Forcados River Mouth

The Forcados is one of the western outlets of the Niger Delta, entering the Atlantic through a country of creeks and mangroves. Portuguese sailors found it a deeper approach than the river leading to Gwato, and Itsekiri traders on its banks exchanged cloth and captives with European ships. By the early seventeenth century merchants used the Forcados extensively. Dutch traders entered it in the 1640s seeking enslaved people, while the delta's waterways linked coastal settlements with markets inland.