The peoples of southeastern Nigeria participated actively in the trans-Atlantic
trade which began in the eastern Niger Delta in the sixteenth century.' They
were among the single largest exporters of slaves to Europe and the Americas in
the eighteenth century. And when the slave trade was abolished and replaced
with legitimate commerce in vegetable oils in the nineteenth century, the same
peoples became the leading producers of palm oil and kernel.
Although earlier researchers like G.I. Jones, K.O. Dike and A.J.H. Latham
focused their study on the coastal states, their works are helpful in understanding
why southeastern Nigerians were able to play a major role in the
overseas export trade. They showed that a network of trade existed between the
hinterland peoples and the coastal states of the eastern Delta. This system of
trade enabled the Aro, who dominated trade in the hinterland, to exchange its
products with those marketed by coastal middlemen.2