Bonny

Bonny, also known as Ubani, is an island town in the eastern Niger Delta and the seat of a trading kingdom. Its waterways open onto the bight that bears its name, while creeks lead inland through the mangrove country. Canoes and ships brought together merchants from the interior and the Atlantic at this meeting of river and sea.

Portuguese contact and the growth of Atlantic commerce helped establish Bonny as a trading port. In the eighteenth century it displaced Old Calabar as the principal slave port of the Bight of Biafra, exporting people taken from the interior across the ocean. The kingdom's rulers and merchant houses managed relationships with European buyers and their own trading partners. King Perekule I founded the Pepple dynasty and created new chiefly titles, reflecting the importance of the houses through which much of Bonny's commerce was organized.