New Calabar

New Calabar was a trading centre of the eastern Niger Delta, known to its inhabitants as Elem Kalabari. Its people lived among tidal creeks and used canoes to reach markets inland and ships on the coast. Trade encouraged the growth of powerful houses, organisations that combined commercial and political authority. From the seventeenth century the export of enslaved people tied the town to Atlantic commerce, while its merchants competed and negotiated with neighbouring delta states.

The later city of Port Harcourt lies here.