Istwa Nou

Lagos became a major slaving port late, in the years between 1815 and 1850, when most of the traffic was already illegal and the British navy was patrolling the coast to suppress it. The town's geography suited the new conditions exactly. It lies behind a long lagoon, so ships could take on captives out of sight of cruisers standing offshore and slip out when the coast was clear. At its peak more than seven thousand people a year left Lagos for the Americas. After 1807 more than three quarters of the vessels working the port were fitted out in the Americas rather than Europe, mostly in Brazil and Cuba, the two markets still buying after the northern powers withdrew. Britain bombarded Lagos in 1851 and occupied it on antislavery grounds, then kept it, which is how the largest city in Nigeria began its formal existence as a British possession.