Cabo Formoso

Cabo Formoso is a low headland on the Bight of Biafra, where the Atlantic coast meets the creeks of the eastern Niger Delta. Its Portuguese name means "beautiful cape", a label given by sailors who used the point as a landmark. Behind the shore, Ijaw communities lived in villages along the channels and fished, farmed and traded. From the eighteenth century, European ships called at the delta's rivers to buy captives and later palm oil, and local middlemen controlled the passage between the sea and the trading towns upstream.