkwa 1996; Obinani 1996; G.N. Okoli 1996). Crabs and lizards were in high demand in neighbounng markets. According to Madam Nwarnbego Okoli (1 W6), a pioneer of one of the east Imo settlements in about 1900: "After the first rain, we used baskets to gather crabs in the fields. These crabs were really large. When you took these animals to -2 17-

Awho Umunna [a neighbouring non-Aro market], you were weighed down by money!" ûther

accounts are consistent with this testimony (Arodiogbu 1996; Enekwa 1996; Obinani 1996).

Implications of Agricultural Production

The implications of Aro involvement in food production were many. The most obvious was

spatial expansion, and secondary and post-secondary migrations into agricultural regions. In

Aro-nde-Izuogu, the movement spread eastwards across the Imo River (Ofe Imo). According

to its present der, Eze John Dike II, "It was the quest for living space. Nde-Amazu, for

instance, live in six ssparate places ... These groups al1 migrated from the original nde-

Amazu, that is, nde-Amazu-Uno [nde-Amam at home], in search of 'settler colonies1.Other lineage-groups .. . are equally so dispersed. They were looking for places to settle. Otherwise, they would be living in one place" (J.O.Dike 1996). But did this movement really resolve the problern of living space?

Expansion into agricultural regions had two contradictory consequences for late 19' century tensions. First, migration across the Imo served as a vent for social tensions.

Discontent among subordinate groups found an outlet in the new areas. Individuals and whole lineage-groups moved away to escape fiorn margindization by their superiors or stronger neighbours. One group was determined to settle on a place where rivers would form its boundaies with other settlements. This was a way to minimize extemal interference (see

O. Arodiogbu 1996). Both the oppressed and the non-oppressed migrated into the new areas, but the marginalized groups made good use of the opportunity to practise famûng outside the nose of their direct supenors (Arodiogbu 1996; Martina Ike 1995; Igwilo l996a, 1 996b; C. -218-

O koli 1996;).

Second, if migration into the agricultural regions served as an escape from tensions, it was also a source of civil warfare in the late 19' century. The quest for land gave free reign to the warrior ethos prevalent in the large central Igbo Aro settlernents (see Nwokeji, forthcoming). Nde-Izuogu groups, in particufar, fought againa one another in the scramble for land, which had sometimes earlier been seized fiom pre-existing groups via concerted efforts. As one of my respondents surmised, "we first opened up the place and later began to quarrel over boundaries" (Maduadichie 1996). Because of the new importance of land, bloody civil wars were fought among nde-lzuogu groups and between nde-Izuogu groups on the one hand and the various pre-existing cornrnunities on the other.

The etymology of the new Aro settlements indicates the circumstances of their formation. Some of the names of the settlements tell about their agricultural origins; others bear eloqiient testimony to origins in oppression by slave-owning over seMIe groups. In nde-

Izuogu, such names as Ikpa-Akaputa (field of the ninaway) and Ik~a-Anaeze(field of the refùgee) exampli@ this phenornenon. One of the Aro groups that had settled in the the region in around the 1870s, nde-Imoko, had the acronym Ik~aA- (field of the leopard) in reference to its leopard-infested site. Old settlements in the well-drained original settlernents are generically referred to as ochie uno (ancient home), while the low country settlements are referred to as nde-ohia (people of the bush). Each of the ochie uno settlements is followed by the suffix "I.&' (home), and each of the nde-Ohia settlernents is followed by ikpa (field) and then suffixed with the specific ecological or historical theme that marked its establishment, or by the name of the individual that sponsored or founded it (Kanu-Igbo 1996a). In the nde-Eni cluster of settlements, place names as Obinilma (she who lives in the field) and Amam

(home in the field) are common among the younger villages.

The imperatives of food production also catalysed the acquisition of slaves and other

dependents. People acquired slaves to produce food. They also acquired land to enhance their

ability to acquire more slaves. The acquisition of slaves and the acquisition of land thus

became mutually reinforcing in food production; the more slaves one had, the more land he

needed and vice versa. So great was the demand for dependents that both free persons and

slaves changed hands fiequently among the Aro in the late 19" century (E. Ike 1985; Martina

Ike 1996; E. Nwankwo 1996; T.O.Okereke 1996; G.N.Okoli 1996; E. Okoro 1996; J.G.

Okoro 1996). This developrnent shows that, rather than a glut, as G.I.Jones has suggested,

the supply of captives did not meet the demand for it."

Related to this great need for people, stalwart Aro women (a~andinnwanyi or ikwusi

nwan~i)also acquired many slaves in this period, mainly for agricultural tasks. Although

these women did not own land, their usumict rights allowed them to establish many farms.

They also used their ofien many dependents in commercial tasks.15 This development is

significant because, before this period, the role of Aro women in production and commerce

was obscure.

'kro penons seem to have been sold to coasîai peoples in signifiant nwnbers during this time. Whereas captive samples up to rnidcentury do not reveal Aro persons, traditions and docurnentary evidencc show that many Aro were sold to the coastal city-states in the late 19" century. The most interesting case was, perhaps, Anyacho Aniche, alias Kokai, who was sold at this time to an Opobo master, Cookey. He returned to nde-hogu in the early 1920s after becoming a tacher with the Primitive Methodist Mission. 1 found a sketchy entry on this man in a report of a CMS pasior, S. Okechukwu. See CMS A 3/0 1923: Haif Yearly Report - January to June 1923: Ndi- Izuogu Parish: Appendix July 1923. I owe the full story to Chief Maxwell Ekejiuba (1996).

?he most mentioned women in this category include Mgbokwo Anyaku, Mgbon Erimma, Ucheime Ijorna, Nghedi Ukpabia, Mgbokwo Udumaga and Ikodie Udozuka. -220-

Contemporaneous Aro men seem to have m&ed more wives than had hitherto been

the case, in the fashion that Nakanyike Musisi (1991) calls "elite polygyny" - defined as

marrying more than four wives. Except the founder of nde-Ikelionwu in nde-Eni, Ikelionwu

Ufere, who is rnentioned in one tradition to have manied "about twenty wives" or "many

wives" (J. Ike 1972; C. Kanu 1972;N. Okoli 1972), other historical Aro men of the 18'

centus, do not seem to have practised elite polygyny. But by the late 19' century, wealthy

Aro men came to distinguish themselves by acquiring many wives (J.G. Okoro 1996).

Agncultural work was a major consideration in marrying many wives (M.S. Igwe 1996;

Kanu-Igbo 1996b; Maduadichie 1996; J.G. Okoro 1996). Thus, 1gh century transitions

occasioned changes in mariage patterns.

Although Patrick Manning (1990: 142) also finds a change in marriage patterns, his

general observation on the Afncan situation is the reverse of the Aro case. According to him,

the suppression of overseas captive exports equalized sex ratios within Afican societies and

that, as a result, the "easy polygyny" of the Atlantic slave trade era gave way to a system in

which young men could hardly find spouses. John Hippisley (1 764: 14-15), who had, like

Manning, sought to correlate the male orientation of the Atlantic slave trade with the incidence of polygyny in Afica during the 18' century, noted that this factor in itself did not explain the practice. Assuming, however, that Manning's observation is valid in most other parts of Atlantic Afnca, where exported men outnumbered women by a ratio of 2: 1, it cannot be so in Biafra. Here, the export female sex ratio was about 40% (see Chapter 4).

Consequently, the suppression of overseas captive exports had a different impact. Rather than decrease polygyny, the suppression of the Atlantic slave trade increased it among the Aro. -22 1-

Indications abound that this was the case among other groups in the region (see Basden

1966: 236; Ofonagoro 1972: 84-86). This is not to suggest that people married many wives

or acquired female slaves for the simple reason that women abound. They did so because

wives were needed for agricultural labour at this penod - and more. Adam Jones's (1995:

106) finding regarding Gold Coast female slave holders parallels the situation arnong the Aro

and Igbo. Women "valued female slaves not merely as a factor of production but also as

vendors of merchandise, as potential mothers of slaves, as nurses of young and old, and

above al1 as sources of prestige and moral support."

The prevailing agricultural task was so extensive that it also often involved wage

labour. Aro groups in central Igboland drew this labour from parts of the region as widely

distributed as Isuama, Nn-Awka, North-eastem Igbo and the Cross River. Some of these

people were peasants but they worked for the Aro when they were not working in their own

farms (J. Mbaekwe 1977). Madam Nwambego Okoli (1996) who witnessed this practice in

the late 19'" and early 20' centuries testified as follows: "We were given small bunches of

yam to carry when I was a child. The yams would be assembled in abo [long baskets] for

porters from al1 over the place to carry." These labourers were paid in kind, especially during

harvests (Arodiogbu 1996). Certain groups in the Isuama region specialized in tapping wine

and cutting palm hits. This categoiy was referred generically as nde-Osu, after one Mbano group, Osu, fiom where the greatest number of palm fniits cutters came initially. Many farm hands also came from there (NA. Anyakoha 1996; Arodiogbu 1996; J.E. Uche 1996). The

Aro would not chbtrees (Enekwa 1996). But in the late 19th and early 20' centuries, this practice seems to have been observed more rigorously in the Aro-Chukwu metrople than in -222- the settlements (see N.A. Anyakoha 1996; J.O.Ijoma 1996; K. Oji 1972). The Aro, especially in the diaspora, selectively adopted aspects of the social organization of neighbouring communities, such as share-raising and reciprocal labour relations.

Diversification to agriculture went pari oasu with peasantization. By rnigrating into agriculturd lands, many Aro people were becorning peasants. Peasantization was not a difficult transition for those who became peasants. Some agriculture had existed within the interstices of the overseas slave trade era Aro society. As indicated in Chapter 4, rninor agricultural tasks sometimes presented a trial ground for newly acquired captives, whose loyalty to a master was yet to be confinned. Women may have done some fhngas well by setting up gardens (mbubo) around the homesteads. More importantly, the many people who came into Aro society from the NrLAwka region as slaves and other immigrants were seasoned peasants already. The process of peasantization continued of course into the colonial period. This is discemible fiorn the mamage register of nde-Izuogu male residents during 19 19-20 - notwithstanding the incompleteness of the information. In the one case of

John Igwe, 1 have filled in missing information from oral tradition. To minimize bias, the sample is restricted to men. The Aro were patrilocal and Aro men often married women from ot her communities. Table 6.2 show how important fadng had become. Significantly, none of the brides or grooms is listed as a trader.

Two reasons account for this. The first concems the occupational diversification which set in fiom the 1890s. Second, rnost traders had gone to live in the cities, such as Aba and Okiwge. Another piece of iriformation revealed by the tale is that three of the nine grooms cornbined fadng with some blue collar ("modem")occupation. Two of these three -223- were only twenty-six years old. Just one (Simon Aniche) was of "full age" - considerably older than 26. Further, al1 the other four grooms of "full age" were exclusively fmers. This generation had socialized into their occupation in the 1890s-1900s during the rush into fhng- before the opening up of opportunities in the "modem" sector from the 19 10s. In the ody two cases (James Uche and Elizabeth, and John Igwe) where information is avaiiable on parents show trading as the occupation. The information in the Table 6.2 is consistent with the transition that occurred in nde-Izuogu and other Aro settlements in the late 19"' and early 20"' centuries. Frorn trading, the Aro diversified into farming fiom the 1890s; fiom the

19 1Os, the diversification included "modem" occupations.

Another characteristic of the agriculture dnven expansion is that the Aro exploited trade contacts in consolidating agriculture. If earlier, Aro traders relied on the leading men of other communities to provide rest houses, now the Aro relied on these men also to provide land for Aro settlement. The settlers "enticed" their hosts with "money and other material gifts, and easily got what they wanted" (J.G.Okoro 1985: 35). The role of collaborating New

Men in the pre-existing communities was important in Aro expansion in the late 19~and early

20"' centuries. Men, such as Duruoshimiri and Ogbuiri (later, colonial warrant chiefs), played this role in the upper Imo region (Eziokwu 1991; Nwangwu 1991; D. Ohaegbu 1991; N.G.

Okoli 1996). The fact that these men single-handedly ceded large parcels of land to the Aro testifies to the power that the New Men wielded in their comrnunities. These men could also have been big landowners in their own right.

Land acquisition was not always peaceful, however. This pattern of relationships dominated the history of the area up to the early 20' century when the British found nde- -224-

Izuogu to have played "an important part . . . in practicdy every land case" involving the

cornmunities of the upper Imo River.16 A colonial intelligence report in the mid-1930s noted

"their extraordinary .. . lack of good f&th towards each othei' (Heslop l936?: 6). The role of

the Aro as intercessors enhanced their acquisition of temtory. Intemecine confht arnong

neighbouring groups often led to nde-Izuogu's intervention, sometimes on invitation, but

other times as intruders. Their role as intercessors enhanced their acquisition of temtory. As

a result, some of their neighbours lost access to arable land. A Bntish rnilitary patrol wamed

as late as 19 12 that "[ilf Aro agrarian chicanery is not put a stop to - they will shortly absorb

the whole district."" A sympathetic colonial administrator found most of nde-Izuogu's non-

Aro neighbours to have waged "a bitter battle of life with an unmiitfùl soi1 to earn daily bread

and the rnoney to pay a burdensorne tax" (Heslop 1936?: 7).

ConcIusions

From the foregoing analysis, three periods may be delineated in charting Aro experience with

the transition from captive to palm produce export. The first period began in 1808 with the

withdrawal from the slave trade of the Bntish who accounted for 80% of Biafra's captive

exports and ended in about 1860 with the end of the Atlantic slave trade. The second period

began in the 1860s and ended in about 1890 witnessed the fùrther expansion of palm oil

production and marketing, and the invigoratation of the interna1 slave trade. The 1890s

3 1 OKIDIST 4/4/23. See Annual Repon for Okigwi and Orlu for the Period January 1st 1921 to December 3lst 1921:l.

17~~~Cod E 1 II! 1-CALPROF 13/4/7: Weekly Report of Okigwe Estoc 10 February 19 12. -225-

ushered in the third penod with the dramatic entry of the Aro into agricultural production.

The following conclusions arise from the examination of the Aro evidence reviewed. FVst,

the end of the Atlantic slave trade presented no irnmediate dramatic change. The impact did

not assume crisis proportions until fi@ years after the end of overseas slave exports, when

food shortages resulted from the deepening involvement in the palm produce industry of

hitherto food producing groups, and fiom population pressure. In fact, fundamental change in

the form of diversification into agriculture set in not as a result of the rise of the palm

produce industry but because of the long drawn out depression in that industry. Second,

throughout the penod, the slave trade remained lucrative and under Aro control. Third, the

Aro got into production, not for the foreign market, but due to the domestic need for food

and for sale in regional rnarkets.18 Fourth, food production had several implications for Aro

social organization. Among these implications was a process of secondary and tertiary

migrations, ie, migration fi-om existing Aro diaspora settlements to new settlements. This

development was a result of attempts by Aro groups to reposition thernselves for the

purposes of trade, oracular campaign and agriculture.

While, uniike Hopkins and Jones, Isichei (1976: 95) recognizes the continuing

importance of slaving after the suppression of captive exports, like these scholars, she has not

adequately integrated into her analysis of Aro experience the increasing employment of slaves

in food and cash crop production, and in expanding trade. According to her, "the long

centuries of trans-Atlantic slave trade had created patterns of behaviour which did not cease

"1t is noteworthy thaî, in addition to pmducing yams and cocoyams, Umo (n.d.: 67) mentions that sxnaii setîlement of nde-Nwafo in the upper Imo region established in the late lgm antury, produceci "palm kernels and oil [and] groundnutsn. -226-

to exist when the extemal stimulus which created them died. States such as .. . Arondizuogu,

which had grown wealthy by slave trading, were prevented by geography fiom switching to

trade in palm oil." For these states, Isichei goes on, "capturing slaves was easier, rnclre

exciting, and more profitable" than the drudgery of the palm produce industry. Isichei

recognizes that slaving was more profitable than palm produce production and marketing.

But the weight she gives to habits and geography does not illuminate the continuing

profitability of slaving. In explaining this question, this chapter has shown that the manpower

pressure associated with the palm produce industry was the main force that drove slaving

after the suppression of overseas captive exports. While geographical location helps us to

understand why Nike and nde-Izuogu were not large producen of palm produce, it does not

explain why the cornrnunities continued ta participate in the slave trade. No particular shared

geographical characteristics disposed Aro settlements to slaving. The geographical paradigm

is not of much use to the student of Aro history because Aro dispersal located the group in al1

the ecological zones of the region. The Aro did not succumb to geographical constraints.

Although they did not re-make the ecology, they dealt with the problem by extending their

frontiers into agricultural regions.

In the changing circumstances, the Aro became both fmers and waniors. They

stepped up military operations in the second half of the 19' centuiy (see Dike and Ekejiuba

1990: 302-07), making this the most violent penod of Aro histoiy. Warfare in this period

should be properly pursued el~ewhere.'~In spite of these changes, the Aro remained traders.

or now, it niaices to obseme that profowid economic change, ideologicai transformation, strained alliances, and Aro reactions to encroaching British imperialisrn convcrged in a conundnim of violence. -227-

This triple focus is captured in the following testimony: "As they settled the new areas, they protected the original inhabitants against invasion by their enemies. The people of these cornrnunities handed to these ... settlers the persons they had for sale. But many of our kinspeople ... migrated in order to fmbig yams. They also traded goods as occasion demanded" (M. S. Igwe 1996). This diversification is also evident in the way the prominent

African cultural nationalist, Mbonu Ojike (1 946: 6) of nde-Izuogu, describes his father's Iife in the late 196 century. Ojike's father "was engaged in agriculture, commerce, and militas, crafts, and by utilizing his fathef s wealth and reputation wisely he increased his own security." Table 6.2. Mamage Register of Nde-Izuogu Residents ( 3rooms), 1919-20. Groom 1 Age Occupation P8mb' OCCU~~~~OIIDate of Marriage

traders 1 May 1919 *trader(father) 1 Sept. 1919 Simon Nwankwo 26 1 16 Dec. 1919 Aniche NA 1 18 Dec. 1919 1 Dec. 1919 1 Simon Aniche 1 full age 1 tailodfarmer 1 8 Jan. 1920 1 Iosiah Ubaja 1 full age 1 farmer 1 Johnson Ukwu 1 full age 1 farmer Source: NAE OKIDIST-4/1/32 45/19. "Marriages."* John Igwe of nde-Amazu was the son of Igwe Abaa, a trader. 1 am gratehl to Mazi Michael Sunday Igwe, son of John, for this information. CHAPTER 7 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Focusing on the Aro, this shidy has addressed five main questions about the Bight of Biafra dunng the Atlantic slave trade. Each of these questions have implications for both the history of the region and the Atlantic system. The first concerns the dramatic rise of the Biafian

Atlantic trade dunng the mid-18' century. This development was related to identifiable socio- cultural processes within the region. I have argued that the nse and expansion of the Aro was instmmental to the development of the Biafran Atlantic slave trade. The Aro were formed in early 17" century. By third quarter of the century, their principal market at Bende had been well-established. Although nsing, the Biafian Atlantic trade remained a small part of the

Afncan trade throughout the 17mcentury. The trade grew steadily in the 18" century - the zenith of the Biafian trade. This study has demonstrated that this developrnent reflected Aro incursion from their south-easterly Aro-Chukwu base northwestwards into the densely populated central Igboland. Although this movement began as a response to increasing overseas dcmand for captives and, perhaps, higher prices in Bomy, it gave rise to the virtual conternporaneous establishment in mid-century of the most important Aro settlements in this region, and actually occasioned the shift of trade fiom easterly Old Calabar to centrally located Bo~y.Henceforth, Bomy became Biafra's principal port. The explanations offered by such scholars as Cookey, Hargreaves, Latham and Ryder for this development have been found wanting prim~ilybecause these scholars have not incorporated developments in the hinterland.

The second key question addressed in this study concems the unusual gender -23 O-

structure of the Biafian Atlantic slave trade. With females accounting for about 40% of

captives exported, the region exported more females than any other (Table 4.2). The rise in child ratios in the first half of the 19' century had gender implications as well. It concemed girls rather than boys, and offset the declining proportion of women sent to New World

slavery. This development accounts for the persistent high proportions of females in the overall number of captives exported. 1 have explained the gender pattern on three grounds. 1.

Unlike elsewhere, indigenous slavery did not emphasize the enslavement of women. Slavery

in the region focused on males because of emphasis on lineal continuity. 2. Unlike other regions, the female-oriented Saharan market was marginal in the region. 3. The character of warfare in the region wasted men's lives and produced high proportions of women and child captives. By addressing the gender structure of the slave trade, this study helps to provide, in the words of Eltis and Engerman (1993: 308), "some buis for increasing our knowledge of important changes on three continents" (see also Eltis and Richardson 1995a: 10; Morgan

1997: 122-23). This is because the question involves Afiican patterns of supply, Amencan patterns of demand, and the socio-cultural processes underpinning them.

Thirdly, this study has addressed the question regarding the means by which individuals became slaves or captives. The mode of enslavement was a fundamental determinant of whether a captive was retained in the region or sent away into the Atlantic. 1 have used both export samples and local sources to derive reliable information on the general character of enslavement, including the difference between those who were sent to Atlantic slavery and those who were retained in the region. Whiie people enslaved as a result of econornic necessity on the part of the victim's family and those who committed rninor judicial -23 1- infiactions were likely to be retained in the region, kidnap and war victims, rivals in local disputes, and incriminated persons were likely to be exporteci. Previous to this study, scholars have relied exclusively on export samples in explaining the composition of the slave trade.

This approach yields an accurate description of the export data, but it is a misleadhg indicator of the character and means of slaving. This approach yields a one-eyed perspective, one that projects the circumstances of export captives as representative of slaving as a whole.

It does not account for the captives who were retained in the region. Based on these samples and individual slave narratives, some scholars have stressed kidnapping and warfare in explaining modes of enslavement in the Biafian hinterland. The implication of over-reliance on such data is that hinterland slave users did not discriminate in the people they retained and those they sold away. The difference between Atlantic-bound captives and those retained in the region was a central consideration in the slave trade era. Indigenous slave users discrirninated regarding who they kept and whom they sold away. Accordingly, reliable conclusions on the general character of enslavement must incorporate the character of interna1 slavery.

The fourth question with which this study has been concemed is how the Aro coped with the suppression of the Atlantic slave trade in the 19~century. Suppression and the nse of the palm oil trade in the 19" century did not usher in irnmediate drarnatic consequences for the Aro. The slave trade continued to be important because of the increasing demand by enlarging "houses" of the Coast for canoeboys, domestic sri-vants and "plantation" slaves, as well as because of agricultural expansion in north-eastern Igboland. Unlike previous works, this study has explored the implications for the Aro of lgO century forays of coastal traders -23 2-

into hinterland markets and incorparated this development in illustrating the relatively

marginal role played by the Aro in the palm oil trade. By the 1890s, however, the Aro had

gone into food production agriculture, borrowing the know-how of their neighbours.

Fifihly, this study has addressed questions regarding how such a large-scale

commercial cornplex flourished in the Bight of Biafra, a region reputed to be characterized by

segmentary political organization. G.I. Jones, Richard Henderson and, especially, David

Nonhnip are arnong those who explain this development in terms of the mere expansion of

the lineage and kinship principles that charactenzed the organization of pre-existing

segmentary societies. On the other hand, such scholars as K.O.Dike, R.F. Stevenson, Felicia

Ekejiuba and John Oriji have argued spiritedly that the Aro political organization represents a state. Elizabeth Isichei (1976) has no trouble refe~ngeven to the Aro upper Imo River settlement of nde-Izuogu and other trading societies as States. Unlike the scholars who emphasize either the state or its absence, 1 have emphasized the role of trade diaspora as distinct nom that of centralized state systems. The social organization of a trade diaspora provides a usefùl fiamework to understand the historical question.

The study of the Aro trade diaspora also has implications for understanding diasporas in the wider sense. First, the Aro trade diaspora resembled what Earl Lewis (1995) calls

"overlapping diasporas" in the Americas, the distinct Afiican-American cultures that existed concurrently in different colonial settings. Second, new and innovative cultural forms evolved in the different Aro diaspora settlements out of interactions with the non-Aro elements incorporated fi-om elsewhere in the culturdly heterogenous region. The non-Aro groups incorporated fiom the main provenance zones may be viewed as diasporas since they, like the originally Aro elements, rnaintained iinkages with the societies fiom which they were drawn.

Thus, these diasporas overlapped in both space and time. Third, the study of the Aro

illustrates a transition fiom a trade diaspora to a diaspora peneratim. In the Aro case, this

transition began with the suppression of the Atlantic slave trade in the mid-19' century. New

economic forces associated with the new trade in produce export cornpelled the Aro

diaspora to diversify into agriculture by the 1890s.

It is necessary at this juncture to pinpoint the ways in which the Aro diEered fiom

other trade diasporas. Udike the God promoted by Judaism and Islam which have

intercontinental influence, however, the Aro God, Biniukriabi, was universalist only in

pnnciple.' Its fame was confined to the Bight of Biafra and a small portion of the Bight of

Benin. Funher, in comparison with other trade diasporas in Afnca, the Aro were peculiar in

being non-Muslim. They are a rare example, if not unique, of a trade diaspora whose

ideological and religious material derived fiom within Africa.

The Aro differed fiom other trade diasporas in several significant ways. One element

that distinguished them fiom other trade diasporas is that the Aro embarked on a massive

incorporation of non-Aro into the Aro group. Another element that marked out the Aro fiom

other trade diasporas is the political influence that they had on host communities, and access

to and use of military force. Unlike the Aro, trade diasporas comrnonly operated within the

interstices of existing political authorities. This marginality has made Stephan Palmié (199%:

t An Aro encounter with Major Leonard in Aba on 16 September 1896 iilustrates the universality of the prinicple of Chukwu. By Leonard's account, when Leonard asked an Aro man to remove his hat, the Aro replied in broken Engiish that he (the Aro man): "Me be 'God boy' - me be 'God boy.' You be a white man; me be 'God boy'." Leonard was told in that trip that the Aro were the "firstborn of fïrst Father, while [white people] were only the offsp~gof the Second Son" (Leonard 1998: 191,205). -234- xi) to liken some of the characteristics of trade diasporas to those of slaves. One may quibble with this analogy, but it is noteworthy that it is contemplated. The large Aro settlements of nde-hop, nde-EN and Inokun dominated their environment in al1 particulars. At Aflkpo, where the Aro were a minority, they constituted the aristocracy (see Ottenberg 1958). Even where their political influence seemed slight or non-existent, as in the case of the coastal city-

States, the Aro perfonned through their oracle judicial functions on matters that included political disputes. Aro power, in the words of Cookey, "could be said to have been founded on a spintual aura backed by the military might" (Cookey 1974: 8).

Given this political and judicial influence, one might wonder if the Aro did not constitute an imperialism rather than a trade diaspora. After ail, commerce was an important component of British impenalism - perhaps the best example of imperialism in modem history. The existence of a range of specialized political institutions in Aro organization supports such a proposition. At the apex of Aro organization was Eze Aro (Aro King). Okpa

Mowas another such institution, over which Eze Aro permanently presided. The relevance of this institution to the present question of imperialism has been noted by the anthropologists, P.C.Dike and Ottenberg, to use the term "imperialism" to characterize Aro idluence. As discussed below, the Aro promoted clones of some of their institutions in areas that were within the Aro network.

In spite of these impenal characterktics, the Aro are best seen as a trade diaspora.

Unlike the British, who often (although not always) maintained specialized sections of imperial executioners (traders, soldiers, administrators and missionaries), every male Aro was, until the 1890s when agriculture had become significant in Aro life, prirnarily hvolved in -23 5- trade. Up until the mid- 19' century, their fighters were exclusively non-Aro. These Aro comrnunities were involved Lï trade and they rnassively incorporated non-Aro elements.

This shidy incorporates cultural development in explaining economic change and the structure of the Atlantic slave trade. It is not to deny the econornic basis of Aro slaving. As anthropologist Peter Gose has noted, culture itself is played out in the understanding and practice of the economic process (Gose 1994: xii). In this respect, there is no contradiction between the claims made in this study that demand conditions and pnces in Bomy encouraged the expansion of the BiaFran trade on the one hand and that cultural elements shaped the categones of export captives. The first claim touches on quantity and the second on composition - two cornplementary, rather than contradictory, variables. Two implications may be drawn fiom this inter-play of supply and demand dynamics. First, while slave dealen decided on who they sold to Euro-American buyers (in this case, mainly kidnap victims, war captives, deviants and incriminated persons), they directed most of these to the most profitable market, except when it was too dangerous to do so. Bomy had become this market by the mid-18' century. Second, the demand pull afEected the composition of export captives as did supply conditions on quantity. Without Euro-American demand for captives, fewer persons would have been kidnapped, captured in war and fallen victim to judicial processes.

The heavy presence of these categones, procured in response to demand, defined the composition of export captives. Aro exploitation of the hinterland, in particular the densely populated Igbo heartland, made captives available in large numbers and assured buyers reduced docking periods at Bomy. The fast tumaround rate offered buyers a break From the particularly inhospitable Biafian climate and attracted more buyers. In short, the Aro -23 6- succeeded as far as they did because of shrewd economic decisions, but slaving arnong them and other groups in the Bight of Biafra was not merely an economic phenornenon.

The study of the Aro systern is of interest to scholars interested in the Atlantic slave trade and the history of the African diaspora. First, this study shows a causal relationship between the trade diaspora in Atnca and the Afncan diaspora in the New World. The Aro traded both the people who were retained in the region and those who were sent to the

Americas. While the Aro sent most captives to Atlantic slavery, they retained in the sarne process many others in the ever growing Aro settlements. Selective deportation is relevant for a historicai understanding of the African diaspora in the Amencas (see Thornton 1991,

1992; Lovejoy 1994) as it also reflected Aro diaspora's visions of a new society. This study fits into the renewed interest in the identity of deported captives, in ternis that Law and

Lovejoy articulate as "following enslaved Africans into the Atlantic diaspora" (Law and

Lovejoy 1996). A study of this kind also highlights the interaction of regional developments with those in the rest of the Atlantic world. The intemal developments included macro- economic processes, demographic trends, institutional development, and political and ideological change. On the other side of the Atlantic were mines and plantations that depended on Afican slave labour. In European cities, such as Bordeaux, Bristol, Liverpool, and Nantes were financiers and merchants who organized the trade. These are well-known developments, but the interactive approach allows us to appreciate the extent to which

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Oji, K. 1972. See Northmp 1972-1973.

Okereke, M. 199 1. See Nwankwo, T. 199 1.

Okori, A. 1972. See Nonhmp 1972-1 973.

Okorie, N. 199 1. See Nwankwo, T. 199 1. Okoro, F.E.S. 1973. See Northmp 1972-73.

Okoroafor, 0.1972. See Isichei 1978.

Okpala, D. 1976. See Anaedobe, M.M.1977.

Onukwube, G.O.1978. See G.C.Mmeregini 1978.

Onyeahankeya, N. 1977. See G.C.Mmeregini 1978.

Onyemara, S. 1977. See G.C.Mmeregini 1978.

Onyenuche, J.C.n.d. See Ohaegbu, U.E. 1991.

Onyilagha, J. 1985. See P.N. Ogbuozobe 1986.

Omnimba, M. 1980. See Udeagha, N.N.1980.

Russell, J. 1972. See Northmp 1972- 1973.

Ugboaja, 1. 1985. See 1.0. Nwankwo 1986.

Udensi, 0.199 1. See Nwankwo, T. 199 1.

Udo, J. 1972. See Nonhmp 1972-1973.

Udonyah, E. 1972. See Northmp 1972-1973.

Umeafonta, E. 1976. See Ezenibe, R.A.O. 1977.

Urneukeje, U. 1976. See Anaedobe, M.M.1977.

Unem, C.T.1980. See Onyenkpa, C.O.L981.

Wamuo, J.W.1973. See Northp 1972-1973. C. Archival: National Archives, Enugu, Nigeria (NAE)

Anthropologists' Paper 1927. NAE ARODN 201111 5 "Anthropologists Papers on Aro Ongin: Discussion and the Basis of the widespread of Aro Influence, 1927."

Goodlife, F.A. 1933. "Intelligence Repon on the Otanni, Okigwe Division, Owem Province, 1933." NAE-28935 CSE 1/1/5.

Heslop, I.R.P. 1936? "Intelligence Report on the Clan, Orlu District, Okigwi Division, Owerri Province." NAE CSE 1/8Y6 1 97A.

Mayne, C.J. 1935.''Intelligence Report on the Village of Ndizuogu in the Orlu District of the Okigwe Division, Owerri Province."

NAE 111920-OKIDIST41211: "Casesof Slave Dealing," D.O. Okigwi, to Resident, Owem, 19 Oct. 1920.

NAE 1/ 1 920-ORLDIST4/21 1. "Cases of Slave Dealing."

NAE 3120-ORLDIST4/2/2: "UniallaN.C.-."

NAE 411920-OKIDIST4/2/31 "Native Staff."

NAE 6/f927A-CSE 1/12/1. "Matters in Okigwi Division. "

NAE l7/ 1922-OKIDIST4/4/ 1 1. "Various Petitions and Complaints."

NAE 3 1 OKIDIST 4/4/23."Annual Reports - Okiwgwe Division."

NAE 3 2/21 -0KIDIST 4/3/38. " Quaterly Reports, " 192 1.

NAE 3 YI 920-OKIDIST 4/2/3 2: "Land Cases".

NAE 38/22 OKIDIST 4/4/29."Uruaia Native Court."

NAE 451 19-OKIDIST4/1/32: Marnages.

NAE 46/1920-OKIDIST4/2/41. "Land Cases & Instructions &c. - Re."

NAE 52119-ORLDIST 8. "Statistic of Population. "

NAE 65/1924-OKIDIST 4/6/58."Okigwi Division - Annuai Report 1924." NAE 8 1/27-OKIDIST 4/9/70. "Anthropological Report on the Aros of Ndkuogu and Others," 3 1 March 1927.

NAE 1248 1A-MINLOC 16/1/1326. "Intelligence Report on the Village of Ndizuogu in the Orlu District of the Okigwi Division, Owem Province."

NAE 28935-CSE 11115: "Intelligence Report on the Otanzu, Okigwi Division, Owem Province, 1933. "

NAE ARODIV-2O/l /15 : "Anthropologists' Papers on Aro Origin. Discussion and the Basis of the Widespread of Aro Muence, 1927."

NAE Co& E 17/11-CALPROF 13/4/7. "Report on Special Action, Messages & Escons for Okigwe."

NAE CSE- 1/85/6 197A. "Intelligence Report on the Nkalu Clan, Orlu District, Okigwi Division, Owem Province."

NAE EP 1248-MINLOC 6: 1.306. "Intelligence Report on the Ndhogu Village Area, orlu District, Okigwe Division, Owem Province."

NAE EP 1281-MINLOC 6/1/306.

NAE MILGOV- 13/1/17: "Mbanasataw - Awka Division, 1936."

NAE OKIDIST-4/4/ 1 1 1711922. "Vanous Petitions and Complaints."

NAE OKIDIST-14/1/32 35/19. "Xiamages."

NAE OKIDIST-14/1/38 52/19. "Statistic of Population."

NAE OKIDIST-19/1/1: "Intelligence Book Okigwi Division, 1908-25."

NAE ONPROF-7/16/150: "Awka Division Intelligence Notes on the Towns of Ajili Native Court Area 1929."

NAE OR/C/823-ORLDIST 3111359. "Ndkuogu Intelligence & Reorganization Record."

NAE ORLDIST-14/1/1: "Intelligence Book 19 1 1. " NAE ORLDIST- 141 112.

NAE ORLDIST-141 1 13.

Shankland, T.M.1933. "Inteliigence Report on the Aro Clan." NAE ARODIV-3/1/55.

D.Arclrivul: British Public Record Olfce (PRO), U.K.

Co 52018130543 : Momsey, "Cross River Division, Slave Markets," 1 August 190 1.

CO 520/14: Mernorandum Concerning the Aro Expedition Detailing Circurnstances that Led to It and the Results Which It is Anticipated Will Ensure Therefiom. "

E. ArcliivaE Rhodes Bouse, Oxford, U.K.

Allen, J.G.C.n.d. Niaenan Panorama - 1926-1966 (A District Officer fiom Eastern Niaeria Looks Back. Rhodes House MSS. Afi. S. 155 1: "Allen Papers."

Bridges, A.F.B. n.d. So We Used to Do. Rhodes House MSS. M.S. L881(1): "Bridges Papers. "

Goodlife, F.A. 1952. Rhodes House Mss. Afi. S. l753(2): Goodlife Papers. mer. S.M. 1922. "Grier Papers." Rhodes House MSS. Afi. S. 1379, Box 3/6: 66 1-42.

Mathews, H. F. 1922. "Ethnological Report on Okpoto, Egedde, Etc." Rhodes House: MSS fi. S. 783 Box 2/7 ff l A-265.

F. Archival: Church Missionary Society (CMS), Birmingham, U.K.

CMS A 310 1923. II. Published Primary Sources

Baillie, Capt. 1757. "Captain Baillie to the Owners of the Carter," 3 1 January. In Documents Ihstrative. See Doman 193 1 :5 1 1- 12.

Bennett, Lt. Gov. B. 1704. "Lieutenant Governor Betijarnin Bennett to the Board of Trade," 4 August 1708. See Donnan 193 1:48.

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Doman, E. 1 930. Documents Illustrative of Historv of the Slave Trade to Arnerica, Vol. 1 144 1- 1700, Washington, D.C., Carnegie Institution of Washington.

----. 193 1. Documents lllustrative of Historv of the Slave Trade to America, Vol. 2, Eiehteenth Centurv, Washington, D.C., Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Doman, E. 1 932. Documents Illustrative of Historv of the Slave Trade to Arnerica, Vol. 3, New England and the Middle Colonies, Washington, D.C.,Carnegie Institution of Washington.

---- 1935. Documents Illustrative of Histotv of the Slave Trade to America, Vol. 4, me Border Colonies and the Southem Colonies, Washington, D.C., Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Duke, A. 1956. "The Diary (1 785-8) of Antera Duke." In Efik Traders of Old Calabar. See Forde 1956.

Fraser, J. 1790. Testimony, 29 January. See Lambert 1975b.

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Hair, P.E.H.,A. Jones and R. Law 1992a. Barbot on Guinea: The Writinas of Jean Barbot on West Afnca 1678-1712, vols. t and 2, London, the Hakluyt Society. Hair, P.E.H., A. Jones and R. Law 1992b. "Introdudion." In Barbot on Guinea. See

Hair, P.E.H.,A. Jones and R. Law 1992a.

Hobhouse, 1 et al 1725. "Instructions to Captain William Barry",7 October. In Documents ihstrative. See Doman 193 1.

Hollden, Capt. E. 1723. "Captain Edward Hoilden to the Ownen of the Gravhound," 30 Apd. In Documents Ihstrative. See Doman 193 1:299-300.

International Population Census Publications, Afiica, Nigeria:- 1950. 1952. 1953. 1957, New Haven, Connecticut, Research and Publication, Inc.

Jones, J. 1788. "James Jones to Lord Hawkesbury," 26 July. In Documents Illustrative. See Doman 193 1 : 589-92.

"Journal of the Arthur, Dec. 5, 1677-May 25, 1678." In Documents Illustrative. See Doman 1930: 226-34.

Koelle, S. W. [ 18541 1963. Polvalotta Afiicana, Graz-Austna, Akademische Druck- U. Verlagsanstalt.

Lambert, S. 197Sa. House of Commons Sessional Papers of the Eiahteenth Centurv. Volume 68. George III Minutes of Evidence on the Slave Trade 1788 and 1789, Willington, Delaware, Scholarly Resources, Inc.

----. 1975b. House of Commons Sessional Papers of the Eiahteenth Centurv, Volume 7 1, George III Minutes of Evidence on the Slave Trade 1790, Willington, Delaware, Scholarly Resources, Inc.

----. 197%. House of Commons Sessional Papers of the Einhteenth Century, Volume 73, Georae Wil lington, Delaware. Scholariy Resources, Inc.

Leyland, T. 1803. "Thomas Leyland and Company to Captain Caesar Lawson," 18 July. In Documents Illustrated. See Doman 193 1:650-52.

Merewether, J. and E. Manning 1736. "John Merewether and Edward Manning to Peter Burrell," 6 Ianuary 1736. See Doman 193 1: 45 5.

Morley, J. 1790. See Lambert 197%.

Moms, T. 173011 [?]. "Theodore Moms to Isaac Hobhouse." In Documents Illustrative. See Parker, 1. 1790. See Lambert 197Sc.

Schon and Crowther 1960. "lboland and the Slave Trade." In Nigenan Pers~ectives.See Hodgkin 1960.

Royal Anican Company 1721. "The Royal AFncan Company: Cornmittee Report on the State of Trade." See Doman 1931 : 250-56.

Starke, T. 1702. "Answer of Thomas Starke to James Westmore. " See Doman 1935:

Stede, E. and S. Gascoigne 1679. "Edwyn Stede and Stephen Gascoigne to the Royal African Company." See Donnan 1930: 249.

Stede, E. and S. Gascoigne l682/3. "Edwyn Stede and Stephen Gascoigne to the Royal African Company." See Doman 1930: 304-05.

"The Trade of the Royal African Company, 1672." In Documents nlustrative. See Donnan 193 O: 1 92-93.

Adderley, R.M. 1996. "'New Negroes from Afnca': Culture and Cornmunity arnong Liberated Afncans in the Bahamas and Trinidad 1810 to 1900." Ph.D. thesis, University of Pemsylvania.

Agu, N.V.1985. "The Role of Okoli Ijeoma in the 19' Century Slave Trade in the Old Awka District." NCE project (History), Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Owem.

Alaka, E. 1984. "A Histoncal Survey of Unialla in the Pre-Colonial Period." BA thesis, History Department, University of Nigeria, .

Arnaechi, W.C.1987. "Warfare in Umudioka, from Pre-Colonial Times to the British Conquest." BA thesis, History Department, University.

Anaba, E.C. 1988. "ArolNgwa Relationship: A Case of Mutual Interaction." NCE thesis, Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Owem.

Anaedobe, M.M. 1977. "Uga from the Earliest Times to 1916." BA thesis, History Department, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Aro-Okeigbo Ancestral Almanac 1996.

Bentor, E. 1994. "Aro Ikeji Festival: Toward a Historical Interpretation of a Masquirade Asiivd," PiG î:is;jis, Schûs! ûf Pkc Ais, !cdi- Ekersity.

Chambers, D. B. 1996. "'He Gwine Sing He Country': Afncans, Afro-Virginians, and the Development of Slave Culture in Virginia, 1690-1 8 10." PHI. thesis, Department of Nstory, University of Virginia.

Chuku, G.I. 1989. "The Rise and Fall of Aro Business Oügarchy From 156 Century to 2oh Century. " M.A. thesis, Department of History, University of .

----. 1995. "Changing Role of Women in Igbo Economy, 1929- 1985." Ph.D. thesis, Department of History, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Egboh, F.N.1987. "A Pre-Colonial History of Akokwq" BA thesis, History Department, University of Nigeria, Nsu kka.

Eke, S.O. 1978. "An Econornic History of Isuochi in the Nineteenth Century (Agriculture, Cr& and Trade)." BA thesis, History Department, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Eltis, D. 1978. "The Atlantic Slave Trade, 182 1-1 843." Ph.D. thesis, University of Rochester.

Emeruwa, S.O. 1992. "The History of Aro-Ajatakiri, Oboro in Local Governent Area from 1901 to the Present." NCE project (Histoiy), Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Owerre.

Eze, C. 1987. "The Aro of Nneato." NCE thesis, Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Owem.

Ezeike, B.I. 198 1. "Ekwulobia from the Earliest Times to 1910." BA thesis, History Department, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Ezenibe, R.A.O. 1977. "Igboukwu from the Earliest Times to 1920: Origins, Migrations, Settlement and Inter-Group Relations." BA thesis History Deparment, University of Nigeria, Nsu kka.

Ezenyern, C.E. 1981. "Social Stratification in Idernili L.G.A. up to the End of the Colonial Era." B.A. thesis, History Department, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Hargreaves, S. M. 1987. "The Political Economy of Nineteenth Cenhiry Bonny: A Study of Power, Authonty, Legitimacy and Ideology in a Delta Trading Cornmunity fiom 1700-19 14. " Ph.D. thesis, Centre of West Afncan Studies, University of Birmingham. Ifediora, 0. 1987. "Aspects of the Pre-Coionid history of Awka." B.A. thesis, History Department, University of Nigena, Nsukka.

Ifemesig C.C.1959. "British Enterprisa on the Niger 1830-1869." Ph.D. thesis, University of London.

Igwe, C.E.1992. "The History of Ndiuche (in Ideato Local Governement Area) 1 900-1960. " B. A. thesis, History Department, university of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Imo, M.C.1980. "Headship of Aro-Ndizuogu Cornmunity 1900-1960." BA thesis, History Departrnent, UNN.

Mrneregini, G.C. 1978. "Ndiokoroji: The History of an Aro Settlement. " BA thesis, History, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Modebe, I.P. 1978. "Onicha Trade in the lgh Century." BA thesis, Histoiy Department, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Monye, O. A. 199 1. "A Biography of Late Dr. Kingsley Gabriel Omomba Mbadiwe." B.A. thesis Histos, Depariment, hoState University, Okigwe.

Nwankwo, 1.0. 1986. "A History of Aro Settlements in Ihiala." BA thesis, Department of History, UNN.

Nwankwo, J.C.1973. "The Early Settlement of Ndikelionwu and its Neighbourhood," B.A. thesis, History Department, üNN.

Nwankwo, T. 199 1. "Economic Activities of Arondizuogu from Pre-Colonial Era to 1960." NCE, project, Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Owem, September.

Nwosu, D.C.1986. "The History of Arondizuogu from the Earliest Times to 1920." NCE project, History Department, Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Owerri.

Ofonagoro, W.1. 1972. "The Opening of Southern Nigeria to British Trade, and Its Consequences: Economic and Social History, 1881 - 1916." Ph.D. thesis, .

Ogbuozobe, P.N.1986. "Achina: A Consideration of Pre-Colonial Intergroup Relationships." B.A. thesis, History Department, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Ogedengbe, K.O. 1971. "The Aboh Kingdom of the Lower Niger c. 1650-1900." Ph.D. thesis, History, University of Wisconsin. Ohaegbu, U.E. 1991. "The History of Umuduni Egbeaguru fi-om te Earliest Times to the Present." NCE project, Alvan lkoku Coliege of Education, Owerri.

GkQfer, E.O. lV8. ''bJ3r !Vars in the Nineteenth Cen?xy." NCE project, Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Owem.

Okoli, J.C. 1977. "Pre-Colonial History of Achina in Aguata Local Government Area, Anarnbra State." NCE project, Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Owem.

Okoroafo, E.S. 1978. "An Economk History of Isuochi in the Nineteenth Cenhity (Agriculture, Crafts and Trade). B.A. thesis, History Department, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Okpara, R.O.1979. "Econornic and Social History of Oro c. 1800-1 9 16." NCE project (History), Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Owem.

Onyenkpa, C.O. 198 1. "A Historical Survey of Isuikwuato before 1900: Origins, Patterns of Migration and Settlement, and Political Organization." BA thesis, History Department, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Onyensoh, U.C.1985. "Aro Settlements in Ngwdand." BA thesis, History Department, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Onyiukah, E. M. 1983. "Trade and Trade Routes in Nineteeth Century Isuikwuato." B.A. thesis, History Department, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Oriji, J.N. 1977. "AHistory of Ngwa People: Social and Economic Ijevelopment in an Igbo Clan." Ph.thesis, .

Orji, B.N.N. 1978. "Politics and Trade in Pre-Colonial Arondizuogu." BA thesis, History Department, UNN.

Uche, S.I. 1988. "Akokwa and Her Neighbours in the Pre-Colonial Period." B.A. thesis, History Department, Imo State University, Okigwe.

Udeagha, N.N. 1980. "A History of Ihube from the Earlest Times to 1928." BA thesis, History Department, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Udueze, A.E. 1982. "The Economy of Uturu in the Nineteenth Century." BA thesis, History Department, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Ukonu, M.C. 1979. "A History of Owerre-Emkala fiom 1800-1960." NCE project, Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Owem. Umeh, C.S. 1984. "Uga and Her Neighbours up to 1905." B.A thesis, History Department, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Uwazuruike, P.N.1987. "A Historical Survey of Okwe-Okigwe during the Pre-Colonial Penod." B.A. thesis, History Department, University of N~geria,Nsukka.

Wariboko, W.E.199 1. "New Calabar and the Forces of Change ca 1850-1945.'' P. h.D. thesis, Centre of West Afncan Shidies, University of Birmingham.

III. Unpublîkhed Papers

Behrendt, S.D. 1998. "Long-Run Patterns in the Shipping of Slaves." Presented at Transatlantic Slavery and the Afncan Diaspora: Using the W.E.B.DuBois Institute Dataset of Slaving Voyages, Omohundro Iiistitute of Early Amencan History and Culture, Wiliiarnsburg, Virginia, 1 1- 13 September.

Eltis, D. 1998. "Gender and the Slave Trade in the Early Modem Atlantic World." Presented at Transatlantic Slavery and the Anican Diaspora: Using the W.E.B.DuBois Institute Dataset of Slaving Voyages, Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, 1 1- 13 September.

Eltis, D. and D. Richardson 1995a. "The Structure of the TransatIantic Slave Trade, 1595- 1867." Presented at the Social Science History Meeting.

Hall, G.M. 1998. "Ethnic Selectivity in the African Slave Trade to Louisiana: Comparing the Du Bois Database with the Louisiana Slave Database." Presented at Transatlantic Slavery and the AFrican Diaspora: Using the W.E.B.DuBois Institute Dataset of Slaving Voyages, Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, 1 1- 13 September.

Inikori, J.E. 1994a. "History in Bieath and History in Depth: Grand Theones and Empirical Evidence in the Expanding Historiography of the Atlantic Slave Trade." Paper presented at the Conference on the State of African Diaspora Studies: Present Realities and Future Prospects, University of North Carolina at Chape1 Hill, 18- 19 February.

----. 1998. "The Known, the Unknown, the Knowable, and the Unknowable: Evidence and the Evahation of Evidence in the Measurement of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade." Presented at Transatlantic Slavery and the Afncan Diaspora: Using the W.E.B.DuBois ùistitute Dataset of Slaving Voyages, Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Wiliiarnsburg, Virginia, 1 1- 13 September.

Law, R. 1996. "The State and Private Enterprise in Dahomey's Atlantic Trade (Revisited)." Paper delivered at the Harriet Tubman Seminar on Slavery, York University, Toronto, 28 Oct. 1996.

Law, R. and P.E.Lovejoy 1996. "The Changing Dimensions of African History: Reappropriating the Diaspora." Paper delivered at the Hamiet Tubman Seminar on Afncan Slavery, York University, Toronto, 18 November.

Lovejoy, P.E.and D. Richardson 1996. "'Pawns Will Live When Slaves are Apt to Dye': Credit, Risk and Tmst at Old Calabar in the Era of the Slave Trade." Paper delivered at the Hamiet Tubman Seminar on African Slavery, York University, Toronto, 7 October.

Manning, P. 1998a. "Louisiana Slavery in Atlantic Context: Demography, Economy, and Culture, 1720- 1850." Presented at the American Historical Association Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA, 10 January.

----. 1998b. "Volume and National Participation in the Trade." Presented at Transatlantic Slavery and the Afican Diaspora: Using the W.E.B.DuBois Institute Dataset of Slaving Voyages, Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williarnsburg, Virginia, 1 1 - 13 September.

Nwokeji, GU.1997a. ''Biafran Markets and Slaves: The Aro and the Atlantic Slave Trade, c. 1750 to 1890." Presented at the conference, "West Afnca and the Americas: Repercussions of the Slave Trade," held at the University of West Indies, Mona-Kingston, Jamaica on 20- 22 February.

----. 199%. "Household and Market Persons: Servitude and Banishrnent in the Making of the Biafian Diasporas, c. 1750 and 1890." Presented at the Canadian Council of Area Studies Leamed Societies Conference, Memonal University of Newfoundland, 4-7 June.

----. 1998a. "fican Conceptions of Gender and the Slave Trafic." Presented at Transatlantic Slavery and the Afncan Diaspora: Using the W.E.B.DuBois Institute Dataset of Slaving Voyages, Ornohundro Institute of Early .4merican History and Culture, Williarnsburg, Virginia, 1 1- 13 September.

Ohadike, D.C. 1994. "Entrepreneurship, Dependency, and Colonialism: Transformations in Power, Authority, and Privilege arnong the Niger Igbos." Paper presented at the 3 7th Annual Conference of the Atncan Studies Association, Toronto, Canada, 3-6 November.

Richardson, D. and D. Eltis 1997. "Patterns of Slave Shipments from West Eca: Cornparhg the Gold Coast, , and Bight of Biafh, 1660-1867." Paper presented at the conference "West Afnca and the Arnericas: Repercussions of the Slave Trade," The University of the West Indies, Mona, Kingston, Jarnaica, 20 February. Thomton, J. Forthcorning. "Afncan Background of the Slave Cargo of the Henrietta Maria."

---. 1992b. "The Kongo Civil Wars and the Slave Trade: Demography and History Revisited, 17 18- 1844. " Millersvitle University of Pensylvania.

----. 1998. "From the General to the Particular: Ethnicity and History in the Slave Trade."Presented at Transatlantic Slavery and the Afncan Diaspora: Using the W.E.B. DuBois Institute Dataset of Slaving Voyages, Omohundro Institute of Early Amencan History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, 1 1- 13 September.

IV. Contemporary Publications

Adams, Capt. J. 1832. Sketches Taken durina Ten Vovaaes to Africa between the Years 1786 and 1800: includina Observation on the Country between Cape Palmas and the River Congo: and Cursorv Remarks on the Phvsical and Moral Character of the Inhabitants, London, Hurst, Robinson, and Co.

Allen, Capt. W. 1837. "1s the Old Calabar a Branch of the River Quorra? Journal of the Roval Geoara~hicalSociety, Vol. 7: 198-203.

Allen, Capt. W. and T.R.H.Thomson l848a. A Narrative of the Ex~editionSent bv Her Maiestv's Governement tu the River Niger in 1841 under the Cornmand of Ca~tainH.D. Trotter. RN.,Vol. 1, London, Richard Bentley.

----. l848b. A Narrative of the Expedition Sent bv Her Maiestv's Governement to the River Niger in 1841 under the Command of Ca~tainH.D. Trotter. RN.,Vol. 2, London, Richard Bentley.

Baikie, W.B. 1856. Narrative of an Ex~iorinaVovape uo the Rivers Kwora and Binue ~ComrnonlvKnown as the Niger and Tsadda) in 1854, London, John Murray. Barbot, James 1699. "A Voyage to New Calabar, 1099." In Documents IIlustrative. See Doman 1930: 430-35.

Barbot, James, jr. 1705. "The Slave Trade at Calabar, 1700- 1705.'' In Documents Illustrative. See Doman 193 1: 14-15.

Barbot, James and J. Grazilhier 1699. "Abstract of a Voyage to New Kalabar, Bandi, and Doni Rivers, in 1699." Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 3, London, Thomas Astley: 105-1 18.

Barbot, John 1682. "John Barbot's Description of Guinea. " In Documents lllustrative. See Doman 1930: 282-301. --. 1698. "At Old Cdabar, in 1698." In Documents Illustrative. See Doman 1930: 4 19-20.

-.1732. A Descri~tionof the Coasts of North and South-Guinea: and of Ethiopia Interior, Vulaarly h~ola:Beinn a New and Accurate Account of the Western Maritime Countries of Afnca. In Six Books, London, Churchill.

Becroft [Beecroft], J. 1836. "Substance of a Letter Received fiom J. Becroft, Esq., Relative to fis Recent Assent of the Quorra." The Journal of the Rovd Geomaohicai Societv, Vol. 6, Pt. 2: 424-26.

Becrofi [Beecroft], Captain et al 1844. "Details of Explorations of the Old , in 184 1 and 1842." The Journal of the Roval Geoaraphical Societv, Vol. 14: 260-83.

Blake, W.O.186 1. The Historv of Slaverv and the Slave Trade. Ancient and Modem. The Forms of Slaverv that Prevailed in Ancient Nations. Particularlv Greece and Rome. The African Slave Trade and the Political Histow of Slavew in the Compiled fiom Autthentic Materials, Columbus, Ohio., H. Milner.

Blindloss, H. 1898. In the Niger Countrv, Edingburgh and London, William Blackwood and Sons.

Bold, E. 1822. The Merchant's and Mariner's Afncan Guide, Salem, Cushing and Appleton.

Bosman, W. 1705.7London, James Knapton.

Burdo, A. 1880. Niger et Bénué: Voyage dan 1' Afrique Central, Paris, E. Plon.

Canot, Captain T. 1928. Adventure of as African Slaver: Beina a True Account of the life Ca~tainTheodore Canot. Trader in Gold. Ivow & Slaves on the Coast of Guinea: His Own Storv as Told in the Year 1854 to Brantz Maver & Now Edited with an Introduction bv Malcorn Cowley, Garden City. Garden City Publishing Co.. Inc.

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