Subject

Comey system

2 records filed under this subject

From Slaves to Palm Oil: Analyzing the Economic Pivot of the 1840s and Its Impact on Efik Social Structure

The Efik people of the Cross River region in southeastern Nigeria experienced a profound economic transformation in the nineteenth century. For centuries, Old Calabar was a pivotal center of the Atlantic slave trade, serving as an important coastal port where tens of thousands of enslaved Africans were exported to Europe and the Americas. However, with…

“The ‘Comey’ System: Understanding the customs duties paid by European ships to Efik chiefs.”

The comey system was a key feature of commerce in Old Calabar, the main trading center of the Efik people along the Cross River in southeastern Nigeria. From the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, European ships trading in slaves and later palm oil paid a customs duty known locally as “comey” to Efik chiefs as…