Istwa Nou

Liverpool was a modest harbour on the Irish Sea until it went into the slave trade, and by the middle of the eighteenth century it was carrying more captives than anywhere else in Europe. Its position on the west coast of England put it near the Atlantic and near the manufacturing towns of Lancashire and the Midlands that produced the cloth, guns and metalware traded on the African coast. Its captains built standing commercial relationships with African merchants and rulers at Bonny and Old Calabar in the Bight of Biafra, which meant quicker loading, better terms and repeat business. Bristol and London had been in the trade first, and Liverpool passed them both. At the height of the traffic its ships were serving markets across the plantation Americas, from the Chesapeake to the French and British islands. The docks, the insurance houses and the merchant fortunes raised on that business are still standing in the city, and its streets carry the names of the families who owned the ships.