Cross River Mouth

The Cross River reaches the sea through a wide estuary, where Efik communities fished and traded along the creeks. Up the Calabar River, Creek Town, Old Town and Duke Town became centres of commerce with European ships. By the eighteenth century Efik merchants were important intermediaries in the Atlantic slave trade, obtaining captives from upriver and selling them to ship captains. Competition among the towns and their trading houses shaped the traffic that passed through the estuary.