Kalabari Kingdom

The Kalabari Kingdom, also called Elem Kalabari (New Shipping Port), or New Calabar by the Europeans, was an independent trading state of the Kalabari people, an Ijaw ethnic group, in the Niger River Delta. Today it is recognized as a traditional state in what is now Rivers State, Nigeria.

People and customs

According to one tradition, the Kalabari people originally came from Calabar (called "Old Calabar" by the Europeans), a site further to the east occupied by Efik people. This may have been a 19th-century invention. The Efik themselves say the name "Calabar" was given to their town by the Europeans. Other traditions say Kalabari was founded by Ijo settlers from Amafo, on the west bank of the New Calabar River, and that they were joined there by settlers from other communities.

The people occupied a series of islands among the mangrove swamps of the delta, where they engaged in fishing and trading. They would take the produce of the delta region up the New Calabar and Imo rivers, and exchange them for food and goods of the hinterland. In the 15th century, the early European traders noted that they alone of the delta people refused to trade on credit.