Calabar (Efik) enters the overseas slave trade

Calabar seems to have entered the overseas trade only in the 17th century. Barbot reports a pre-1678 voyage buying 300 slaves and gives details of his 1698 trade on the Cross River, when 212 slaves were bought. Earlier, European traders had worked an anchorage on the Rio del Rey, believing the Cross River estuary unnavigable, until invited in by the ruler of Old Town.