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 Contents
Co pyright © 2009 E. U. AYE Pages

Preface - vi - x
A LL RIGHT RESERVED
Chapter One: Antecedents
The text of this publication, or any part thereof, may not
be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any Section
means electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, storage in an information 1. Genealogy of Eyo Kings in Creek Town - 1
retrieval system or otherwise, without the prior written 2. Eyo Nsa - - 2
permission of the author or publisher. 3. Armed Robbers of the River !. 8
4. Obutong Incident - 12
I S BN: 978-8073-44-1 5. The Paramount Lodge - 16
6. The Great Duke and His Era 21

Chapter Two: The Conflict of Authority

1. Eyo Eyo Nsa 24
2. The Great Duke Passes - 27
3. Eyo's Kingship and Eyamba's Reaction 34

Chapter Three: Eyo Honesty II Era Begins

1. Eyo as a King 38
2. Eyo : The Slave Trade and Slavery - 42
3. King Eyo and His family- 46

Chapter Four: The New Epoch

1. The Slave Trade Bows out 54
2. The Palm-oil Trade Takes Over 58
3. Christianity Comes to Old Calabar - 60

lliJ LillJ
Chapter Five: Christianity Tries to Settle Down Chapter Twelve: The Crux of Evangelism
1. The Early Meeting in Creek Town 68
1. The Converts 140

2. . Inaugural Sermons 70
2. King Eyo and His Missionary - 147
Chapter Six: "Etinyin Eyo"
Chapter Thirteen : Constrained Relationship
1. The Patriarch 83

2. Magic Lantern Vs Masters of Divination 84

1. Obutong Incident Again- - 154
3. Lunar Eclipse 87
2. The Drift Apart - 159
4. The King's Weekly Levee 89

Chapter Fourteen: The End of An Era

Chapter Seven: Rapid Strides in Things Divine 1. Rev. Waddell: "Goodbye Calabar" - 164
1. The Sabbath Sanctified - 92 2. Etinyin Eyo: "Farewell Obioko" - 168
2. Creek Town Church Building: 1850 - 93
3. Sabbath Day Duties 97

Chapter Fifteen: The Conflict of Values

Chapter Eight: King Eyo at His Apogee 1. Polygamy versus Monogamy - - 177
1. Eyo's Expedition to Umon 100

2. The First Church Wedding In Creek Town - 180

2. Duke Town in Feuds 103

3. Interference in Duke Town Kingship 104

3. The First Native Church Wedding In

4. Anarchy Continued in Duke Town 106

Creek Town - ::) 182

4. . Formal Education Scandalized In

Chapter Nine: Further Tests of the Man Creek Town - I - 185
1. The Great Fire 111
5. Formal Education: Its Essence 't - , I 187

2. Ikot Offiong & Ikoneto in Conflict 114

hupter Ten: King Eyo & The Twins

t . Ef ik Attitude to Twins 116

The Abeona Meeting 118

Fres h Incidents of Twin - Birth 122

CIl () pt(' r r: leven: King Eyo in International Politics

1. 'J he Fre nch - 126
2. The Brit ish In The Oil Politics - 131
3. Th e Co urt of Equity I, 138

lliJ w


PREFACE
This book brings into focus the life and times of one of
the greatest personalities whose devotion, love and zeal
were the moving forces behind the establishment of
Christianity and formal education in Old Calabar in the
nineteenth century. This man, King Eyo Honesty the
Second, one of the most documented of all Efik rulers of
the past centuries, was the son of Eyo Nsa who is
generally known in historical records as Eyo Willy
Honesty.
King Eyo Honesty the Second, the hero of our story, was
born into our world at a time when many of us, if given
the choice, would not have wished to be born into this
earth, I mean the African earth, because almost the
whole of the African continent south of the Sahara, was
passing through a very rocking epoch, because the
people were living their lives only for the present: to
experience life as it came to them without any thought
for the past, nor for the future because of what they
experienced in their present era.
The accursed slave raids of the period were setting the
people's teeth on edge, leaving them almost always in a
nervous tension, because nobody could predict what
would happen the next moment. Human life was cheap,
and the pOPulaa w,asted, · and nobody thought of
planning for ""a " Ir tomorrow". .
~ . : ... ~.
w IvJD
Old Calabar was one of the important commercial
centres for the accursed trade, and the father of our
hero, Eyo Nsa, was one of the commercial magnets of
the period. Indeed, as one who understood the tricks of
the trade, he was able to work himself up in his trade to
become the wealthiest man in Old Calabar in the late
eighteenth century. Naturally, we would expect that his
son, Eyo Eyo Nsa, whom this book is about, would be
born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
But Eyo Eyo Nsa surprised us when his life history
reveals that he ignored his father's wealth and comfort
to him, and preferred a life of poverty and independence
in order to start on his own to work his way up, from the
lowest rung of the commercial ladder to the topmost.
And how many of such children would do this now; and
why did he prefer to behave the way he did?
I am inclined to believe that he did this on purpose, to
safeguard his own life. In those days of serious
polygamous culture, the death of such a wealthy family­
head more often left behind a home torn asunder by
fratricidal and internecine conflicts, and especially when
people were ignorant of making a will, and many had
died intestate.
While his father still lived, Eyo Eyo Nsa was more
interested in applying his own acumen to learn from the
commercial techniques of his father than to build up
hope for any patrimony, and these were to enhance his
 own independent efforts. Besides, he served some of
the ship captains as a cabin boy and took that chance to
travel with them from time to time to the West Indies,
the U.S.A. and to England, and to learn to speak and
write English, the commercial language of the period.
These exposures were much more to his benefit because
. they endowed him with those experiences that enabled
him build up his confidence, independence and
personality.
When the slave trade was abolished early in the
nineteenth century, Eyo also waded seriously into the
palm oil trade that superseded it, and with equal zeal he
kept his bearings also in this, and indeed the new
venture exposed him even the more to affluence than
hitherto. King Eyo himself said this:
'When young I was nobody, for
I was poor; and it was long
before I set up as a gentleman.
I put my mind to my trade and
worked; at first a little, and
then more. What profit I made I
put down. When ships come I
trade with their money, and
when they go away I trade with
my own ... and now pass every
man (in wealth) in all Calabar".
. would work seriously to threaten the foundation of
At the time that King Eyo Honesty II started his reign in
Creek Town, Old Calabar was still in its darkest age of
superstition and ignorance. The fear of witchcraft and
IYillI
the belief in what was thought it could accomplish,
dominated the entire spectrum of the indigenous culture
of the people.
The dread of this demonic cult encouraged the growth of
masters of divination (or mbiaidiong) who posed as the
only earthly authority that could prescribe the cure to
free the people from the influences of this infernal cult.
The result was that almost the whole community went
fetish. Demonic shrines, believed to possess some
magic power against witchcraft influences, were found
in almost every corner of their towns and villages: on
cross-roads, road sides, village squares, in private yards
and in such like places.
The "Mbiaidiong" who prescribed these cures were
building themselves 'up into a separate and
"respectable" affluent class of citizens, because their
trade was lavishly rewarding to them.
This vain status of superstition, which these masters of
divination created for themselves, was pregnant with
difficulties for King Eyo's reign in Creek Town, because
the fetish cult which was taking root in his kingdom
Christian culture in Old Calabar when the time would
come. For a Christian to embrace the pagan fetish cult"
with all its heathen rites, is to commit a hideous sin
before God.
till
Furthermore, the Efik society was morally notorious to
the early missionaries on account of the high cultural
Chapter
values it placed on polygamy and fetishism, both of One
which are repugnant to Christian ethics.
ANTECEDENTS
On April 10, 1846, the Presbyterian Mission team, led by
1
the Rev. Hope Masterton Waddell, arrived in Old Calabar
to report for duty in response to the 1842 invitations Genealogy of Eyo Kings in Creek Town
from King Eyo Honesty II of Creek Town and King Nsa* Ekpenyong

"~----'
Eyamba V of Duke Town. That day was blessed with a

•
propitious weather, and the official receptions for these
guests that followed later were equally gracious. The two 'f1-" .
Ekpenyong Nsa Eyo Nsa (Eyo Willy Honesty)
monarchs were now to play hosts to these missionaries ~
in their evangelical crusades in the Old Calabar country. d . 1820
~ ----~ t ~ .. t t
But in the following year, 1847, King Eyamba V passed Nsa Efiok Ibok Eyo Eyo Aye Eyo Efiom Okoho
( Eya IV) (Eya VI) (Eya II) ( Eya V)

away, and his death was immediately followed with a d .1864 d .1871 d .1858 d .1867

stormy dynastic dispute over the right of succession to

his throne, and this created a two-year interregnum in
Duke Town kingship.
1
I

I
t
I
I

I·
t
1
Nsa Okaha
(Eya VII)
King Eyo was now left alone with the missionaries. And Ekpenyang Eya Ete d .1892
Efiak Eya (Eya III)
we now must turn our attention to King Eyo Honesty II, (Eya VIII) d.1861
to find out what sort of man he was, his background, his d.1918 I

life and habits, how he fared with his missionary friends

to the end of his days in 1858. Naturally, his life history I
'f
~~J,..-~~---,..

remains part and parcel of the early history of the James .Eyo Ita
Presbyterian Church of Nigeria. Eyo Eyo Ita \
(Eyo IX)
d. 1931
*In Creek Town, for the male the name is Nsa, in Henshaw Town it is Ansa.

E. U. Aye
Calabar, See Report of the Enquiry into the Dispute over the Obongship of Calabar 1964

May, 2008 By A. K. Hart P. 125

w LlJ
 2 his dramatis personae and the times and circumstances
EYO NSA
(Eyo 'Willy Honesty)
As the eighteenth century history of Creek Town can
never be complete without the activities of Eyo Nsa, the
second son of Nsa Ekpenyong, popularly known in his­
torical records as Eyo Willy Honesty; so, in the same
vein, that of the nineteenth century is bound to create
an uneasy vacuum without the activities of Eyo Honesty
II, fondly called Eyo Eyo: the former the father, the latter very honest and diligent in business. These noble
the son.
Eyo Nsa appeared in the limelight of the eighteenth
century Efik history not as a bolt from the blue, but
because of his continuous achievements pure and
simple: in wealth he had no rival, in bravery he was
second to none, in sagacity he overshadowed all his
rivals and contemporaries, in Ekpe Fraternity he was the
keeper of the Ebonko title, his romantic ardour was
almost proverbial. In blood Eyo Nsa was not royal, yet
after his death his offspring and descendants created
that royal dynasty of Eyo Kings in .Creek Town for
practically a century, from 1835 to 1931.
Some men come into this world as human puzzles,
because they happen to be created somehow different
from others on account of their unusually natural
endowments, and when they die, they pass out of our
world stage leaving behind them the enigma of their
lives for history to explain. But the historian does not
make hi story, nor does he direct it, nor can he direct it
eit her; he is mainly concerned, like the dramatist, with
w OJ
that created these historical actors and actresses.
From the Hartis Report we gather that the date of Eyo
Nsals birth was around 1730. As a young man certain
unique human qualities began to be expressive in him:
in wrestling contests, which were the normal recreations
in Creek Town in those days, Eyo rendered all his rivals
his underlings. In swimming and diving competitions, "
Eyo in water was almost like the fish itself. At the same
time, he was very hardworking and sincere in all he did,
qualities he demonstrated fully in his trade transactions
with the English supercargoes who commercially placed
him in their good books.
The overseas slave trade with Europe and America had
started to be a paying concern in Old Calabar about the
second half of the seventeenth century. It became much
more intensive and lucrative from the second half of the
eighteenth century when Eyo Nsa found it much more
rewarding than fishing or farming. As a self-made man
we are informed· that his honesty earned him great
respect of the English traders.
The trade machinery of the period was by credit or "trust
system", since Old Calabar and Britain were operating
on different currencies; the trade was conducted by
I' "trust" in which the super-cargo would leave goods of
some value with his client or local agent with which to
buy for him slaves for that amount, to be collected when
he would return to Old Calabar on his next trip.
r'~ , ~." ., .
With the trade machinery so precarious, the supercargo aOE
was running a great risk, because some of the clients
Calabar ~d The CT"O.5~ R,"ver­
who preferred to be crooked would abscond with the
trade goods without fulfilling the trade conditions for c:rr,- , 1900 A,t>,

which the goods were meant. It was Eyo Nsa 's honesty,
diligence and "scrupulous fairness" in trade that made
him succeed where dishonesty and a device to deceive
made others fail. This was why European traders
nicknamed him "Honesty", which is now his family name
in Creek Town.
t
Under these circumstances nearly all foreign traders
preferred to trade with Eyo Nsa, and natura lly his trade .
Ikpe Iket Nk<.n

expanded and this brought "considerable wealth to his

coffers". His wealth attracted manpower in addition. His
expanding trade commanded the greatest following in
the Creek Town of his day.

The commercial activities of Eyo Willy Honesty in Creek

Town in that second half of the eighteenth century 50 N
encouraged the emergence of wealthy traders who
brought immense prosperity to the town and its
environs. Bold confirms that it "had the best and most
indefatigable traders"1 and Creek Town earned the
highest "comey" from these foreign traders.

By this period also many Efik chiefs and traders had got BIGHT OF BIAFRA
access to, and had learnt, the English alphabet with
which th ey began to use in writing the pidgin English
that enabl ed them keep diary records of daily 20
I
0
I
20
I
40
I
60 Km .
I
happening s in t heir lives and in the locality. 8"E

'Edward Bold, Merch ant s' and Mar iners' Afr ica n Gu ide, Lond on, 1822, p. 79 4 w
With his wealth and influence Eyo Willy Honesty steered
Creek Town through its golden age of prosperity. Henry
Nicholls who met Eyo in person noted that:

"in person the king of Ebongo is

about six feet high, with an
extreme good Negro
countenance, has a very
commanding deportment and
is a very great warrior". 2

The influence of Eyo Willy Honesty was such that he

completely eclipsed the actual ruler of Creek Town who
was, perhaps, one of the descendants of old Eyo Ema.
Nicholls also remarked that he called on the king who
was a very old man whom he thought was at least eighty
years of age, and who did not appear irr-the least infirm,
but thin and his skin much wrinkled. He added further
that Eyo was the actual ruler of Creek Town though he
was never crowned.

The numerous entries on the activities of Eyo Willy

Honesty in Antera Duke's diary records between 1785
and 1788 carry substantial evidences of how powerful
was this man's personality in Efik political, social and
commercial history in Old Calabar in that late eighteenth
century.

Eyo Nsa's Sword

'Hallet, Records of African Association. P. 199 6 w


3 the river with his flotilla of war canoes in the dead of
ARMED ROBBERS OF T HE RIVER
For the Efik traders of those days the Cross River was
their most important commercial highway: trade canoes
moved up and down the river day and night, so that
often times when these canoes went up the river with
their trade goods, they fell a victim to. Mbiakong pirates
who began to make themselves a menace to the safety
of the river traffic, not only by plundering the canoes and
making away with the goods, but also by murdering
their accupants.
Duke Town, Creek Town and Old Town traders, who were
the most hard-hit by the pirates' menace, were
frustrated with bitter embarrassment b~cause of their
heavy losses in trade that followed. Naturally Eyo Willy
Honesty, with his extensive trade, must have been one
of the greatest victims of the pirates' activities.
Therefore, with his financial wealth and considerable
man-power as the essential sinews of war, he fitted out a
punitive expedition against those armed-robbers of the
river.
At first he had planned to undertake this perilous
mission with his friend, Prince Mbo Otu of Old Town, but
when his friend changed his mind and would no longer
go with him, Eyo Nsa decided to risk the campaign
w w
alone. After some elaborate preparations he moved up
night and lay in ambush, because he wanted personal
confrontation with the pirates. That chance offered itself
to him close to the mouth of the Ikpa Creek where the
pirates had established their base. There he broke up his
invading teams into smaller columns, and posted them
secretly at strategic positions that enabled them to
cordon off a good section of the river behind his own
columns, which he posted in the front line face to face
with the enemy, .all ready for the aquatic combat. Their
first engagements with the pirates were a surprise
attack on three fronts, and these confrontations were
savage and bloody. The pirates, as soon as they had to
pass through such nasty experiences at this initial
invasion, quickly retired to their hide-out for safety and
for defence. But the superior weapons of their invaders
quickly turned the scene into a chase of the pirates
whose gangs broke up and fled.
At the end of these campaigns Eyo Willy Honesty, not
only cleared the Cross River of' the menace of its pirates
population in three weeks, but also succeeded in
capturing their leader, Uko Mbiakong, and decapitating
him, and whose head was brought to Creek Town as
exhibit.
This special feat of heroism compelled attention in Creek
Town and which earned him "the freedom of the city of
 Creek Town". There was jubitation almost everywhere in Eyo Honesty House today. Eyo Nsa himself was never a
the old metropolis. Perhaps Eyo Nsa himself did not king, nor was he crowned as such, but when his son
quite understand the magnitude of his success to his became king he took the title of "Second", because of
people, and what it had in store for him, because great respect for the courage and leadership of his late father.
surprises came in its wake.
It was in 1812 that a notable linguistic development took
Etinyin Esien Ekpe Oku, the keeper of the Eyamba title in place in Creek Town. It was Eyo Willy Honesty again
Ekpe Fraternity and who was also the Ambo patriarch in who, for the first time in the history of the Efik language,
Creek Town, had long promised that whoever would had tried to adapt the English alphabet in writing the Efik
destroy Uko Mbiakong and his pirates gang would have language vocabulary. This occurred 34 years before the
Presbyterian Mission arrived in Old Calabar in 1846 to
the hand of his daughter, Princess Inyang Esien Ekpe
commence the writing of the Efik language. We still
Oku. He now came out and redeemed his pledge by
recognize Eyo Nsa's words today: e.g. Certain Efik
giving his daughter in marriage to Eyo Nsa, unmindful of words he began with an aspirated "h" or "he", e.g
his son-in-Iaw's genealogical disabilities. In Efik, a
patriarch is royal. Evo's vocabularv Modern Efik Enqlish
Hittam Itam Hat
Ekei Oku, a noted authority on this spedal theme, Hecat Ikot Bush
maintains that other patriarchs in Mbiabo, Adiabo, and Hekong Ikan Gun
in Ibitan in Creek Town had also accepted Eyo Nsa as Henung Inun Salt
l
their son-in-Iaw It was after this time that Eyo Willy IHeyack IIyak Fish
Honesty established his own House in Creek Town.
In another miscellaneous group:
We had mentioned earlier in this narrative that in blood
Eyo Nsa was not royal, but his marriage with these Evo's vocabularv Modern Efik Enalish
princesses was creating a turning pOint in his life's EbOir Ebua Doq
career, because they were now to inject royalty blood Wang Nwan Woman
into his offspring. His wedlock with Princess Inyang Erto Eto Stick or tree
Esien Ekpe Oku yielded two results: first, a son, Eyo Eyo
Nsa, was born to him and who was later crowned as King In another development, the Efik words beginning with
Eyo Honesty 11 of Creek Town, who is the main theme of the vowel "u" he begins with "hue"l
this volume; second, the Ekpe title of "Ebonko", was
passed on to him through his wife, and this title is still in
'These Princesses were Anwatim Ukpong Neneng of Ikoneto, Ako Anwadet Eniang Nkot 10 'Jeffreys, Old Calabar, H. w. -r. I. Press, Calabar, 1935, page 101. 1111
of Mbiabo Ikoneto, Okoho Ibitam Eyo of Ibitam House, and Nyomo-anwan Nyomo Asido
Efa of Adiabo. See Oku, E. E. The Kings and Chiefs of Old Calabar, Glad Tidings Press,
Calabar, 1989, p.193.
f L. •
....;'. ':.'

."
':"it' '.-'- ,: "":- ,"f',_,'
tvo's vocabular .j MOdern ttlk tnallsh ~.
Heubok Ubok Hand Old CalabC(t' ct'rc. I~OO AD­
Hueyou 1 Uyo l.; ~'l , Bread (biscuit) 10 Ad.~b.o
Hueoar - Ukpa Redwood
Huewonq
,
Unwon Tobacco
t i"
~ j ~ f 1
Huefok CRt! K .1'0"'( N
Ufok House
1
#

,~
­
Hueneck Unek . I......;­..... ,[ Dance I ~ ..1'1
..­ ... ..

4
THE OBUTONG INCIDENT . ~
q ~
An unpleasant situation developed between Duke Town
and Old Town (Obutong) in 1767 owing to trade rivalry
between the two Efik settlements on the Calabar River.
Trade rivalry infused suspicion and bad blood between
~N '"
them, and which induced the two towns almost always
to be in arms against each other. Naturally, =\rade
relations between them were uneasy and inconvenient,
and naturally, too, the ugly situation affected the trade
of the supercargoes who were unhappy over the delays
caused by this unfortunate state of affairs.

There were six British ships on the 'Calabar River at that

time: "Edgar of' Liverpool", under Captain Lace, "The
Canterbury", under Captain Sparkes. -of London, the
"Duke of York", under Captain Bea van of Liverpool, "The /lectvy r-o·t-e~t. -?- !
Indian Queen", under Captain Lewis of Bristol, "The 5h-~(lmS - . . ~
Nancy" and "The Oxford". The British supercargoes, in E " f J K"'- Aftey "'.It. A)e
their wish to revenge Old Town "for the non-payment of
the huge debts owed them by the Old Town traders" who

'The Story of Old Calabar, A Guide to the National Museum at the Old lill [ill
Residency, Calabar, pp. 119,-120
 into a small canoe and began
held the dominant position in the international trade of paddling for the shore. Bodies
the period, must have found the poor relationship of his people floating, leaving
between the two towns an opportune moment to long red swirls in the muddy
express their physical grievance on Old Town. The waters; guns roaring behind
captains who were impatient over the commercial him, the men of New Town
suspense engendered by the present situation, (Duke Town) bloody and
embarked on a stratagem, by making a secret pact with exultant on the shore. A high
Duke Town and inviting Old Town on board the "Duke of whistling; an impact sent him
York" under pretext of mediating between them, yet down and down; his canoe shot
they really wanted the destruction of the latter. Eyo Willy to pieces by a ship's six
Honesty, who was roped in on the side of Duke Town, pounder. Unhurt and gasping,
was also striving to undermine the dominant he struck out of the wreckage
commercial position of Old Town. for the jungle shore above the
:J town, round him splashed
When the people of Old Town had assembled for the pursuing musket shots" 1
mediation, some were waiting in their canoes, the
following drama of treachery was staged: That was the drama on how the brave king of Old Town
escaped death while hundreds of his men were dead in
"Then a single gun was fired the river. "The massacre was a deliberate, cold blooded
and before its echo had died treachery, based on despicable abuse offaith.
away, the white officers and
crew, heavily armed, had
surrounded them. Taken utterly
by surprise, the Negroes tried
to escape, a few jumped
overboard ... the three brothers
(of the king ) were shackled and .,. <',"{'

flung below ... on the deck of

the "Edgar". The King of Old
Town) fought desperately,
killing two seamen, jumped
1 Averil Mackenzie - Grieve The Last Years Of the English Slave Trade, [ill
[ill Liverpool, 1750-1807 (London, Cass,1768) P 57 - 60
 5 automatically created the Eyamba vacancy in the Ekpe
THE PARAMOUNT LODGE
By the early nineteenth century Creek Town and Duke
Town still shared one Ekpe Lodge, generally recognized
as "Paramount Lodge" among the other Ekpe Efik Iboku
Lodges as in previous centuries. In the conclave of all
the officials of Ekpe Efik Iboku the Obong Eyamba of
Paramount Lodge always presided. It was in this
Paramount Lodge that all types of intrigues, political,
social and commercial, always had their supreme
expression.
In this Ekpe conclave there was a younger man.,;
remarkable in trade and whose name was Duke
Ephraim, the son of Ephraim Duke, the ruler of Duke
Town who had died in 1786, and whom Grant,. an English
ship Captain, remarked in 1805 that he was:
"Remarkably keen in trade, and
will haggle and haggle in the
making of a bargain in a
manner that shows how
perfectly he understands the
doctrine of self-interest"1
The young Duke had realized that it was the acquisition
of wealth that was a reliable passport to a successful
political career and he decided to go on in it at all costs.
In 1814, Ekpenyong Offiong Okoho, the Eyamba III of
the Paramount Lodge, passed away. His death
'Grant Account of Calabar as appeared in the memoirs of Late Capt.
Crow, London, 1830, pp . 276 ff.
16
Efik Iboku Lodge, a vacancy much coveted after.
Naturally, it so turned out that Eyo Willy Honesty and
Duke Ephraim became the two rivals who must now
throw in their lots for the Eyambaship title; both men
were aware of this, and the duel for the crown was to be
settled at the Ekpe conclave. And the event that
followed immediately after a brief period of suspense
was narrated by the Rev. Hope Masterton Waddell in
1847. Eyo Willy Honesty:
"was a prosperous man, whose
success in business excited the
envy of neighbouring chiefs,
and they conspired to break
him down . Secretly and
suddenly they assembled at his
capital (Creek Town), and
summoned him to the 'Palaver
House'* to answer an Egbo
charge.... The charge was a
trumpery one, but is sufficed".
It was at this Ekpe conclave that Eyo was subjected to
"an enormous fine that nearly ruined him". Ekpe court
was the highest judicial authority in the land and was
above challenge. His enemies, after inflicting on him this
economic disaster, boasted that they "chopped him all to
. nothing".
Waddell remarked that the charge against Eyo was "a
trumpery one", and "trumpery" is what deceives by false
* Pidgin English for Ekpe Lodg e LUJ
show, or any worthless or offensive matter. His enemies'
charges against him were many: some accused him of
being a usurper, and that he had taken over the rulership
of Creek Town when he had no royal mandate to do so;
others said that he was planning for the Ekpe lodge in
Creek Town to be independent of Duke Town in order to
free himself from Duke Town control in the affairs of the
Fraternity. The main truth was that the Duke, who was
desperate for the Eyambaship was doing all in his power,
working behind the scenes, to get him out of his way for
the office.
To be an Eyamba in those days was a paying and
prestigious concern: the one would control the Ekpe
conclave; his decisions in the assembly would be final; .J
he would be the keeper of the Fraternity's titles and
honours to be dished out to deserving candidates; he
would enjoy the lion's share of the wealth that might
accrue to Ekpe. Antera Duke's diary records for
31/8/1787 indicated that when Ekpe money was being
shared that day among its members, Egbo Young Offion
(Ekpenyong Offiong), the Eyamba, received 25 rods and
one goat. Eyo Willy Honesty received 20 rods and one
goat as Ebonko; others received far less except King
Ambo and Duke Ephraim.
Eyo Nsa's enemies knew that to be an Eyamba the
candidate had to spend much of money to buy himself
up for the prestigious office, and to deprive him of his
wealth at this critical moment would be to provide a sure
crippling apparatus of hindrance to his achieving his
119
LW
purpose. Besides, Eyo Willy Honesty was now an
octogenarian, the youth in him had fled from his physical
being, because it was the time for it to do so when those
peculiar gnawing physical qualities that bring the
devastating effects of old age were seriously working
havoc on his physique and personality as an individual,
and he was no longer the same man any more. The Ekpe
decision to his disfavour was stripping him of his wealth,
and leaving him practically insolvent. Naturally, Duke
Ephraim had no more any formidable rival in Ekpe
conclave: he became Eyamba IV in 1814. And according
to Edward Bold, Duke Ephraim also became the Etinyin
of Duke Town
1
From this period the supreme authority of Ekpe Efik
Iboku passed on to Duke Ephraim (known in Efik as
Efiom Edem), a younger man, now "by far the greatest
trader" .
In 1820, Eyo Willy Honesty passed away at the age of
ninety years, amidst sanguinary funerals according to
custom.
With Honesty's departure from life Duke Ephraim was
now left without any serious rival both in trade and
prestige. He was the most important trader and receiver
of "comey", and controller of external trade. Waddell
adds that "as Duke Town rose, Creek Town fell"2. Duke
was now to monopolise trade and political offices and, as
recorded by Hallett who describes Duke Ephraim as:
'Bold, E., The Merchants ' And Mariners' African Guide, London , 1822, P.76 : 79
'Waddell, Twenty-nine years in the West Idies and Central Afri ca, London , 1862, p.310

 "a very elegant formed young
man, six feet high, with a very
expressive countenance, and
his skin is rather blacker than
the Calabar people in general"3
Duke Ephraim who hated rivals from any quarter did all
in his power to consolidate his monopoly of trade, by not
only excluding other Efik Houses from sharing in it, but
also other tribes from direct commercial contact with
Europeans and he was supremely dominant in this.
When he began his rule Efik Houses in Old Calabar were
29 in all, but he soon started to integrate them into his
own Duke House so that his House would be the only one
to keep the trade monopoly and sole collector of
"comey". Eyo Willy Honesty House in Creek Town was
one of the victims of his repressive rule, but he gave the
public the outward impression that he was taking over
that House to protect Willy Honesty's household. When
he completed his annexation of these Houses into his
own, only 15 Houses were left free in Old Calabar4. And
when Creek Town was now almost completely excluded
from the trade many deserted the ancient metropolis.
Waddell noted that the original care-taker of Willy
Honesty House, his brother Ekpenyong Nsa, was a
rather "rash, proud, headstrong man' who scattered the
families, some of whom Duke Ephraim gathered round
him while others retired into the country to reside there
"in solitary dignity on their estates 5 • One of those whom
Duke Ephraim took over was Eyo Eyo Nsa, Willy
Honesty's son by Princess Inyang Esien Ekpe.
'Hallett, Robin (ed) Records of th e African Associat ion (1788-1831), London, 1964, p.199
'Duke's Diary Records for 3 1/8/1787. Efik Traders of Old Calabar (Oxford, 1956) p.59
'Duke, Magnus A. Letter t o King Ebreto Nonow of Ikoneto, 12 Jan . 1890 p. 8
' Adam Duke 's letter to King Ebreto of Ikoneto of 12 Jan. 1890, page . 1
'Waddell, Twenty-nine years p. 310 ff.
6
THE GREAT DUKE AND HIS ERA
Our records indicate that Duke Ephraim, who was often
known in Efik quarters as "Efiom Edem Akamba" or The
Great Duke Ephraim, was a contemporary of Eyo Willy
Honesty and Ekpenyong Offiong Okoho, the Eyamba
111. All three of them belonged to the same conclave of
Paramount Lodge; all three found themselves in the
ranks of worshipful masters in the Fraternity and
naturally the three were wealthy enough to have bought
themselves into their ranks. Antera Duke noted that
when Jimmy Henshaw, on 31st August 1787 1 paid his
\....., assessment for 4 Calabar "Afaws" (or lodges) "to be
King Ekpe" All three of them received -substantial
shares from the assessments that accrued to Ekpe.
This period of the Great Duke Ephraim was the transition
from the slave trade to palm oil trade. Duke's rule in
Duke Town was autocratic to the core, and it was his
ambition to make sure that all economic activities were
geared to his benefit. He abolished the former system of
trade in which each Hbuse in Duke Town or Creek Town
had to trade independently with the supercargoes, and
he made it a law that each House which had hitherto
been trading with the supercargoes should now do so
through him. Magnus Adam Duke, who was bitterly
critical of the Great Duke's policy, noted that he had
"subdued many Old Calabar Houses under his own
captaindom"2.
The Great Duke was so nauseated with the word "king"
as it was being used on him and every petty ruler that he
120
121 1
.

preferred "duke" on himself as "original and distinctive".
To encourage the rapid and smooth transition from the
slave trade to palm oil trade, he granted loans to people
to trade in palm-oil and to market their produce through
him; yet at the same time he was secretly selling slaves
whenever the slavers could elude the Atlantic police into
Old Calabar waters for them in spite of its recent
abolition. In all these he used the Ekpe authority to
control all economic ventures and throughout his twenty
years of rule he showed himself as a man with an
unquenchable thirst for wealth.
men to boost the trade tightened their personal
friendship, brought them immense prosperity which
backed them up, and vitalized their political ambitions:
in 1819 John Tobin became the Mayor of Liverpool and
2
was knighted in 1820 In 1838 his firm launched the
"Great Liverpoolll steamship to trade between Liverpool
and New York.

Sir John Tobin And The Great Duke Ephraim

As palm-oil began to be in great demand in England for
industrial purposes, it stimulated its production in Old
Calabar. Duke Ephraim greatly encouraged his people to
produce more oil, and his effort was strengthened by Sir
John Tobin of Liverpool who organized its shipment from
Old Calabar and its sale in England, where British
industries had discovered the use of palm-oil in the
manufacture of commodities such as soap, margarine,
candles, lubricant and as flux in the tin-plate industry.

It was the combination of these two men in the oil trade II

that made Old Calabar to lead the expansion of the oil

production in West Africa. According to Adams 1 , there
was·a considerable trade in oil towards the closing years
of the slave trade. No doubt this combination by the two

'Adams, skectches, pages 42 - 43; p1!3 1221 'Oku, E. E. The Kings and Chiefs of old Calabar, Glad Tidings Press, Calabar, 1989, p17.123

Chap.ter
Two
THE CONFLICT OF AUTHORITY
1 commercial relationship with the supercargoes, he was
Eyo Eyo Nsa
We noted in an earlier section of this book that when Eyo
Willy Honesty died in 1820 Duke Ephraim took over
Honesty's household and not Hon '2sty House which was
left intact under the care of the deceased brother,
Ekpenyong Nsa; but he took over Honesty's household
ostensibly to care for them. Naturally he must have
observed Eyo Eyo Nsa, Honesty's son by Princess Inyang
Esien Ekpe, as a boy specially talented and he brought
him closer to himself, perhaps for a more personal
scrutiny.
The wall of the tower of Creek Town Presbyterian Church
carries the inscription on Eyo Eyo Nsa's year of birth as
1788 though some object to this date and felt that he
must have been born earlier.
(\
In his younger years Eyo Eyo Nsa had taken advantage
guardians were excellent in business, and where both
of his contact with English traders to learn to speak and
were concerned, it paid off squarely.
write the English language which was a powerful
commercial vehicle of trade in those early days. He had
- [ill
also served as a cabin boy under some English ship
captains and had travelled with them on various
occasions in their slave ships between Old Calabar, the
West Indies and England.
Before this time Eyo Eyo Nsa was observed to have been
very close to his father when the latter was alive, and
had taken notice of, and a keen interest in, his father's
familiar with his father's achievements; he grew up in
them and became a part of them, so that whenever his
father triumphed he felt it was his own triumph, and his
father's failures and mistakes were his own failures and
mistakes also, he therefore absorbed all these in his own
system for his undying experiences. He was an eye­
witness to the commercial, political and social storms
and conflicts that existed between his father and the
Great Duke, now his present guardian, and what these
storms and conflicts manifested. Fortunately, he was
close to the two of them, even when they were rivals,
and learned from their mistakes for his own life's
benefits. If his father was quick of temper or easily
irritated when wronged, he would learn to be calm and
collected, lest he should implicate himself through hasty
replies. If his father was blunt of speech and this proved
to be the bane of his later life, he would be subtle, tactful
and perhaps hypocritical in dealing with his adversaries
to avoid any awkward consequences. And surely, his two
[ill
Furthermore, Creek Town and Duke Town still shared and had adjusted his life to it even when his father was
one Ekpe lodge, the Paramount Lodge, and for a long yet alive. His early skill and care in his efforts to husband
time to come the Eyamba title-holder of that Ekpe lodge his resources appeared to have marked him out
would likely be confined to Duke Town after Esien Ekpe potentially as a man of substance even before he began
Oku and his halfbrother Ekpenyong Ekpe Oku as to be known abroad as such.
Eyamba I and Eyamba 11 respectivelyl. Under these
circumstances Creek Town felt the unpleasant impact of 2
being under Duke Town dictatorship and oppression in THE GREAT DUKE PASSES
spite of its place as the metropolis of the Efik race.
By 1834 Duke Town was already on the highest pinnacle
In 1830, John and Richard Lander, the explorers of the of its greatness: it was wealthy, powerful, famous and
River Niger, were in Calabar after following the course of proud. Its ruler, the Great Duke Ephraim, was accepted
the River Niger from Bussa to its mouth. The two by all the European visitors to the Coast of West Africa,
brothers seemed to have developed a keen including the supercargoes, as "the most powerful chief
demographic interest in areas they visited, and it was on the Coast" at that time; but when he died he left a
they who estimated the population strength of Duke society that was nervous, timid and uneasy. Duke Town
Town in 1830, as 6,000 people'" but were silent about had worked itself up as the foremost Efik town early in
Old Town population. In 1858, twenty eight years the nineteenth century under the autocratic severity of
afterwards, Hutchinson estimated Duke Town the Great Duke Ephraim. In 1834, on October 14, the
population to be 4,000, this excluded Henshaw Town Great Duke Ephraim, Eyamba IV, passed away in Duke
which he said had "120 inhabitants", Qua Town with Town. His death brought consternation on the entire
"about 100 inhabitants" and he estimated Creek Town city, and panic descended upon it like night-fall. A great
2
with "a population of about 3,000 inhabitants ." These man was dead, and in that intense superstitious
were the population strengths of these settlements environment, his death was blamed on some secret
when Eyo Eyo Nsa began to establish himself in the enemy: his wives, his friends or some family members
commercial wake of his forebears and guardians. who must now undergo the esere ordeal to prove their
innocence in his death. Fortunately for us, and through
From his younger years Eyo Eyo Nsa had begun to be "
Re v. Waddell, we have an account of the incident in
economically independent; for this reason he had pidgin English from the diary records of a certain Mr.
acquired the technicalities of the trust system of trade Young (or Ekpenyong):

126
'For some time during the Eyambaship of Ekpenyong Offi ong Okoho, Eyamba III, the trend of events
in the conclave of Paramount Lodge was pointing to future isolation of Creek Town from the Eyambaship. 127J
'R & J. Lander, Journal of an Expedition to Explore the course & termination of the Nigeria , 1832, p. 318
Forde, Eflk Trader of Old Calabar, Oxford, 1956, p. 119.
 So, this murderous scenario continued throughout the
"Old Calabar, October 14, 1834
day, and Waddell recorded that of the fifty suspects who
- Ephraim Duk daid in Five
passed through this "chop nut" ordeal, about forty of
o'clock this evening, and we put
them lost their lives.
him for Groun next morning.
Old Calabar Republican Proclamation of 1834
16th October 1834 - This
As soon as it became known that the Great Duke
morning all country and
Ephraim no longer lived, the whole of Old Calabar felt
Calabar come, and we go for Mr.
the impact, and by the autocratic severity of his rule the
Young, and stop little, not long,
Efik society became overwhelmed with nervous as well
after that we go for Duk Palaver
as feverish excitements: the vast number of those who
House, with all country, and our
depended on the deceased for their existence, and those
people, about the Duk Ephraim
who lived by siphoning their livelihood out of his
sick, and we go in for his yard,
abundance became nervous for a precarious and
so all our people chop nut. * The
uncertain future that now began to stare them in the
name of them :
face, and those he had oppressed were overwhelmed
with feverish excitement for freedom.
Erim Cooffee Duk chop, dead.
His son chop no dead. Orrock
All the oppressed Houses found this a moment of
Cooffee and two his son, dead.
opportunity for liberty to throw off their shackles of
Cooffee Copper, dead. Egbo
Duke's oppression and to develop on their own as
Eshan, dead. Egbo Young Egbo,
before. Magnus Adam Duke declared that the Great
dead. Bashey Archiebong Egbo
Duke Ephraim had behaved "in the manner of the
Duk, dead. Erim Egbo Duk
ancient king" and that he was "West Africa's Tyrant Duke
Ephraim; Otto, dead. Young Old
of this century". Accordingly, all the oppressed Houses
Archiebong, dead. Erim Odoor,
broke loose and each desired to be free and to "trade
mother, dead. Otto Ecarnum,
comey".
dead. One Otto slave, dead, for
street. Egbo Eshen, mother, '\
Not only were the oppressed Houses revived and free,
dead to-night. Ditto 17, -5 Duk
but also new Houses were established as independent
wife chop nut this morning, all
clans. It was the year that Eyo Eyo Nsa, who now found
dead".
[I2J
*Undergo the esere ordeai to prove their innocence. l1lJ
himself free from the Great Duke's guardianship, Europeans and Africans, conceded that position to him,
established his own House and became its founder and and the greatest harmony prevailed between them.
rector.
In his effort to achieve his purpose of reconciling the
When Eyo Willy Honesty died in 1820, we gather that his people he appealed not only to their common sense and
House was under the care of his brother, Ekpenyong domestic loyalty, but also to their native and traditional
Nsa, who "squandered his family fortunes" and sentiments. We gather also that:
scattered the family. Creek Town was sadly neglected
after the death of Eyo Willy Honesty and it fell into ruins: "In a dramatic manner, he went
"bush grew in the courtyards of forsaken mansions"; the out into the street, lifted a
town was deserted and its population fell so that handful of sand which he
scattered to the four winds and
leopards prowled through grass-strewn streets even at
called upon his six brothers and
midday. other relations to forgive all
injury and join him to rebuild
Such was the position of the old metropolis when Eyo the seat of their ancestors". 1
Eyo Nsa felt it was imperative on his part to make Creek
Town independent of Duke Town, and lito restore their In the same year, 1834, Eyo Eyo, who was aiming at his
fallen fortunes". He engaged in his trade with vigour and own independence, founded his Eyo Eyo Nsa House.
with the utmost caution. Waddell noted that "he Waddell, writing on the incident later, added that in 1835
resolved to pursue the course of integrity and Eyo:
punctuality in his commercial dealings which had won
for his father the Honourable title". At the same time he "Proclaimed a festival, invited
appealed to his brothers and half-brothers to join him in the country to be his guests and
the crusades for the restoration of their ancestral home for two weeks entertained all
and heritage. In his effort to do so he proceeded quietly who came, by daily feasts and
and unobtrusively in his work" to avoid exciting the envy shows. At last he took his seat
or hostility of his enemies as it happened to his late crowned in the market place,
father. He reconciled all the warring factions of the surrounded by his fam ily,
extended families of his father's House. Tom Eyo, his '\ friends, and armed bands,
senior brother, the patriarch of the family, finding him addressed the assembly and
more enlightened because of his experiences of early was hailed rightful king". 2
contact abroad, he felt he was able to deal with both

130 I , \ ,ol <lie II. ~-k" ", i l's

or Kill!; Eyo V II of Old Ca labar. Calabar. Presbyterian Press. 1894. p.7.
31
I Wlld<l" " . '1IV"lI ly-Nino Years. London 1862. p.312
 From these ceremonies of his public coronation he
became known as Eyo Honesty 11, and his newly
founded House has since been known as "Eyo Honesty
the Second House".

The above quotations from Waddell may tempt some

readers to think that Eyo crowned himself in the market
place . Efik royal tradition can never accept and
recognize any ruler whose coronation is not sanctioned
by Ekpe Fraternity, especially in those days in which
Ekpe was the be-all and the end-all of Efik affairs. The
Main installation and coronation of an Efik monarch are
carried out in a sacred ceremony at the "Efe Asabo" very
early in the morning before dawn. The authority and
sanction of Ekpe must always be invoked. What took
place in the market place, as reported by Waddell, was
the public display for the awareness of the community
since the actual sacred ceremony of coronation had
already been performed before dawn according to
custom.

The Christian Church whose duty it should have been to

undertake this part of the ceremony in the new era that
was dawning did not yet exist. It was from 1878, in the
reign of Archibong III in Duke Town that the
King Eyo 11'5 safe Presbyterian Church, backed by Queen Victoria of
" Britain, that this last item of Efik coronation , became the
responsibility of the Christian Church to this day.

lRl [ill
 3 money of the merchants",
EYO'S KINGSHIP. AND tEYAMBA'S REACTION
When the Great Duke Ephraim died in 1834, Edem
Ekpenyong Offiong Okoho succeeded him as King of
Duke Town and its dependencies, and having taken the
Eyambaship title as the vth, he preferred to be known as
Eyamba V.
King Eyamba knew that Creek Town was subordinate to
Duke Town and King Eyamba V who was aware of this
wanted to maintain the status quo. Eyo rejected that
subordinate position because he felt that it would be
improper for Creek Town to continue to share the Ekpe
Lodge with Duke Town, and he decided to break away.
He was now crowned king of Creek Town and its
dependencies, and he was far wealthier than King
Eyamba. He took the title of "second" out of deference to
the courage and leadership of his late father.
King Eyamba was much displeased about Eyo's
Kingship. Waddell informs us that Eyamba sent an
embassy to Eyo to express his displeasure and would
not countenance any rival king in Efik. Eyo on his part
received the embassy with the utmost courtesy and as
Waddell recorded, he displayed his reply in the following
manner:
"From his residence to the town
house he had the street laid
with hundreds of boxes of brass
and copper rods, "current
t1!J
'Waddell: Twenty-nine years, p.312
worth each about five pounds
sterling. On these he walked,
without putting his foot to
ground, and told the
messengers, what his march
had proved, that he had money
enough to be king, and needed
no leave from Eyamba"l.
What King Eyo did by this display of his affluence
was a reflection of the old Efik character. By this time Eyo
felt he was sufficiently wealthy to merit being a ruler of
the people, because the old Efik belief was, like the Jews
of old, that the ruler of the people must be rich. Once,
when Eyo had a conversation with Rev. Waddell · who
remarked that he (Eyo) was working too hard, Eyo
admitted that if he did not work hard he would be poor,
and would not deserve to be king. He pOinted out to the
Reverend gentleman that among the white men it was .
"a good fashion" that they paid "tribute" to their ruler,
"but black men never give their king anything, he had to
give them rather", and as he put it, "the man that has
most money will always be king"
The Jews of old seemed to have been identified with this
situation and belief. In the book of Isaiah (3: 7) we have
it that:
n
"in my house is neither bread
nor clothing: make me not a
ruler of the people".
[ill
It was therefore imperative that Eyo should be rich in
order not only to meet the heavy financial demands of
his vast trade commitments, but also to let his people
benefit from his abundance. After all, as a ruler he was
comfortably placed by his genealogy, and he needed
wealth to supplement his royal status.

King Eyamba continued to express his displeasure over

Eyo's kingship by forbidding the ship captains to salute*
Eyo when he visited their ships or pay the penalty of a
fine, but Eyo demanded his honours and would not trade
with any.captain that took Eyamba's orders, and as his
trade with the ships was the most important to the
captains, Eyo carried his point and left them to settle the
matter with Eyamba.

Furthermore, King Eyamba, in a rash manner said that

he would catch Eyo and chain him. We are informed that
Eya quietly prepared a great force of armed canoes,
came down the river and unexpectedly appeared in
Duke Town. His people were prepared for war but had
been instructed to remain perfectly calm and not to land
until they were ordered to do so; but with a small body­
guard Eyo walked to the King's palace. Eyamba at first
was exultant, and felt it was an honour done him by this
visit, but after their salutations Eyo informed him that he
had come to offer him the "opportunity he desired of
chaining him". At this point Eyamba was quite taken
aback and tried to make a joke of it and asked Eyo if he ".

would have some wine with him, but Eya declined and I I

said that he never drank wine, and returned to Creek

Town.
King Eya Honesty II

* When an important king v isited a ship it was the custom in those days to receive him ,36
with a gun salute.
lill
 Chapter King Eyo, like many African rulers, was enamoured of
pageantry and magnificence, and these were often
,Three expressed during his official tours and visits. When the
Presbyterian Mission team first arrived in Duke Town in
EYO HONESTY II ERA BEGINS 1846, Waddell described the river scenes of King Eyo's
official welcome to the Mission pa'r ty in the following
passage:
1
Eyo lIalso soon came, in a six­
Eyo As A King
oared gig, covered :by an '
immense · and handsome
We are able to have some account on King Eyo Honesty .
umbrella of various colours, to
liThe Second ll from some past and present authors
pay his respects to Captain
because his personality attracts their attention. Rev.
Beecroft. An English ensign,
Waddell who 'saw him personally in 1846 describes him
with his name thereon in large
as lIa low-set and stout-made man, his fine head and an
capitals, streamed behind. He
open firm countenance ll favourably impressed the early
was followed by tw6lar~ie war
missionaries. He was observed in native dress, made up
canoes, each paddled by
of lIa few yards of broad Fancy coloured silk round his
twenty-eight men, with a row of
loins, descending to the ankles ll .1Naturally, this was the
armed man standing down the
loincloth ' he put on. Hutchinson noted his muscular
centre, 'a swivel gun in the
frame with lIeyes and lips of the usual prominence bows, a roo fed ho use
observable in the Ethiopian face ll , and his whiskers were amidships, an immense ensign '
going ll grey; lIa silk handkerchief thrown over his
behind, like the one in the boat.
shoulders; a black hat with a gold band'. 2Ayandele,later They came on with a sort of
found him an attractive personality whom the shouting, keeping time with the·
missionaries and traders admired and loved. 3Naturally, strokes of their paddles. Some
Eyo was handsome and .dark in complexion. In height he of his chiefs followed him in
was estimated to be five feet eight inches tall, that their own canoes, adorned with
meant he was some four inches short of his father's IIsix " flags. It was quite a pageant.
feet highll. He was heartily welcomed . by
'Waddell, Twenty-nine years, London, 1862, p. 242 . 38
'Hutchinson, Impressions of Western African, London, Cass 1970, page 132.
'Ayandele, E. A., Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria, 1842-1914, London, ll2J
Longman, 1966, p.19

. \~."-' ~,.~
 Beecroft, and cordially shook seated in one of his courtyards,
.
' . over l:ooking his trade books .
hands wit h us all, saying that
he was glad to see us ... two Th 'e musical band
boys attended him, one accompanying the king consists
carrying his gold snuffbox, in a of an Egbo drum ... an
handsome native bag hung instrument formed of iron as of
round his neck, the other a pair the saucers of two shovels and
of pistols and a sword slung stru~k with a piece of the same
over his shoulder" 1 . met~1 ... a cow's horn ... and
clattering boxes made of
After more than ten years later, in another bamboo matting with a fringe of
development, Hutchison, the British Consul, described them. Yet with this primitive
another river scene of Eyo's state visit to Duke Town, attempt at music, the banners
accompanied by: flying from the canoes, the
simultaneous hOisting of the
a train of large canoes, from flags on all the ships in the river
one of which a gun is fired to and the return of a salute from
announce his approach as the the vessel to which he is
royal party turns the angle approaching, when the king's
opposite Old Town. The king is party becomes visible, give the
always seated in a six-oared whole scene a very animated
gig belonging to the ship to appearance. 2
which he is proceeding, whilst
the canoes contain his eldest
son, young Eyo, and his three
brothers, with an innumerable •

host of attendants. He has a

gigantic party-coloured parasol
held over his head on these
occasions as he has whenever
I
walking about on his own or

' Waddell, Twenty-nine years, (1862), p242. 1401 'Thomas J. Hutchinson , Impressions of Western Afril::a,London, Cass, 1970, p133 .
 2 master over his domestic servants. The Efik used the
EYO: THE SLAVE TRADE AND SLAVERY term "Ete" or "Eka" for "father" or "mother" as the case
, might be to express relations.
The slave trade, which is now to us a horrible and
Waddell, our nineteenth century authority on this
illegitimate business, was a very legitimate and paying
subject explains that
traffic, approved by European churches, African rulers
and global ethics. Throughout the centuries that it
"Free men may become slaves
operated, many European monarchs and some
in several ways deemed
parliamentarians welcomed it, because it brought much legitimate. First, by selling
wealth to its dealers, and initiated Europe and America' , themselves, either in times of "
into the ranks of capitalist nations. famine, or for protection, or to
better their circumstances; as a
Eyo Willy Honesty was a great stave dealer and he rich head-slave may be better
started to be wealthy by his total commitment to the off than a p'oor despised
traffic; so was the great Duke Ephraim and King Eyo freeman. Theirs is a very
Honesty 11 and Eyamba V. There were also cases of mitigated slavery, and does not
slaves stealing slaves and selling them, slavery itself warrant a transfer of their
was common among mankind from the remotest period persons and services by sale to
of any nation's history. another. Many free men in
adjoining territories became
The slave trade necessarily brought its accompanying King Eyo's dependents, or ,
institution of slavery, because the slave traders more subjects, in that way, for
often kept in their homes some of their choice slaves for protection against powerful and
domestic services. King Eyo Honesty II also kept some unscrupulous neighbours who,
of these slaves in his home for their services. they feared, would kill or sell
, them. He seldom .- removed
Among the Efik, especially in the uncertain age such as them, se,ldom oppressed them,
the eighteenth or nineteenth century, some free men yet they became entirely
would surrender themselves to a rich nobleman to subject to him, and bound to
escape famine or for security. And in these situations the forward his interest in their own
status of the master to his dependents would be that of') countries.

[ill
 captain and crew for everyone.
Second, men may be sold for debt, as of old time, Besides his extensive trade,
'themselves, wives, children, and all that they have, that which amounted to several
payment may be made". Egbo (Ekpe) is powerful in
thousand puncheons annually,
enforcing such claim.
he employed his people
Third, men may be sold as prisoners of war, or as
reclaiming waste lands,
criminals. Both these degrade the parties, and include
founding towns, and planting
the loss of all natural rights".
farms in well selected positions,
which gave him command of
Waddell once advised King Eyo against his continuing to
the rivers and channels of
buy slaves from the interior, who, he knew, were
trade. He used to go with a
generally stolen, but he pleaded the impossibility of his
great force to a new district,
knowing certainly who were or were not so acquired, or
and begin the work himself,
how they had come into the market; but he argued that
felling the woods, planting the
since he did not steal them, he would not sell them
ground, and building the
again, but to better their condition with him than being
houses, then he left the people
free in their own country. 1 . " ' .
there with a head man, to take
care of themselves, multiply,
King Eyo rewarded all his confidential head people, slave
plant and gather, traffic and
or free, by paying the required fees for them to become
gain, and bring him his share of
members of the Ekpe Fraternity which Was an .
provisions and oil yearly.
introductory step towards freedom. ,~~\
They generally lived pretty
The age was so uncertain that were anyohe freed by his j,'
comfortably, raising fowl and
master, for whatever cause, he must find some powerfuf
goats, fishing, and hunting.
chief to befriend him, or purchase Ekpe honours, to
When required to work in town
secure his freedom, "otherwise his defelite would li~ in
they came in relays, for a week
his own right hand". Waddell further wrote:·
or two each gang, with their
provisions, and when their spell
"King Eyo had many thousind '1
was done, returned to their own
slaves, and four hundred quarters".2
canoes, his son said, with a
'Waddell. Twenty-nine years (1862). London p. 317 44
' Waddell . Twe nly- nine years .. p, 320
till
In those insecure days, every infringement of custom
was deemed an offence, a crime, involving death or
slavery. In Old Calabar, man stealing was prohibited
under pain of death in order to prevent its occurrences,
yet experienced slaves stole new ones under pretence of
their having run away. .
King Eyo generally treated his slaves most humanely.
One of his prin'cipal traders attained a position of the
highest consideration and wealth; he was treated with
more respect, and was also more influential than some
of the King's own brothers.
3
KING EYO AND 'HIS FAMILY
It was the custom in those days for wealthy Efik men to
place orders through ship captains for some storey- .
houses to be shipped from Liverpool and erected for
them in Old Calabar. A few of these prefab buildings still
exist in Duke Town and Creek Town today, but that of
King Eyo Honesty 11 had been consumed by accidental
fire in 1852, though this was replaced in 1856 with
another with its excellent furniture. Unfortunately this
again was aCCidentally consumed by fire after his death
in 1858.
We have been able to have an idea of what King Eyo's
house looked like in the nineteenth century. It was a
two-storey English house with stained glass doors and
windows, built on the top of a gradual slope as one
'1
~ 147]
moved from the river inland. Its site commanded a good
view of the river, the market-:place and the thatched
houses of his women. There was an external wooden
staircase that led up to the first floor where was the
King's reception room.
The house was sufficiently furnished with excellent
Victorian furniture: there were tables and chairs,
sideboards, clocks, sofas, barrel organ, china-ware,
mirrors of all types and sizes, chandeliers. There were
cannons in the front yard. His thatched residential
quarters stood with their nine court-yards surrounded
by some low-thatched buildings each opening into the
other.
In front of his house under the projecting roof by the side
of the street was a long sofa-like seat made of beaten
clay (known in Efik as "mbot"), well shaped and painted.
Inside his public or court-yard were similar seats all
round. The walls of the buildings were tastefully painted
in beautiful native patterns with native pigments, and
the King's wives were the artists.
King Eyo received his important and official guests in his
English house, whereas his thatched residential
quarters were for his wives, domestic servants and trade
goods.
In those days of hard polygamous culture nobody really
knows today the number of wives King Eyo had married,
but his reactions to two incidents which exposed the ill­
behaviour of two of his wives may help to enrich our
knowledge of the King's character.

King EYo was a good lover of his family, and he was qu ite
prepared to give them the necessary protection and
support, consequently he expected them to live up to
certain approved standards of behaviour that would not
rnvite any disgrace or loss of honour to his family.
The first incident came up in 1847, when one of his
wives, the mother of his two sons, had to visit her father
at his home town, and while there she "played him false"
by allowing herself to be entangled in the love-net with a
chief of that town. When King Eyo got the full knowledge
of their criminal intercourse he said nothing but kept the
matter absolutely secret. At the same time he embarked
upon a stratagem by which his offender and his go­
between were kidnapped and brought to Creek Town.
Here the two men were tied together and drowned in the
river. 1
The unfaithful wife, who deserved capital punishment
according to the law of the land, was spared for her
children's sake, but was banished to one of the king's
farms for life. Her son was so enraged by his mother's
dishonouring herself and his father that, he said, had
she been killed he would not have been sorry, and added
that he could shoot her himself even though she was his
mother.
In another domestic development in 1851 another of
Eyo'5 wives, Ima by name, th inking that the king was
not at home, went out of their court-yard into the street
without leave, and was quarrelling with an impudentgirl
who had provoked her. Unfortunately she was seen
'Waddel l. Twenty-ni ne years .. Page 34 1 '1 148 1
and her voice was hea rd where they should never have
been seen or heard. The king who had seen her and
heard her voice considered this a dreadful impropriety
and he instantly "gave orders to close the yard gate
against her" and never let her enter it again . 2
To her greatest surprise and shock there was not a single
person who could help to intercede on her behalf in spite
of all her effort to get this done for her, not even the
king's brothers. The efforts of Mrs Waddell and Miss
Miller, the two missionaries who were familiar friends of
the king's wives, proved abortive. King Eyo would not be
influenced by any entreaties, even though the condition
of his victim was so pitiful and desperate, having been
abandoned in a wretched hut exposed to hunger and
inclement weather. In the end, after Waddell's
persistent and pressing petitions for days on end, the
king yielded to forgive the offending wife, but she was
banished from his home for life and was given a good
house at the other end of the town.
To come to this decision the case must have disturbed
the king's mind terribly, and must have cost him a great
internal struggle before he let the offender go. To him
not merely his domestic rule was at stake, but his
honour and authority in the country, and the good
opinion of all his nobles who, perhaps, might wish that
wife to be made an exa m ple.
.
Two days later, Rev. Waddell called on King Eyo to pay
his respects as usua l, and according to the minister, the
King's appearance struck him as "that of one who had
' Wadde ll. Twe nl y-nine years ... Page 473 @2J
suffered a great internal conflict, and passed nights of
sleepless anxiety". "To myself," continued the minister,
"he was calm as ever, and no allusion was made to the
subject, but his agonized looks betrayed the mental
agitation". Waddell finally added:
"To Eyo's credit be it said that
he never bore a grudge. Neither
to Ima nor to us did there
appear ever after any trace of
lurking resentment".
Ima realized very well that she was responsible for her
present predicament, because she knew whom she had ·
married and her social position in the country; but
although she suffered for her mistakes, she finally
surrendered herself to her fate and acquiesced in it as
inevitable. Finally she took to the church, believed in the
gospel, and was received into the church °as a sister of
Christ". Of King Eyo's children we cannot say exactly
how many they were; but we are fully aware of his first
son, often known as Eyo Ete or Young Eyo, who
succeeded him on the throne as Eyo Honesty III.
Our knowledge of his other children came down to us
from the pen of Rev. Waddell. There was one Esien (or
Eshen in Waddell's record) and also Ekpenyong.
Of his daughters the eldest was Ansa: she was reported
as being nearly blind and since a child had been greatly
indulged. Ansa grew up proud and headstrong. In habit
Wi]
"'
she was uncontradicted and could not bear opposition.
She was Young Eyo's only full Sister, and she actually
claimed his love and pity so that he allowed her a sort of
lordship over him. But she was also completely addicted
to the heathen custom of the land.
Inyang, the second daughter, is described as "an
imperious woman" who became totally imbued with the
'traditions of the land' with all their superstitious
components.
Another of the king's daughters was Ako (whom Waddell
called Agoo), who was twelve years old, rather self­
willed; Waddell saw her as "our scholar". She "learned
well" in school and possessed of "an easy quiet dignity of
manner". She was always seen sitting erect and lady­
like at her writing desk, and was always fond of writing.
She was found to be "humoursome" as young ladies of
rank are apt to be. One day she came to school late, and
on that day demonstrated some traits of insubordination
when she came in, depositing her copy-book after the
writing lesson had been done, refused to attend the next
lesson by dropping the spelling-book and with an air
walked out of the school. When called to come back she
merely turned her head and looked at the teacher
without answering and proceeded towards home. Her
behaviour was immediately reported home through a
messenger, King Eyo who never brooked such a defiance
of authority ordered Ako immediately back to school
adding:
[5 CI
"Go back, and don't do that thing again, no more for
ever".
By 1850 Mrs Waddell, who was in charge of girls'
education, noted that "Ako was the cleverest and
furthest advanced and in some respects had a mind like
her father". She Could read her Bible, had learnt to knit
and sew well and so was becoming useful in helping to
teach the young girls, and becoming a good interpreter
for the missionary in the women's yards. Ako's mother
thought nothing of the girl's attainments, but came and
took her off to the farm to be fattened when the minister
was urgently called away at Fernando Po. Her father
professed to be much opposed to her going and said that
he had repeatedly sent for her, but her mother would not
let her return. Ako could no more return to school. She
was last seen to "swell up to twice her size" . She blamed
her parents. The father blamed the mother. The mother
said, "it be Calabar fashion". 2
We gather that Ako later became an important and
responsible lady who owned large and prosperous
plantation villages in Creek Town district, one of these,
Ikot Ako Eyo, a prosperous village, still remains today to
her credit.
There was another of king Eyo's "pretty lively little
daughter" named Amayo, then about four years of age.
Soon she was sent to school and became Rev. and Mrs
Waddell's centre of attraction, and they requested the
king's permission to keep the child with them and to
'Waddell . Twenty-nine years ... P 347
Lill
' Ibid ... P 441 -442
bring her up in their home. But Amayo had an attendant,
a girl of twice her age who was "of perverse sullen
temper" and who was discovered to be a thief as well".
Both had gone to live with the Waddells, and when
things were missing at home the attendant denied any
knowledge of them till they were found on her later. It
was feared that she would influence her little mistress
for evil; besides, Amayo's mother was always wanting
her daughter, so that these two opposing factors
conspired to discourage the Waddells' good intensions.
The King's youngest son, Ekpenyong, proved a careless
little boy, always averse to the school, and was full of
excuses for avoiding it. He, too, like Amayo, had a
guardian attendant, Ekpriwong, who was a steady good
boy who always had a difficulty in getting his little
master along, with continual resistance or evasion. In
their little episode one day, Ekpenyong was punished
and Ekpriwong rewarded. The king sent a message to
the teacher to say that he was very much obliged to him
for his discipline.
L&J
 Chapter
\.1,:f .. ·
.f; ~ voting the sum of twenty million pounds sterling as
Four
THE· NEW. EPOCH
1 As a follow-up, the British navy decided and embarked
The Slave Trade Bows Out
The slave trade across the Atlantic that rocked Africa so
much and drained it of its life-blood and man-power for
four centuries on end, was now to see its end. Global
ethics was seriously and rapidly changing public opinion
in many circles, and people were now looking askance at
the slave trade, so that what was thought "legitimate"
trade was soon becoming "illegitimate"
This achievement came more from the agitations of
William Wilberforce, the English philanthropist, than
from any other single individual. He and his movement
had worked consistently hard to influence public opinion
in England for the abolition of the trade, beginning from
the fading years of the eighteenth century to the early
nineteenth. Yet the first European country to denounce
the slave trade publicly was Denmark in 1792. The
British parliament finally approved of the law to end it in
1807; in 1833 it made a law abolishing slavery not only
in Britain, but also in all British controlled lands
overseas. It was the same British parliament that
~ ~
('
undertook the serious crusade against the traffic by
compensation for slave masters to free their slaves.
Even so, it was not so easy to end the traffic as long as
American countries still wanted slaves to buy, and as
long as African rulers were still will;ng to sell them.
upon the job of policing the West African waters to
discourage the operation of the slave ships. But West
African coast was long and elusive, full of lagoons and
smaller rivers which could easily provide hiding places
for slave ships, and these made it difficult to control the
traffic early enough. In 1840 two slave ships from Old
Calabar were captured by the British navy, and two more
ships were wrecked at the estuary.
It therefore became necessary for . the British
Government to try to persuade African slave traders to
discontinue the trade; and many of them were willing to
give it up because of the problem's and difficulties they
had to face in this lucrative yet most precarious trade.
When King Eyo Honesty 11 was once asked why he
continued in the slave trade, he replied that he only
continued in it because he had no alternative trade, and
that there was a time when he lost about a hundred
persons in a night, and that was a serious loss to him.
Even though some traders still wished the trade to
continue, many were getting fed up with it because of
occasional brutality and unexpected violence associated
with it. And some of these African rulers soon became
convinced that the trade was no longer necessary and "Creek Town, December 1, 1842 to Commander
made agreement with the representatives of the British Raymond, Man-of-War Ship Spy.
Government that they would no longer sell slaves to
European slave buyers.
I am very glad you come to
settle treaty proper, and thank
In Old Calabar the anti-slave trade treaties were signed
you for doing everything right
by its two rulers, King Eyarnba V of Duke Town and King
for me yesterday. Long time I
Eyo Honesty 11 of Creek Town on the one hand, and the
look for some Man-of-War, and
British Navy squadron on the other on 6th December,
when French man come I think
1841. The external trade was then to end in exchange
for five annual payments of 2,000 (two thousand) he want war, and send one
Spanish dollars each or equivalent in goods. 1 canoe to let you know, but too
much wind live for him catch
From this time on, the rulers of Old Calabar took up the Fernando Po, and no one come
abolition treaty with all seriousness; King Eyo in help me keep treaty as Mr.
particular was outstanding for his eloquent Blount promise, and when I no
determination to support the treaty. No amount of give slaves French Men-of-war
enticement would make him yield to any pressure. Yet come make plenty palaver, but
some European nations would risk into West African Inowill.
waters either to entice or to persuade or threaten these One thing I want for beg your
rulers into violating the terms of the treaty. The French queen, I have too much man
appeared to have been notorious in this because when now I can't sell slaves, and
others came to entice or to persuade in 1842 the French don't know what for do for
appeared in their gun-boats to coerce the kings into them. But if I can get some
yielding to their demands, but the kings refused cotton and coffee to grow, and
defiantly in spite oftheirthreats. man for teach me, and make
sugarcane for we country come
Below is a letter written by King Eyo Honesty 11 to the up proRer, and sell for trade
British representative, Commander Raymond of the side I very glad. Mr. Blythe tell
Man-of-War Spy, about abandoning slave trade, and me England glad for send man
requesting for Christian education and an alternative
to teach book and make we
economic pursuit:
understand God all same white
' Lath am , Old Ca labar, 1600-1891, Ox ford , 1973, p.22. ~ [57]
 man do. If Queen do so I glad
too much, and we must try do
good for England always. What
I want for dollar side is proper
India Romall and copper rods, I
no want fool thing, I want thing
for trade side, and must try do
good for Queen Victoria and all
English woman. I hope Queen
and young king can live long
time proper, and I am, Sir, your
friend.
(Signed) King Eyo Honesty.l
On December 4, 1842, King Eyamba V of Duke Town also
wrote to Commander Raymond and also pointing out the
need for an alternative trade pattern and for education
to "teach book proper, and make all men saby God like
white man, and then we go on for same fashion". 2
2 the river brought the oil trade to a standstill, and there
THE PALM-OIL TRADE TAKES OVER
We have mentioned earlier that it was the British
industrial initiative that made the palm-oil trade the
most important alternative to the slave trade. Formerly
palm-oil was being bought in small quantities as food
items to feed the slaves on board t t1e middle passage to
America. But as the slave trade was beginning to see its
end the demand for palm-oil began to increase with the
years: in 1790, 125 tons were imported in Britain; in
'Wa dde ll. Twenty-nine years. London. 1863. p. 224
'Ibi d. P.663/664
,
c
1806 about 361 tons. When the slave trade was
abolished finally in 1807, the increase was dramatic. In
1808, 552 tons were imported, and in 1810, 1,288
tons. 1
It was Old Calabar that led the expansion of the trade in
palm -oil after 1807. The former British firms that dealt
in the slave trade before, such as James Penny, Jonas
Bold etc. began to import palm-oil.
The early part of the trade brought a most unpleasant
competition among oil merchants in Old Calabar as it did
in the days of the slave trade, and this competition was
forcing prices of oil to levels that were unprofitable to
them in England.
Another evil that came to disturb the oil traders was the
slave trade again . I had pOinted out that in spite of the
abolition of the slave traffic some slave ships suddenly
appeared from their hiding places into Old Calabar
waters. Nicolls reported how the arrival of slave ships in
was a serious antagonism between the oil merchants
and the slave traders. It was reported that in 1828,
because of this competition and the antagonism it
engendered, one officer on the British ship Kent was
shot by a French slave trader.2 We are informed that the
choice of Old Calabar in preference to other ports was
determined by the supercargoes who based their choice
on market conditions.
58 'Lat ham. A. J. H., O ld Cal aba r 1600-1 89 /. Ox ford. 1973 page 57
59
King Eyo Honesty 11 was deeply involved in the oil trade
and his trade proved the most important to the
supercargoes. The trade system was still based on
credit" or "trust" as in the days of the slave trade - King
Eyo naturally dominated the trade because the family
reputation of "honesty" favoured him. Most of those who
had traded with his father when he lived preferred to
have commercial business with him and it appeared as if
he was' only continuing from where his father had
stopped.
3 entered in the preface of his book, "Twenty-nine years in
CHRISTIANITY COMES TO OLD CALABAR
We had discussed in a previous section of these essays
that King Eyo Honesty 11 of Creek Town and King
Eyamba V of Duke Town had written through
Commander Raymond of the "Man-of-War Spl' in
December 1842, requesting for Christian education for
their respective kingdoms. It was after an interval of
almost four years that their request matured. Their
letters of request were not addressed to any specific
religious denominations in Britain, because the kings did
not know them, but when their request was made, it was
the United Presbyterian Church that responded. It was,
perhaps, thought that the appropriate pioneer minister
would be the one who had had sufficient experience in
dealing with the Africans. Naturally, the attention was
turned to the West Ind ian Presbyterian congregation
whose minister was the Rev. Hope Masterton Waddell, a
protestant minister of Scottish-Irish extraction, who had
' Latham . Old Ca labar. 1600·1 89 1. Oxford. 1973. p.58
"
served among the African slaves in the West Indies since
1829. Thus, it fell on the Jamaican congregation to bring
the gospel to the land of their progenitors in Africa.
In 1843 King Eyamba V, after consultation with his
chiefs, had sent a sort of reminder on the same matter,
signed by King Eyamba V and seven of his chiefs. In
September 1844, a Missionary Society was formed in
Jamaica, and the Reverend Hope Masterton Waddell was
appointed as their first representative of the churches
for the Old Calabar Mission. Rev. Waddell himself has
the West Indies and Central Africa "that" the mission to
Old Calabar was the offspring of that in Jamaica, and has
all along been intimately connected with it".
Rev. Waddell, already a staunch Presbyterian, had to sail
to Scotland to request for some material and moral
support for the expedition. Things did not go well at first,
but when his difficulties were fairly addressed, on
January 6, 1846, the pioneer mission set sa il on the
Warree, the mission ship, from Liverpool for Old Calabar.
On board with Rev. Waddell were Mr. Edgerley (printer­
and catechist) of the Jamaican Mission and Mr~.
Edgerley, Andrew Chisholm (a West Indian carpenter),
Edward Miller (a West Indian teacher), and Waddell's
black boy George. Waddell noted that they were weak,
"but I believed that God had sent us, and was with us, He
would open our way", to "go unto the place which the
Lord shall choose to place His name there".
60 lill
Inclement weather at sea delayed the party's smooth
sailing, but by the kindness and protection of Providence
they finally arrived at Fernando Po, a Spanish occupied
Island opposite Old Calabar, on April 2, 1846.

The date which began this historic event was April 10,
1846, when the Presbyterian m issionary team, led by
the Reverend Hope Masterton Waddell, arrived in Duke
Town. Waddell was led thither by Captain John Beecroft;
the British governor in Fernando Po, on his official
steamer, the Ethiope, to Duke Town. Fortunately for the
party, they met King Eyo Honesty 11 on the river,
supervising the delivery of his oil to one of the ships.
There were six oil ships that lay moored: five British and
one Dutch.

This first meeting on the Calabar River was a memorial

episode on the planting of the Christian gospel on the
Calabar soil. The day was clear and peaceful, the
weather was gorgeous; the surface of the noble river
was placid, and the tide favourable.

King Eyo Honesty 11 was the first ruler who was seen on
the river and the whole scene looked a pageant. The
king was observed sitting in his "six-oared gig, covered
with an immense and handsome umbrella of various
colours". As the Ethiope dropped anchor, he was rowed
towards the vessel to pay his respects to Consul
Beecroft. "An English ensign, with his name thereon in
large capitals, streamed behind". He was followed by Rev. Hope Mastert on Waddell

1621 WI
two large war canoes, each paddled by twenty-eight
men, with a row of armed men standing down the
centre. There was a swivel gun in the bows, "a roofed
house amidships and an immense ensign behind, like
the one on the boat." Two boys attended him, one
carrying his gold snuff-box in a handsome native bag
hung round his neck, the other bearing a pair of pistols
and a sword slung over his shoulder.
Some of his chiefs also came in their canoes which were
adorned with flags. King Eyo was heartily welcomed by
Captain Beecroft and cordially shook hands with the
missionaries. He said he was glad to see them. King Eyo
was described as a "rather low set and stout-made man,
his · fine head and open firm countenance favourably
impressed" the missionaries; he was in his silk loin-cloth
"descending to the ankles", the normal dress fashion
among he wealthy men in Calabar which Waddell
thought of as "Calabar Costume". The King also had
strings of beads on his neck and arms as his ornaments.
In the evening of that same day the party decided and
went ashore to pay their respects to King Eyamba V who
was the ruler of Duke Town. Unfortunately he could not
receive them pleasantly as his custom was, because
that day was a very crowded one for hi'm in his civil
duties, and as he desired to do justice to so important an
occasion to him, he asked them to postpone their visit
for the following day. And when the visit was repeated
the next day Eyamba looked normal and at home with
the mission party in his large and elegant iron palace. He
was very happy to receive them, and he concluded his
• llif]
lMJ
reception of them with the words, "I look long time for
you. Glad you come now for live here".
On Sunday, when they had their first meeting, also
present was John Beecroft; the party presented the king
and his chiefs with a large folio Bible which the friends in
Scotland had sent for the purpose.
After the cordial reception in Duke Town the party, also
with John Beecroft, visited Obutong to meet its ruler,
Willy Tom Robins, so that a school could also be
established there side by side with the church. The
reception was also friendly. The site of Obutong was
small because it had been reduced from its original
importance owing to a series of unfortunate historical
circumstances that followed the 1767 Obutong incidents
reported above in chapter one. The reception in Creek
Town had been postponed at King Eyo's request because
most of his chiefs were now engaged in their
plantations, and he needed some time to inform them to
be present on so important an occasion.
When the time came for the reception cerem~my in
Creek Town the mission party met with the king and his
chiefs who had now turned up in full force for the
occasion. The meeting was solemn and graceful. Rev.
Waddell explained the object of their mission, and
presented King Eyo with an elegantly bound folio Bible,
similar to that presented to King Eyamba of Duke Town.
\\ After the missionaries had ended their part of the
'\ ceremony, King Eyo replied finally:
 "Now I am $ure God will love
and bless me, for I am very glad
you come w ith th is book".
After conferring with his chiefs the king said to the party
that they would meet with difficulties with some of his
chiefs who felt that he sh ould not encourage white
people to live in their cou nt ry, lest more of them coming
would eventually th reate n t heir ow nership of it. But King
Eyo tried to convince t hem t hat white men's power
rested in their kn owl edg e because of their education
acquired from youth; t hat it wo uld be best for them to
have a school in thei r tow n, and their chi ld ren taught like
whiteman.
At this point Rev. Wad dell desired King EYo to say further
to them that they should not be af raid of whiteman
taking their country, nor Qu een Victoria doing so, and
that had they w ished to take Calabar t hey might have
done so a hundred years ag o and woul d not have waited
till missionaries came t o them, and that they would not
encourage such a sc hem e; nor would his countrymen
who had so lon g traded with Cal abar, and who had taken
nothing, and wante d nothing but t heir oil which they
were paying for; "the ir fea rs", it was sincerely
expressed, "were groundl ess". And after this answer, all
were satisfied.
l22J
The early missionaries had decided to establish a
mission station in Creek Town as well as in Duke Town,
but King Eyamba was displeased with the idea and
wished Duke Town alone to have the preeminence. He
had paid a visit to the missionaries on board their ship in
the hope of trying to convince them to accept his own
idea. It was this that brought Consul Beecroft's
intervention which finally settled that Creek Town
should have a mission station as Duke Town.
The early arrangement was that Waddell was to occupy
Duke Town with Edgerley after the mission house was
erected; and while work was going on in Duke Town, Mr.
Chisholm was sent to Creek Town to prepare the house
there. King Eyo appeared to have been dissatisfied with
the present arrangement because he felt that th\J
mission house in Creek Town was inferior to that of Duke
Town, and that the teacher was not to be a "proper white
man". He wished both towns to be equal in all respects
and that "God did not love the one pass the other".
Waddell who had observed the situation that appeared
to be deteriorating, had to give explanations by making
. King Eyo know that the difference was only temporary,
and that when the mission ship would return from
Jamaica the next year, it would bring both a large house
and a white missionary for Creek Town.
tm
 Chapter
The first day of the week, Akwa Ederi, known to the
early Europeans as "Calabar Sunday", was generally a
Five
public holiday. The second day, Akwa Eyibio. was prayer
day; the last day of the week, Akwa Ofion, was sacred to
Nyamkpe (or Grand) Ekpe, and was observed also as
CHRISTIANITY TRIES TO SETTLE DOWN public holiday and no work was done on that day. This
last day was observed at the Ekpe injunction during the
1 time of the Great Duke Ephraim, hence the
supercargoes knew it as "Duke's Day"'. All the other
,The Early Meeting In Creek Town days were market days.

In those days the Efik counted eight days for their week, James Holman, of the British Navy, who was in Old
but Christianity arrived in the nineteenth century with Calabar in 1828 remarked on the: '
the seven-day week. Under these circumstances, there "two grand festivals" here which take place every eighth
was bound to be clashes of interest. A time would come day in succession ... the succession of these festivals is
when the Christian Sunday would synchronise with Ekpe curious enough; that which takes place on Thursday in
day or market day, and to the Efik people generally, this week, will be on Friday in the next week, and the
certain of their days, especially those held sacred to one on Friday this week, will be on Saturday in the
Nyamkpe or Grand Ekpe, were observed with fanatic following week, and son on".
seriousness. With these eight-day weeks they carried on
with their religious and secular activities. Rev. Waddell observed that within the period of their
stay in Creek Town, though but a few weeks in that
Efik week comprised: 1846, they proved that the air of the place was not "so
deleterious as had been represented," and that the
I Akwa Ederi (public holiday) position of the mission-house would make the place
2. Akwa Eyibio , good enough. The minister further said:
3. Ekpri Ikwo
4. Ekpri Ofion "Our intercourse with the King
5. Ekpri Ederi (Eyo) and the chiefs of that
6. Ekpri Eyibio town evidenced their
7. Akwa Ikwo superiority, in good sense,
8. Akwa Ofion (sacred to Nyamkpe or Grand Ekpe) good manners, and good
[@ 1691
 feelings, to those of its
com petitors lower down the
river".
, the attention of the preacher. On the second
Waddell reported of large church meetings in the king's
yard, where he preached both the laws of God and the
gospel of Christ; "Eyo himself", he said, "acting as
interpreter with great good-will and considerable
efficiencyll.
It was reported that the first Sabbath in Creek Town fell
on the Grand Ekpe day, and King Eyo proposed that the
meeting be deferred since only a few gentlemen would
turn up for the church meeting. The minister pleaded
that the Ekpe lIobservances be deferred for the sake of
God's holy day, and the king did so. "Everyman
knows ll ,said King Eyo, IIthat God lives, and that he made
all thingsll.
2
INAUGURAL SERMONS
I your father and your mother ll , he said it was very good
The First Sabbath Meeting In Creek Town fell on Akwa
Ofion, which was sacred to Nyamkpe Ekpe, and the king
had agreed with the minister that Ekpe ceremonies be
deferred for another time.
The church met in the King's yard, large and spacious
enough for the purpose. The minister decided that his
texts be taken from the Ten Commandments (Exodus
l1Q]
20) and King Eyo was the interpreter. It was observed
that some of the commandments took much of his
attention, and his mode of interpreting them attracted
commandment, which is against making and
worshipping any graven or carved images, the
interpreter was full and at ease in his delivery of the
sermon, because this very topic touched the fabric of
their religious cult at the time, and also because as his
life history went, King Eyo was no idolator; in spite of his
time and epoch he had already lived above that
su perstition.
On the fourth commandment, that is, on keeping .the
Sabbath Day holy, he expatiated freely on it, and further
added that for himself he was willing to give up IICalabar
Sundayll, and keep IIGod's Sundayll instead; but he
explained that it would take some time before the
people were prepared forthe change.
When he interpreted the fifth commandment, IIhonour
law, and explained it with freedom and energy. Onthe
sixth commandment, lIyou shall not kill (murder)", he
interpreted in a subdued tone and in a few words
because it evidently touched sore places, since the law
of the land allowed murder for most of the cri01~s
committed, including witchcraft crimes, yet it was the
commandment that the minister emphasized with a
strong tone because he came and met too many murder
cases.
till
 The case of murder brought King Eyo's intervention, and
he remarked, "you say man no for kill, true, what use a
man take his money go buy slave, and then kill him for
nothing. If he have too many for his work let him stop
buy. But slaves be too bad". The preacher replied that if
the word of God restrained the masters, it would also
improve the slaves and would make them both better to
each other. King Eyo's answer was "well, I hope so".
In the seventh commandment which forbids adultery,
the interpreter was clear and decided. And as one who
supported conjugal fidelity he said, " that be very good
law", and added that "it be too much practice in this
country for one man to take another man's wife". He
. further said to the minister, "you should go to every town
every day, and tell them all that word". Rev. Waddell said
that he knew that even though King Eyo had many wives
and concubines, "but he respected the rights and
relationship of others".
The eighth commandment, "you shall not steal",
obtained the approbation of the whole meeting, but the
minister said that it was in the dubious form of a general
burst of laughter. They seemed to say, we know that, but
no one regards it. The preacher felt that the laughter
signified that the slaves were all thieves, and the
gentlernen" were cheats.
The ninth commandment, which forbids false witness
against a neighbour, was admitted in its most obvious
sense; but there was some demur about the untruths or
lm
deceptions necessary to carryon trade, as not generally
regarded in the sense of Ues. The tenth commandment;
against coveting a neighbour's house or other things of
his, was not recognized in its importance.
II
When the Sabbath Day meeting assembled again in the
king's yard, other lively topics became the themes of
intense interest. It was the story of Jesus which received
the greatest attention, especially his miracles.
What excited the astonishments of the congregation,
with King Eyo inclusive, was the story of the raising of
Lazarus of Bethany from death, the resurrection of
Christ himself, and the doctrine of the final resurrection.
Here King Eyo intervened: "All them old people that
dead long time", he said, "will they all live again"? Them
old bones that rot in the ground! How will God raise them
up to life again? Where will they live? The world can't
hold them".
The reaction to these sermons was that the
congregat"ion was very attentive, solemn and sat in
awestruck silence after hearing them. The minister
made no effort to give any divine explanations to these
sermons on the miracles. And what startled them most
with great fear, was the last Judgment and the doom of
the wicked. The sermon was concluded with prayer. With
the missionary carpenters and crew present the service
ended with praise and prayer in which the natives took
l1il
no part because they knew nothing about it all. The
missionaries and the crew sang part of the 138th ll
Psalm:
"All kings upon the earth that
are shall give thee praise, 0
Lord; when, as they from thy
mouth shall hear, Thy true and
faithful word ll .
At the final close of the meeting for that day, the king
said, "this be very good meeting, I like we have it every
Sundayll.
III
The early missionaries had come to see and observe the
almost total involvement of the people in IIsacred thingsll
or charms, commonly known in Efik as IIlbok ll or
"Mbiam".
In Efik" Ibok may refer to medicine for curing diseases,
and may also refer to charm for gaining supernatural
ends, while IIMbiam ll is precisely an oath which is
supposed to destroy the individual swearing it falsely.
The word, "juju ll was invented and brought from
somewhere on the coast and claimed to be a corruption
of some foreign word . which has become the pidgin
English Vocabulary for charm.
rill
People used these charms for obtaining recovery from
sickness, success in trade, or against the power of
witchcraft. There were various objects that may be
employed for the purpose: human or animal skulls, land
tortoise hung up in a sacred bush or yard, or a young
chicken, an egg, all these to ward off evil. Most of these
things were exhibited at cross-roads. What pleased the
missionaries most of all was that in King Eyo's yard alone
none of these things was ever seen because, as Waddell
said, IIhe (Eyo) despised themll.
The themes of sermon during this third meeting were on
this subject of superstition which so much dominated
the lives of the people for so long. On these special
subjects King Eyo interpreted the sermons very freely
and with great zest. It was in this mood that the sermons
developed into some form of mutual discussions at
times. Then turning to the minister King Eyo said:
III tell them how juju man make
them fool. I see him poor, but
he come and say he will show
them how for grow rich. He
have nothing himself, but he
say he will show them way for
get plenty trust · from ship
captain.
1.'
Suppose they go to ship, and do
all such things he tell them,
before white man give them his
175]
 trade-goods he will put them
for chain. He no mind their fool
fashions ll .
"My juju", he continued
laughing, "my juju for make
white man like me is to have
plenty puncheons of oil on the
beach. Then he gives me
anything in his ship".
Then King Eyo further added that some customs in
Calabar were meant to honour God, as when they eat or
. drink arid throw some on the floor, or when they kill Ekpe
goat and make prayer over the blood of the animal, or
that the chicken and egg etc. which were the common
sights on the wayside were also given to God. But the
king readily admitted that God must be honoured in the
way he prescribes, as servants must do their master's
work, according to his instructions.
The minister now asked King Eyo about the system of
human sacrifices once so common, but which the liking
and gentlemen ll of Duke Town affirmed, was no longer
followed. To this question he (Eyo) answered:
"If any man say it no be done
now he tell-lie. It be done still.
But I know it no be good, and
must try to stop it. Beforetime I
see twenty and thirty men
l22J
stand up before palaver House,
and all their heads cut off one
time. That not be done now. But
while some old gentlemen live
the fashion for kill man no can
quite done. When all them
young children come up for
saby book it will knock off".
The king further added that in some other countries
away from Calabar the people there were worse. They
fattened men up like goats to eat them.
IV
In the next church meeting in the King's yard the
congregation was fuller and excited, and their faces
looked anxious to hear more on those lively topics.
In this meeting the minister lIexhibited our Lord Jesus
Christ and his great salvation". The topic seemed to have
been quite above the understanding of the simple­
minded audience, neither was the interpreter
sufficiently able to discern the philosophical implications
the topic involved. The theological environment was in
itself quite virgin. The very idea of their having sinned
against God was strange to them. The Efik word used,
"idioknkpo", which may attempt to convey the meaning
of IIsinll appeared inadequate and not penetrating
enough in its meaning. Perhaps "ukwankpo" for iniquity
l11J
or moral offence might have fared better. Thus, the very
ignorance of sinfulness was actually their want of a
sense of sin which, according to the minister, lay in the
way of preaching the salvation of Christ Jesus.
And in order to try to bring his sermon nearer home to
the people to understand, the minister introduced the
topic that Christ came into the world "to destroy the
works of the devil". In the understanding of the audience
one of the most important works of the devil was
witchcraft. In the scriptural sense they had no idea of
the devil, but they developed a terrible horror and
detestation of it. In fact, they called it "ifot" or
witchcraft, and when they spoke to the white visitors in
their country about it they called it "free-mason". The
general belief was that any ill-disposed person could
inflict injury on another person by means of certain
charms or juju, and all the evils suffered were attributed
to that cause. In that case the sufferer applied to abia­
idiong, a fortune teller, who always traced it to
witchcraft, or someone who did it by "free-mason". In
such cases the only means of proving one's innocence in
the accusation was by esere ordeal or "chop nut", the
vomiting of it without death was innocence, and death
guilt.
The minister therefore emphasized in his sermon the
need to strengthen their faith in "Jesus Christ as the only
and all-sufficient cure for this dreadful evil; he further
added that Christ was "more than a cure, he was a
prevention of it", and that no "free- mason" could touch
those whom Christ preserved.
[]l]
When King Eyo interpreted this part of the sermon he
made it clear to the audience that "free-mason could not
hurt white people, and still less, of course, God's
people". It was difficult to reason them out of their
superstitious credulity that had been on with them for
generations. The danger existed only in their ·
imagination, and the minister thought it best to fortify
their imagination against it; that whoever believed the
word of God, and prayed to Jesus Christ, would be safe
from the danger; and also never could have "free­
mason" against any man. He therefore emphasized how
good it would be for Calabar, then, were all the people
christian.
At the end of this statement King Eyo said, "But when we
find man want to kill his master by 'free-mason' we must
make him chop nut". The minister replied that they
should prove his guilt first before they punish him, for it
(chop nut) killed nearly all alike; that its effects
depended "not on the guilt or innocence of the accused
so much as on the state of his stomach".
Finally Rev. Waddell asked if they thought that any word
spoken in those sermon was bad. King Eyo, on behalf of
the audience, replied:
"No one word be bad, every one
be very good". The minister
concluded:
"Well then, let this good word
grow among you. It is now a
ll2J

small seed. It will soon be a
great tree, and you and your
children will pluck the fruit, and
eat and live forever".
v of in Calabar - "God above, and God on earth" he replied
There was a long interval before Creek Town had
another chance of Sabbath meeting, because Rev.
Waddell was at first stationed in Duke Town. It was
because of King Eyo's express desire that this next
meeting was held.
King Eyo asked the minister why he had not come to
them every Sunday; he replied that he had also to
conduct services on board the ships. Eyo argued that
they were missionaries to the Calabar people specially,
and that the white people had books, and less needed
their teaching. Waddell was pleased to hear the king's
expression of his desire for knowledge of the word of
God, and to him the way was now open for gratifying it
without neglecting them.
The result was the preparation of a series of bible
lessons lithographed for several Sabbaths; these were
eagerly received by the chiefs in the town who could
read writing. There were native customs and views on
various pOints.
When the bible lessons began, the lesson on good and
bad angels led the King to say that they knew nothing of
[@
such beings. Waddell discovered that their frequent use
of the word "devil" was not at all in the scriptural sense,
but in reference to the dead, and they must have learned
this from seamen who frequently spoke of those who
were dead as "gone to the devil". When the minister
asked the interpreter about the two gods he had heared
that "all man saby there be only one God - the God in
heaven. But some people bring 'sweet mouth' to their
king, and call him their God on earth". The minister said
also that in one of their fables (nke) he had heard that
there was one God, Abasi, and a son of God and a third
or middle God of whom they had heard little or nothing.
The lesson about Job seemed to have impressed King
Eyo's mind beneficially and who talked about God's
dealings with that patriarch.
The lessons on Abraham and Moses led to the
conversation about circumcision, which was a diehard
tradition in Efik, and other Hebrew practices observed in
Old Calabar: the sprinkling of blood on the door posts
during "Ndok" ceremonies was so common in the
nineteenth century, and was analogous to the Jewish
festival of the Passover and which Waddell himself had
seen take place in Creek town in 1847 .
It was when the minister asked how they came to
practise these Hebrew customs in their country, they
only replied that their fathers handed the customs down
to them without their asking why. King Eyo remarked
[HJ
 that black people who retained these ordinances were Chapter
more-jJlike God's people than the whites who disuse - Six rf
them. The minister replied that these customs could not
make them be God's people, except now that he had
sent his word and servants to teach them.
"ETINYIN EYO"
The story of the crossing of the Red Sea staggered the 1
faith of some members of the audience; but a picture of
it in the King's Bible confirmed his own faith, and he The Patriarch
appealed to it as sufficient proof of the truth of the
narrative.
"Etinyin" is a combination of two "Efik words, Ete nnyin",
meaning "Our Father". The Efik language, when spoken
can be much menaced with elision, that is, the
occasional habit of cutting off or suppression of the
sound of a letter or syllable of a word in pronunciation,
that is why "Ete nnyin" becomes "Etinyin".

In Efik Etinyin is patriarch, and King Eyo Honesty 11 was

often addressed by his subjects as "Etinyin Eyo", or Eyo
our Patriarch. Etinyin Eyo to them conveyed the idea of
the Father and Ruler of the family. Indeed, it is paternity
or fatherhood or the relation of a father to his offspring,
King Eyo himself was fully aware of the significance of .
this title, and he placed himself as such for his subjects
in order to make them enjoy his rule and fatherhood. He
took all, native and foreigner, under his sovereignty as
his own children, and gave them not only the economic
protection they needed, but also the social, political and
sacred or spiritual. He wanted them to be happy and be
satisfied with their lives under him. In Efik today, the
patriarch is clan dead.
1m ~

., , '.~
"Patriarch" was also specifically applied to the Fathers of
the Jewish people, to the president of the Jewish
Sanhedrin and was also adopted by the early Church. As
things then stood in Creek Town and its environs, King
Eyo felt it was his 'responsibility and urgent duty to free
his subject from their spiritual bondage under the ­
"mbiaidiong"- or masters of divination who took
advantage of the superstitious nature of the
environment of their day to exploit the people and to
subject them the more to their credulity in regard to the
supernatural for their benefit.
•
2 «
MAGIC LANTERN VS MASTERS OF DIVINATION
For a long time King Eyo had been faced with the
problem of how he would rescue his subjects from the
superstitious nets of their "mbiaidiong" or masters of
divination in Creek Town and its districts. He had
discovered that the numbers of these false "prophets"
were increasing in his kingdom because, already a
region of intense superstition, it provided them with a
rich field for their trade and an opportunity for the
continuous exploitation of the people. And not only
these, their increase in number was also increasing the
incidents of family feuds and internecine conflicts
among the people owing to their false interpretations
and predictions of events on which the people consulted
them. This state of affairs intensified the people's
primitive life of fetish culture~ so that their natural
serene abodes became constantly desecrated with
lMJ
-:
indiscriminate shrines to the demon. All these demon
worships which these masters of divination encouraged
them to do, were meant to ward off any impending
catastrophe they had predicted would befall them.
When Rev. Waddell returned from his forlough in 1847
he brought a magic lanten from the West Indies to
Calabar to be used as an aid to his religious instruction
and natural history as well as for providing
entertainment for the people.
The arrival of this instrument made King Eyo to decide to
take advantage of the appearance of this early model of
a slide projector to see if it could help him to bring these
masters of' divination into disrepute. The king then sent
a town crier with a drum round the town to give notice on
the grand show about to take place in his yard. He said:
"Tell them it pass Abialdiong far!"
In the town was the highest authority among these
masters of divination who was reputed to be the best of
them all. In him the people placed their greatest hope
with unlimited confidence in his art, as one who could
find the cause of every evil, and to prescribe the cure; he
was thought of as the highest authority for discovering
secrets.
When the king's yard was full King Eyo, who had hidden
some object of value and then made enquiry and
concluded that it was stolen, asked the chief of the
'mbiaidiong" to discover the thief.
~
 When the man entered his arena to display his art to
discover the culprit, he began to go through his
ceremonies, "muttering his spells, casting his strings
and bunches of seeds and shells" and other
accompaniments, he observed their figures and
positions as they drop on the ground, and finally
denounced one of the King's domestic servants as the
thief.
At this pOint King Eyo asked him again to be sure he
made no mistake lest an innocent person be blamed.
The master of divination repeated his performances and
came to the same conclusion. Then King Eyo sent
someone else to bring the missing object from where it
was hidden, and which was shown to the audience that
the article was neither lost nor stolen. He therefore
convicted the chief "abiaidiong" of deception, and drove '
him away with ign€)miny. He further added that he had
seen towns and families ruined by these people owing to
the faith and confidence people had in them, and that he
wanted none of them in his town.
The magic lantern show went on undisturbed, and which
the audience believed was a good alternative to the
demonstrations of the false "prophet". The king
explained to the people that the magic lantern came out .
as one of the products of education which was "better
than abiaidiong far".
Im
Some weeks after the abiaidiong incident, a few school
children returning from school happened to see this
master of divination in a man's yard involved in his
performances. The children, . who had witnessed the
magic lantern day incidents, were watching him in
action, and with one consent suddenly snatched up the
instruments of his craft and darted off with them into the
bush, throwing' them about as they ran. He shouted and
pursu~d in v9in, but the boys laughed at him, and found
their way back to town. His complaints to King Eyo about
it brought no redress except the reminder that they
were forbiqden to practise their art in that town.
3
·LUNAR ECLIPSE
Etinyin Eyo who' was always looking for an opportunity
or an object wifh which to use in dispelling superstitions
from the minds of his subjects, also found that
opportune moment on the 19th" of March, 1848 at
8p.m, when there was a total eclipse of the moon
observed in Creek Town. It was on a Sabbath Day.
Waddell who was already aware of this incident before­
hand was able to make it known to King Eyo and to the
members of his public meeting before that day. Probably
the minister had consulted some nineteenth century
almanac which generally gave the calendar of days,
weeks, and months, with the times of the changes of the
moon and eclipses for the year; and he took this
[ill

opportunity to warn the people not to be alarmed when
the eclipse would occur.
On that day the sky was clear and the moon rose full and
bright. When the dark shade began to intervene on the
face of the moon there was absolute silence everywhere
in Creek Town, because the people were afraid of the
spectacle and thinking of the future with foreboding.
Some intelligent youth headed for the mission house to
observe it through the minister's telescope for
information on the subject.
King Eyo, who had been anxiously watching the orb said
that his people would believe anything the minister told
them. He said that if an abiaidiong had known as much
about the eclipse' he could have foretold it, and would
have made a fortune; for all people would have run to
him to find out if they were going to die, and what they
should do to live.
The following Sabbath, 26th of March, synchronized
with Nyamkpe (Grand Ekpe) day, and when King Eyo
forbade Ekpe running on God's day, and forbade work
and play, it was promptly obeyed.
, held at Duke Town the previous week but "better
1M]
~
" 4
THE KING'S WEEKLY LEVEE
As a great trader in the country King Eyo was always in
the habit of holding a weekly levee for his guests, both
black and white, and so created an opportunity for them
to interact occasionally: to talk with one another over .
trade matters or so, to make new friends, to exchange
views on miscellaneous topics and to enjoy the social air
offriendliness.
Always the day before, a written invitation had been
sent round the shipping to the captains of vessels on the
river, and on the morning of the appointed day three
large guns, fired at Creek Town in the morning,
reminded the "gentlemen of the river" of their
expectation to dinner.
All were glad to attend because King Eyo was "the
greatest trader in the Country". Among those present on
that particular day were ship captains, generally known
as the "gentlemen of the river", the missionaries among
whom were Rev. Hope Masterton Waddell and Mr.
Edgerley, Governor John Beecroft who was stationed at
Fernando Po, King Eyo's chiefs and his brethren.
According to Waddell, Eyo's dinner was much like that
organized in the manner of its conduct" . The tables were
well laid out, drinks were in profusion "and everything
was in excellent order"l. While the king took the head,
his elder brother, Ete Tom, a really dignified gentleman,
, Waddell, Twenty-nine years, London, 1862, p 249 89
 -
took the foot, beside them were only two or three of his
native gentry. This time the guests were served by
youths, and not by girls. The dishes were the same as in
the previous levee held at Duke Town, "Calabar chop".
The dinner went on without anything indecorous. Eyo
and his gentlemen did not use their fingers for forks, nor
do anything against good manners. The mimbo was
reckoned the best --- the sweetest and mildest in the
country. We gather that although champagne was
present, out of respect to Governor Beecroft, little of it
was taken. King Eyo was a teetotaler and had nothing to
do with alcoholic drinks. Even when one of the company
filled his glass and coaxed him to have a glass or a few
sips, he declined with a good temper aQd firmness,
acknowledged his health which the other drank, and
handed the glass to a servant.
When one of the captains asked why he never drank
wine King Eyo replied. "if I begin to drink wine, what will
become of my trade, and of yours, too'''? On another
occasion, when one of his chiefs was in danger of excess
in that way at one time, he was preserved by the king's
timely admonition: "It is not fit", he said, "for a man who
has to settle palavers in the toW!) to spoil his head with
rum". Like the Jews of old (Proverbs 31:4,5), Efik Kings
in the past were to refrain from drunkenness.
.~~
While at that dinner table someone observed that wine
I
glasses were never put down of late, as formerly. King
Eyo replied that gentlemen had so long disused them,
l2Q]
and so his steward must have thought that they and the
brandy were no longer required. He also referr~d to a
previous dinner occasion when some white,"gentlemen"
would be singing and dancing, and others quarrelling,
through his house before dinner, and after dinner tipsy
and hardly able to go back to their ships.
After the dinner the "river gentlemen" had left. The king
said to the Rev. Minister in reference to a noisy quarrel
that happened at Archibong's dinner table in Duke Town,
"they must take care and not fight in my house, or I
must fine them". On that subject someone related that
once at King Eyo's table, on one occasion, the" white
gentlemen" began to throw tumblers and salt-stands at
each other's heads. Eyo, in total disgust, arose and left
the room, muttering, that if they could not behave like
gentlemen in his house they had better left. Then one of
the senior captains, who was more sober and prudent
than the rest, admonished his comrades that things had
gone too far; he followed the king, apologized, and
brought him back to the head of the table. Eyo was a
disciplinarian, and knew that without discipline chaos is
bound to reign suprerne, and chaos is an enemy of
progress.
191]


Chapter
observed as a public holiday when no work was done,
Seven
and on that day the markets were always greatest. It
RAPID STRIDES IN THINGS DIVINE
"
1
The Sabbath Sa nctified
As a follow-up in his efforts to free Creek Town from its
fetish religion, Etinyin Eyo was able to get the Ekpe
authority to approve the prohibition of Sunday markets
in Creek Town, The public market on Sundays had not
only been a distressing sight to the missionaries, but
also a hindrance to attendance at church meetings.
Finally the expected came when it was proposed on one
Sabbath after public divine service when most of the
"men who matter" were also present to discuss the
subject seriously with the mission family. It was in that
very afternoon that there was an Ekpe procession
headed by Young Eyo, the crown prince, and followed by
some school boys, gentlemen's sons who proclaimed by
beat of drum at the palaver houses of the three *
divisions of Creek Town, "that markets on God's day
should, henceforth and for ever, cease to be held in
Creek Town". And in order that there might be no
mistake Etinyin Eyo hoisted a flag over his house every
Sunday morning for the people to take note.
* Waddell noted the Creek Town of the ni neteenth centu ry to be of three divisions, i,e,
Ada kuko. Mba rakoJ1l and Otung or Ibita nL
See: Waddell page 506,
In ancient Ffik calendar the eighth day had always been
was therefore agreed that the "Calabar Sunday", or
Akwa Ederl, should never interfere with God's day. The
Sabbath was sanctified, and it was about the middle of
the year 1850.
For this auspicious occasion the missionaries in Creek
Town made a great feast and invited many native
gentlemen, shipmasters and surgeons and other
missionaries. They never forgot the school children who
were behind the missionaries in all their endeavours to
improve the people's conditions, and their teachers had
to preside over their entertainments. All hearts were full
as God's Sabbath was at last sanctified.
2
CREEK TOWN -CHlJRCH BUILDING: 1850
King Eyo's yard was large and spacious, and it was there '
that the Sabbath meetings were held since the mission
arrival in 1846. Seats were mad~ available for all who
came to partake of the Sabbath fellowship. ­
It is worth while explaining the condition of the old
church meeting place in the Kingis yard. The area was
divided into the inner part and its surrounding verandah.
The pulpit was simply a small table resting on a low
platform. The congregation seats were mere wooden
benches with back rails, and the royal seat for King Eyo
92
l2iJ

was on the right hand side of the minister's desk facing
the congregation, and it was no better than the others
except that it was covered with red baft, and having a
small table in front for the King's Bible.
But now that God's Sabbath was sanctified, and sequel
to this sanctification of the Sabbath was the building of a
church in Creek Town. The minister was the Rev. Hope
Masterton Waddell, andhe quoted from the scriptures:
"Thou shalt honour my Sabbath and reverence my
sanctuary', said the Lord".
That very year, 1850, a suitable house of galvanized iron
had arrived; it was ordered from Britain; and was
brought in plates, duly fitted and marked, as used to be
done those days, and all ready to be riveted together.
King Eyo found a suitable site for its erection; it was on a
gentle rise as one moved from the beach at the head of
the main street, in the centre of the town at that time.
This was an excellent site and was appropriate for the
purpose. The houses that stood there were demolished
by the king's orders, and cleared from the site.
When the ground was made ready Eyo, his chiefs and
other gentlemen were present to see the
commencement of the work. Its foundation could not be
laid because there was no stone and no cement for any
concrete works. In place of the foundation stone th.ere
were seventy strong posts, presumably of mangrove
/
[2.4J
wood, were sunk deep in the ground, and standing
seven feet above it. These posts had been procured by
the towns-people: It was the contribution by certain
age-groups known as "nka"; and when they brought
them from the woods they placed them in the presence
of King Eyo and his chiefs by the hands of their people.
As usual, Etinyin Eyo sat down when superintending the
work, under the canopy of his immense umbrella of
various colours, the staff of which rested on the ground
behind him. His table and papers before him, and friends
around. When the foundation posts were erected, the
carpenters had to lay on a strong frame-work, firmly
bolted down, before the iron superstructure could be
erected.
When these were done, the house was raised and
roofed, but there were no planks for the floor, because
these were not sent with the house, and this brought a
delay of some years.
While the church was in building, there was an American
ship on the river and was 'just about to go home; it.s
captain was given the order for what was needed to
complete the building. He had promised to return in a
few months. He never returned and a year was lost
waiting for him in vain. The minister immediately wrote
home for them, but before they came out Rev. Waddell
was obliged to go home on account of his poor health. It
was after his return from home in 1854 was the work of
the building of the church resumed.
[951
Thedesire of the people was to see the great work which
had absorbed people's interest accomplished. But when
the minister returned from hts furlough it was
discovered that more work was needed to complete it.
A good part of the foundation frame, having suffered
exposure to sun and rain, was decayed and needed
renewal. The ground posts which the townspeople
provided proved poor quality and were practically gone.
The church building needed flooring and stairs and seats
and other sections of the carpenter's work. A wall was
needed to close up the lower part, and an outer of native
matting to cover all from the sun.
Finally, it was all done and the foundation was made as
secure as ever with sixty or seventy large and ripe red
mangrove wood, the best that could be procured within
seven miles. Finally, the sanctuary was completed, it
stood on a gentle elevation at the head of the main
street in the centre of the town. The king and his people
were satisfied.
The new church was "publicly consecrated to the service
of the living and true God". It was opened on the 9th of
September 1855.
When the last Sabbath meeting service took place in the
King's yard the church was crowded both in the inner
part and in the surrounding varandah. All the
[2§J
congregation looked happy, especially the church ·
members and school children, who felt that they had a
particular interest in the new church and day. When the
benediction was about to be pronounced King Eyo stood
up, and addressed the audience, exhorting them to
attend the church regularly, as he purposed himself to
do, and to keep the day of God free from work and play.
Waddell himself added that they should refer not to the
mere building and opening of a temple for the public
worship of God, but to the more important part that
there was a regular congregation ready to fill it, and an
organized church of native converts.
3
SABBATH-DAY DUTIES
When Rev. Waddell took over Creek Town as his
permanent station, he expressed his militant
Protestantism in his being rigid over keeping the
Sabbath-day holy. Creek Town is still gripped with that
tradition till today, and unlike Duke Town, the place is
unusually quiet and serene without fuss and without
chaos on a Sunday.
In those days the public church meetings were
conducted both in English and in Ffik, but more in the
latter, and less of the king's aid as interpreter. The
attendance in his yard varied, from one hundred and
fifty to two hundred persons. The children were
catechized publicly.
[971
 There were separate meetings held both in the town and
in the farm villages. There was also the evening
meeting, and reading classes held in the school-house
for two hours or more in the afternoon. The house was
occasionally crowded and sometimes hot.
Apart from the Bible which, of course, was the standard
text, there was another book of interest used, and this
was the Pilgrim's Progress, * written by John Bunyan in
1678, a dissenting preacher, which led to his arrest and
imprisonment in Bedford jail for twelve years. It is a
book regarded by many English authorities as "probably
the best-known religious work in the language after the
Bible", and Buchan adds that "The Pilgrim's Progress is
the most moving religious book in the English language
and probably "the most widely read prose work in
English" .
Furthermore, the members and catechumens met in
class one evening weekly for higher instruction in the
Principles of Christianity; the Assembly's Shorter
Catechism formed the text book. They had to be
committed to memory. There was also the weekly
evening prayer meeting among themselves in Young
Eyo's house, and in Sabbath morning in the school
house. There was a monthly collection to aid any of the
members who might be sick or in prison. One of the
members was made the treasurer, and two others
distributors. In this way the infant church gradually
acquired consistency, thus preparing itself into working
order.

The Pilgrim's Progress contains the famous religious

allegorical story describing the adventures of Christian
and · Hopeful on their pilgrimage from the City of
Destruction to the Celestial City · or the Heavenly
Jerusalem. The Palace Beautiful is represented in
allegorical language as the Christian Church, its nature
and its advantages. Had Christian not entered the
Palace Beautiful, had he not joined the Church, he would
have fared badly when he met Apollyon, the demon, or
the destroying angel from hell, for he would have been
entirely defeated without armour. Passing through the
Palace Beautiful, the Christian Church, where he was
armoured against evil forces during his pilgrimage.
• John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (Mbuk Asana Usun Hevn), was translated into Efrk by
Alexander Robb in 1868.
l2[J l22J
 Chapter
After Eyarnba's expedition the Cross River traffic
question was never settled, and King Eyo undertook an
Eight
expedition to Umon in March 1848 after Eyamba's
death, in order to reconcile the old quarrel which
Eyamba's expedition had only intensified.
KING EVO AT HIS APOGEE
After Eyo had ended Eyamba's obsequies and those of
1 Tom Duke, his preparations were fairly elaborate and
these delayed him until March. Waddell has described
Eyo's Expedition To Umon them as follows:

The purpose of Umon expedition in 1848 was to tackle "About sixty war canoes
the dispute between Umon and Agwagune. In 1846 King followed Eyo and his Chiefs to
Boson. 2 Most of them had each
Eyamba V of Duke Town had fitted out an abortive
a large gun mounted on a ,

punitive expedition against Umon to settle an old J

strong frame, in the bows, and

quarrel on behalf of Agwagune, his friends and ally. a little deck house in the middle
for its owner, gaily painted,
Umon is strategically located in the middle Cross River, a with an ensign in the stern. Eyo
favourable position that enabled them to control the led the way himself in a six­
traffic on either side of the river, and no canoe could oa'red gig, rowed not by slaves,
move up or down the river undetected. Umon people in but by young gentlemen of the
their ambition to make Umon the emporium of the best families in the land. Some
middle Cross River prevented the Agwagune people of his canoes which followed
were very large, sixty or
from having any direct trade with Old Calabar, and this
seventy feet long, and five or
had precipitated war between them for some time. At
six feet broad, paddled by
one time when the Agwagune people later visited Umon, thirty men, and carrying also
"on pretence of an old quarrel they were treacherously bands of armed men. They had
attacked at night by their hosts and this ended in the large guns both bow and stern,
death of 170 Agwagune people. 1 King Eyamba wanted to and were ballasted with cannon
avenge Umon for their attack on his friends and ally. balls"",3
'Waddell, Twenty-nine years in the West Indies and Celltral Africa, London, 1862, p. 286 100 'In Missionary records Umon was known as Boson or Bosom
101
JWaddell, Twenty-nine years ... P.372

 2
When Rev. Waddell told King Eyo that the appearance of
DUKE TOWN IN FEUDS
his expedition to Umon might alarm the people that he
was coming for war, he replied that the Ekpe canoe
Before the Great Duke Ephraim passed away in 1834 he
would go first, and its being dressed only with palm­
had begun to weaken his own family by having some of
fronds on both sides indicated peace, similar to bearing
them who might covet his wealth, or his family rivals,
the olive branch. He also took with him an immense
put to death. After his death the work of destruction
quantity of trade goods.
continued by his successor, Eyamba V, in order to
remove any opponents to his elevation out of the way,
While Eyo was on his way he had stopped a considerable
and the late Duke's family members were his greatest
way short of Umon and sent to invite the chiefs of the
victims, especially in his design to break down the Duke
place to meet him. They were at first slow of coming and
family; and the sudden death of John Duke in 1846
then when they did so they wanted to exact hard terms:
increased the general suspicion on him.
that they would want Calabar trade canoes to pay
tribute for trading with them as the British pay comey to
When Eyamba died in 1847, he had vacated two very
Calabar for trading. Eyo in reply asked them if they
Important offices, viz. Duke Town Kingship and .
thought he had come to beg them, and if they desired
Eyarnbaship of Ekpe Fraternity. Ephraim Duke, the only
war they should say so at once. Finally it was agreed that
considerable person of the late Duke's family remaining,
nothing be said about the old quarrel, and Eyo would
became a formidable rival for the kingship by
give an annual "dash" to certain chiefs of Umon to keep
vehemently renewing his claims to the throne. Mr
the peace of the river. In addition, Eyo brought back a
Young, brother of Eyamba V, soon emerged as his rival
young wife from Umon, and two gentlemen's sons whom
for the regal claim. At this the Ephraim party, resolved to
he sent to school.
get rid of him and the work of death continued
unabated. This political turmoil created an interregnum
From that day the past quarrels and misunderstandings
in Duke Town for at least two years after Eyamba's
between the two communities, Umon and Agwagune,
death.
saw their end, and both could trade directly with Calabar
without hindrance.
While these feuds were going on in Duke Town, King Eyo
Honesty 11 was busy extending his trade and business
and making his money. By 1850 he was recognized as
the wealthiest man in Old Calabar, and was able to

[02\
[iQ1]
maintain his economic and political independence. He It was on May 28, 1849, that Lieutenant Selwyn of the
was also able to handle his European agents with British Navy called "a meeting with the missionaries and
extraordinary adroitness; he kept his friendship with the masters of vessels in the river" to decide on who
them and that of the supercargoes. At his time Creek would succeed the late King Eyamba V. There were three
Town prospered in the oil trade, and this affluence also contestants in this succession dispute:
expressed itself on the inhabitants, a situation which the
missionaries themselves bore witness. (1) Mr Young of Eyamba House, the brother of late
King Eyamba V.
In April 1852 there was a conference on board the (2) Ephraim Duke, the son of the Great Duke Ephraim
IIAfrica" in the presence of Consul Beecroft in which (3) Archibong Duke of Archibong sector of Duke
treaty was signed in Creek Town between Captain House.
Cuthbertson and Eyo in which King Eyo received two­
thirds of the comey paid by the supercargoes to Efik The first candidate, My Young, was rejected because he
kings because of the volume of trade at Creek Town, and was rated a poor business man; besides, he was also
Duke Ephraim received one-third. 1 All these intensely involved in the financial ruin with the late King Eyamba
increased the importance of King Eyo Honesty II in the V. The second contestant was given to alcoholism and
river. was disqualified. Rev. Anderson who was an eye-witness
to the scene recorded the following:
3
INTERFERENCE IN DUKE TOWN KINGSHIP II It was considered that from his
superior wealth, extensive
With Duke Town now drenched in feuds and without a trade, and connection with the
king, the period disturbed the normal civil routine and original royal family (Duke
the flow of trade. In this situation King Eyo appeared a Ephraim Line) Archibong Duke
possible candidate; he was highly regarded by the is the proper successor to
British, and was extremely wealthy, but by the advice of Eyamba and rightful king of
the supercargoes and masters of the vessels he was Duke Town All the
rejected by Lieutenant Selwyn of the Royal Navy.1 It was shipmasters voted Archibong
an occasion that invited foreign intervention in Duke as king ... Mr. Edgerley and 1,
the only missionaries present,
Town kingship election.
did not vote at all ... "*

'N a ir. K. K.• Politics and Society in S. E. Nigeria pp 131-132 104 * Hart Report .. . P 72 ~
 \
When Archibong was enthroned as King of Duke Town,
he was then known as Archlbongl. King Archlbong's
reign brought an Ekpe edict against inhumation at the
deaths of men of rank, and the ordeal of esere on
witchcraft suspects. It was also during his reign that the
revolt of the lower orders took place.
By the beginning of 1951 the servile classes of Akpabuyo
plantations had begun to band themselves together with
the unprivileged commoners by a blood covenant for
their mutual protection against their being made victims
of arbitrary exactions of their masters and Ekpe,
especially for their preservation against their being used
for mortuary sacrifices. They were called by different
names, "blood society" or "blood men". They knew
themselves as "nka iyip" (Blood companions or blood
brotherhood), a combination of people under blood oath
to achieve a purpose, that is, to preserve themselves
against being killed for mortuary sacrifices. At the sarne
time they became retainers of some wealthy people or
rulers as their protectors, and among those who
. retained the "Blood Brotherhood" was King Archibong I
himself.
4
ANARCHY CONTINUED IN DUKE TOWN
Early in February 1852 King Archibong I of Duke Town
died, having reigned for three years only. At his death
the association of "blood brotherhood" reappeared in
Duke Town. These people came to avenge the death of
their "father", the late king, at the invitation of the King's
' Latham, Old Calabar 1600-1891 , Oxford , 1973, p. 117 1106J
mother, Obuma, who, as usual, attributed her son's
death to witchcraft, and began to make the late king's
wives and others to "chop nut". that is, to undergo an
esere ordeal to prove their innocence.
Not satisfied with these, Obuma directed the people's
attention to Mr. Young and his brother Ntiero, also their
niece Offiong, and other membersofthe late Eyamba v's
family, and demanded that all of them should undergo
the esere ordeal to prove their innocence in the late
King's death. At the same time the late Eyamba family
group insisted that Obuma must also undergo the ordeal
to prove her innocence in her son's death, but the old
lady threatened to blow up Duke Town with gun­
powder* if forced to do so. Mr. Young, himself deferred
his undergoing the ordeal for the next day, but fled in the
night to King Eyo in Creek Town for shelter.
As Duke Town was in that state of anarchy for several
days the missionaries wrote to King Eyo to mediate and
save it. King Eyo replied that he could not go until he was
invited by its own chiefs, but that he would send to
enquire their wishes in the matter. He had sent Ekpe the
day before, and he could not effect anything because, ­
the town was occupied by the "blood brotherhood"
which Obuma had brought in from the plantation, but he
planned to go himself the next day.
When King Eyo at last went to Duke Town the
missionaries also assembled there for united prayer on
behalf of the country and the mission, and when he
• Waddell notes that Obuma really knocked in the heads of six casks o r gun-powder
.lIQ1]
that lay in her house. Waddell, page 498
landed they went to meet and welcome him. Below is the before night. To restore order it
description of the scene from the pen of Rev. Hope needed a self-command and
Waddell as an eye-witness: tact equal to the boldness with
which Eyo had presented
himself with a small guard in
"The sight which presented the face of that armed
itself was an uncommon and multitude. He accomplished
impressive one. At one side of that object, however; and
the market-place sat King Eyo before night those wild hordes
under his grand umbrella, had retired to the plantations,
guarded by a moderately a II pa rties havi ng sworn
numerous, but very select band "mbiam", that no more persons
of armed men. He had brought should die, in any way, for the
only his usual retinue of three late King" ,1
canoes following his boat; but
they were filled with picked The foregoing events in Duke Town served to exalt King
people. Beside him Duke Eyo to a great height of fame for wisdom and power. The
Ephraim, Ene Cobham and blood companion whom Obuma had hired from the
other chiefs, took their seats, plantations to Duke Town to cause disturbances
with their followers. The "bush appeared to have been completely dis-armed by King
people", * several thousands in Eyo's speeches, and before dark all had retired to their
number, surrounded the rest of plantations in their thousands as they came.
the market-place, standing in
good order, three or four men To his missionary friends King Eyo who then lived above
deep; and all armed with guns the beliefs in abiaidiong's craft and all the superstitious
and cutlasses. charms of the mid-nineteenth century was a man far in
advance of his countrymen and of his time.
The Situation was critical. A
rash word or act might have 'There was the rumour Circulating that King Eyo was
made open war in the town asserting his right to the supreme authority in all

• The " bu sh people" were th e plantati on hordes. "b lood brot herhood". invited by Ob uma. 108 J Wadde ll . Twenty-nine Years .. . Pp 498-499 109
Calabar, to become the "Edidem". When Waddell asked
him about it he confirmed it as true, but he was informed
that Duke Town chiefs and some of' the supercargoes
were offended by it, especially the latter who felt that a
united Calabar under a single ruler as in the past would
negatively affect their trade. Below is Eyo's reply:
"Why so'? I take no more than
God has given me. He make me
king, when he make me pass
them all in riches and power.
When young I was nobody, for I
was poor; and it was long
before I set up as a gentleman.
I put my mind to my trade and
worked, at first a little and then
more. What profit I made I put
down. When ships come I trade
with their money, and when
they go away I trade with my
own; and so I come up to be
king of Creek Town, and now
pass every man in all Calabar. I
don't make myself king for
country, God make me"2
, Wadde ll, Twenty-nine yea rs ... P 414
Chapter
Nine
FURTHER TESTS OF THE MAN
1
The Great Fire
A few weeks after King Eyo had mediated to restore
peace in Duke Town, and which served to exalt him to a
great height of fame for wisdom and power, his palace
and stores were consumed by a great fire . Great
quantities of valuable furniture and trade goods were
burnt to ashes. His losses in trade goods were estimated
at ten thousand pounds sterling, a large sum of money
in those days. And considering the age in which they
found themselves, such calamity would certainly invite
the services of "mbiaidiong" to the scene, to investigate
the sources of the tragedy, and what persons or witches
were responsible for the royal misfortune. Perhaps
almost the whole town would have been condemned to
esere ordeal. Indeed, that was what the whole civil
population expected to happen.
The fire broke out before midnight; people were aroused
by a loud noise in the town; the king's great bell was
violently ringing and a glare of light was visible from
almost all directions. The king's house and stores were
lUQJ lITIJ
enveloped in the conflagration whose illuminations lit
the country around. Hundreds of women were carrying
water to try to bring the fire under control while men
were engaged in demolishing the surrounding houses to
try to control the spread of the fire. The king himself and
his brothers were trying to save as many valuables as
possible. The women's quarters were thrown open and
the king's wives called out to help, carrying cloths and
other goods for security. By 4 a.m. the conflagration had
burnt itself almost out.
Friends who came saw King Eyo sitting in his new yard,
looking quite sad and exhausted. His missionary friends
were with him, trying to console him and to thank God
wtlo saw him safe, and reminded him of the afflictions of
Job and his patience, and applied the saying that the
Lord had given to him, and now the Lord had taken away
again. It grieved him particularly that much of the goods
in the stores were not his own. When Mrs Waddell
proposed to send him and his brothers some breakfast
and inquired what he would like, he thanked her politely
and said anything she pleased.
When the missionaries in Duke Town and Old Town came
to see the king and to console him they were gratified to
find him in such a proper state of mind . The king's wives
looked miserable as if they were mourning for the dead,
and some murmured as to where they would now "get
their chop". Others blamed God for having done such ill
to their "father". Public opinions on this incident varied:
one of the King's brothers said, "we all suffer this loss,
for we all get out of that store'.
[Ul]
Another visitor commented:
"Suppose King Eyo been mind
witch palaver, the half of this
town been chop nut by this
time".
On the Sabbath Day Mr. Edgerley had to preach in Creek
Town, because Rev. Waddell was absent and had gone to
sea for health for a week or two. The king was in his
place as usual, and he said thus:
"I tell all my people they must
come and hear God's word,
same as before. Suppose I
flog any man, and he sorry for
his fault, and beg me, I must
stop. If he not sorry, and beg
me, I must flog him more.
God flog we all now".
When one great gentlewoman tried to insinuate that
somebody having "freemason" was against King Eyo's
house, he told her that it was God who had done it, and
not man, for if he had pleased, he could have sent a
great rain, and killed the fire at once. And from all the
country around, people came in daily to comfort the
king, bringing abundant presents.
The missionaries and captains of ships all said that Eyo
had conducted himself so well on that occasion, he
stood even higher in their esteem of him than ever
before. What he said to Rev. Waddell was that he was
glad no house had been burnt but his own, and no lives
were lost in the fire incident.
[!llJ
In situations like this some people had been caught
stealing during the fire, and brought to the king. He
merely reproved and dismissed them.
2 bloodshed, but all in vain. On the other hand, Old Ekpo
IKOT OFFIONG AND IKONETO IN CONFLICT
An Ikot Offiong creditor sent an Ekpe officer to his debtor
at Ikoneto to obtain payment of his debt. When the debt
could not be retrieved he seized the debtor's children as
hostages by tying the sacred Ekpe yellow band on their
arms. Furthermore, he exceeded the licence of his order
by carrying off the goats belonging to other people in the
town.
In this development Ikoneto people appealed to Duke
Town, which took up their cause by sending Ekpe
masquerade with some armed canoes to repair the
damage by plundering Ikot Offiong. Ikot Offiong
resisted it by preventing the landing of these un­
welcome visitors. This provoked Duke Town to prepare
in earnest for war against Ikot Offiong. Ekpe authority,
it was thought, had been seriously defied by a single
town and must be severely dealt with.
two substitutes; finally it was reduced to one substitute
and a fine.
There were pleadings for the increase of the fine without
Jack asserted that no amount of money could redeem
Ikot Offiong's head. He believed firmly that without the
shedding of blood there was no remission. "Egbo law",
he said, "is the same to Calabar as God's law. If a man
break it, all Calabar must make war on him till they kill
him".
King Eyo had opposed the shedding of innocent blood in
the Ekpe council in vain, because he said his voice there
was no more than that of any other member where Ekpe
assembly was concerned. He said he finally appealed to
God who knew his heart. The missionaries who watched
him trying to explain the situation afterwards observed
tears filling his eyes, an evidence that these things really
troubled his mind. It all happened in 1852.

It was at this point that king Eyo intervened, having

been appealed to by Ikot Offiong, and he prevented the
war by calling a Grand Ekpe meeting to settle the matter. ~
Ikot Offiong was condemned for having resisted Ekpe;
its fault was considered high treason, which deserved
only death penalty; but was allowed to redeem its life by ~

lllil [illJ

- -~~~ ---------
}~ ~
n
 Chapter
of the demon, the evil one, who had secretly committed
Ten
one belonged to the demon, and since it was impossible
KING EYO AND THE TWINS
1 ancestors and the gods of the land.
Efik Attitude To Twins
In the past centuries Calabar and the Efik nation were
held by the early missionaries as notorious for their
inhuman attitude towards the twins. A woman who gave
birth to twins was a subject of dread and horror; she was
banished from town, and her infants cast out to perish.
The women themselves thought it disgraceful to be the
mother of twins, and when mention was made of twins
they brushed down their arms, as if sweeping off a
defilement. To our surprise it was the women who were
the greatest opposition to twins, especially the
dowagers of the great families. Many of these "old
gentle women", it was said, "keep up all the bad
customs"... "It be this make them bad fashions so
strong in Calabar", and these same women repudiated
the doctrine of twins as monstrous and abominable, and
spat out in disgust at the mere mention of such a thing.
The general beliefwas that one of the twins was the child
(@
adultery with the mother. Of the two babies, therefore,
to detect which was the offspring of the evil spirit, both
must therefore be destroyed to free the society or
community of their abomination and the curse from the
It was because of the inhuman treatment often given
out to twin-mothers and their babies that the
missionaries formed the "Humanity Society" in Calabar
so that it could move in a matter, especially twin-births,
which so loudly called for its action. In Creek Town some
of the principal men were depended on to assist the
efforts of this society to free the people of their age-old
monstrous attitude to twin births.
When the Atai group of Enwang clan first colonized the
present Calabar in the early fourteenth century after the
Uruan episode, they concentrated their fishing zone
arourid Nsutana. And when Okoho Efiom became a twin
mother in Creek Town and was ostracized with her twins
at Nsutana, the Enwang clan took fright and packed out
of the place, and fled in panic to their kinsmen at
Anantigha, because they felt that as the twin-mother
had entered Nsutana their fishing zone, it was defiled,
and that foreboded calamity from the ancestors.
rn 71
 2 subject and to reply. King Eyo was to consult with his
THE ABEONA MEETING
This very important public meeting in an early effort to
discuss the twins issue took place on 21" October, 185l.
The venue of the meeting was the Abeona, which was
the largest ship on the Calabar River on that day. Every
effort had to be made to secure a full attendance of the
principal men of Creek Town, Duke Duke and Old Town
where the mission had already established their
stations with churches and schools since 1846.
This meeting, it appeared, had been arranged under the
auspices of the "Humanity Society". The Captain of this
ship had invited these men of rank to have breakfast
before-hand and had conveyed them to the place of the
meeting in their own boats. Even Mr. Young, one of the
Ekpe aristocrats, was highly welcome, and all the guests
filled the quarter-deck of the ship, which was admirably
arranged for the purpose. The missionaries were all
present and Mr. Waddell was there. One of the senior
captains presided, and Rev. Goldie was the clerk or
secretary.
The meeting was opened with prayer, possibly by Rev.
Waddell; the chairman stated the object of the meeting
generally, and called on Mr. Edgerley, a missionary,
another senior captain, and Rev Waddell, to plead the
cause of humanity. The addresses needed not be
reported. Anyone could speak on the subject under
consideration. The native gentry were to consider on the
lillJ
people on it, and they would welcome some feedback
from them.
King Eyo, after a few moment's pause, addressed his
countrymen there assembled on the subject, pleading
on the need for humanity and human feeling on the
subject under consideration, after which he
recapitulated what had been said, and put the question
in a manner favourable to the expected object, and he
was careful to avoid those peculiarities in the arguments
and illustrations that would be improper here.
A free conversation then ensued among the Efik gentry
present. Duke Town and Old Town gentry all seemed
opposed to anything favourable, especially Archibong
Duke, (Archibong 1, King of Duke Town), Mr. Young,
8assey Offiong, and Hogan the pilot. At the end of their
discussion King Eyo expressed the opinion of his
countrymen on the subject before the meeting, that the
old customs of the country could not be changed.
The result was not what was expected of them. At once a
number of hard questions were put to King Eyo and his
countrymen. The king said that he had only delivered
the opinion of his countrymen and not his own, and that
if in the case of twin-birth among his people he assured
the gathering that the children should not be killed if he
could help it.
Rev. Waddell intervened to say that the missionaries did
not insist on keeping those mothers and children in the
[IT91

towns. If they were allowed a village of their own to live
near at hand, or to live among their own people on the
farms or plantations it would serve the principal purpose
they had in view, which was to save their lives.
The meeting almost became a little stormy as the
missionaries' opinion, conveyed by Rev. Waddell, was
expressed. The gentry from Duke Town and Old Town
were irreconcilable in their opposition to the
missionaries view, because they said that any man
keeping those women and children would be "blown out
of town", that is, would be ostracized by an Ekpe
interdict. Yet the most interesting irony in the history of
this twin episode was that Duke Town itself was founded
by the two twins of Okoho (Offiong Okoho and Efiom .
Okoho), their twin-mother Okoho Efiom, and their uncle
Edem Efiom.
King Eyo, perhaps a little worked up into a temper by the
tone of defiance from Duke Town and Old Town, said
boldly:
"I thank you, Mr. Waddell, for
that word, and agree to it. I will
give those women and children
a place to live, and then will see
who will blow me out of my
town".
After this statement, and the king's stand in the matter,
Eyo received the greatest applause from the missionary
circle and the "Humanity Society", who built up their
hope for a better tomorrow for twin-mothers and their
children.
11201
Already in Ekpe Fraternity King Eyo was the keeper of
the "Ebonko" title, and the founder of Okpoho" (Brass
Ekpe), two most important stages in the ranks of
worshipful masters and nobody could "blow" him out of
the town.
One of the king's brothers, John, who had apparently
been sitting on the fence, became decided at once, and
said that he also agreed to the measure proposed.
Mr. Young found himself in a different situation when he
was reminded by one of the captains who pOinted out to
him that he had once said that if his wife bore him twins,
no man could make him put her away, but he bluntly
denied having ever said such a thing. Mr. Edgerley also
reminded Mr. Young when he had spoken in similar
terms to him, but he replied on the contrary and said, "1
won't say so, Mr. Edgerley, 1 can't say such a thing". At
the moment everybody present, black and white,
laughed at him, and some of the members said that his
denials were as good as confessions.
In the end the meeting broke up without achieving any
satisfactory conclusion on the matter. But it had fulfilled
a purpose in that the subject, having been now brought
under universal discussion, had added weight to the
former private remonstrances.
The unity of sentiment that existed between the
missionaries and their commercial countrymen in the
[I211
 river on matters pertaining to humanity, at least,
indicated concord, though the subject of polygamy and
Sabbath-breaking still divided them, because these
sailors and captains were keeping wives and concubines
on the Coast, and these were known to the missionaries.
At the same time the missionaries were happy that their
adherents on the issue of twins were being seriously
reinforced by young men and all who attended schools.
Besides, in the Mission houses in Creek Town and Old
Town, there were mothers and their twins living there,
and by God's grace all these were pointing to optimism
and progress.
3 The Ekpe interdict which he blew had little effect on the
FRESH INCIDENTS OF TWIN-BIRTH
Soon after the Abeona Meeting of 1851, there were
developments in the following year over the twin-birth
issue. These happenings urged the missionaries to try to
put their reformation, which humanity demanded, into
practice. This was done on behalf of both the mothers
and theirtwin children.
The first of these incidents occurred in Old Town in 1851.
A woman in the Mission-house at Old Town went frantic
with grief and fear when she found that she had given
birth to twins, and wanted to strangle the poor infants,
but Mrs. Edgerley saved them and soothed and
comforted the mother by giving her the assurance of her
safety although it was not so easy to protect them When
. the news of this twin-birth circulated throughout the
[ill]
town, the ruler of the town, and his people were furious
about the abomination, and dreaded the destruction of
their town from the vengeance of their deity,· Anansa,
which was supposed to be living in the spring at the
bottom of the hill.
Thus, finding that the missionaries would not cast out
the infants, nor expel the mother, the ruler of the town,
Willy Tom Robins (Asibong Eso), "blew Ekpe on the
mission-house", forbidding anyone in the town to go
near it nor the school. And as soon as that was done, he
retired to his farm near the Kwa River, where he ·
remained for a full year with most of his people.
situation. When the news was heard in Creek Town
Young Eyo, King Eyo's son, with some of his friends
visited Old Town to see things for themselves. He saw
the poor babes and brought them a present of cloth and
other things for their use. And what surprised the people
most of all was that he even took them into his arms to
the amazement of his followers who went with him, and
who said that no man in all Calabar could be bold
enough to do that.
King Eyo himself was well aware of this. This action of his
son encouraged many people to visit the twins and to
examine them properly. School children who were
formerly afraid of where twins were born, now went
freely to see and examine the little wonders.
11231
After a few weeks twins were born at Creek Town, and
were immediately removed to a farm in the
neighbourhood with orders from King Eyo to the people
there to take good care of the mother and the children.
Miss Miller, who was a missionary there, with some of
her domestics, immediately carried those things needed
and set out to look for them. When they saw the woman
without water and fire, she encouraged the farm people
to be active in providing help for them. At first they were
afraid and wanted to flee instead of helping them. "They
would not for a long time look near the infants". The
women who were asked to help ran away screaming to
hide themselves whenever the twins were held out
towards them as if they were monsters. When they saw
the mission house boys and girls nursing the babies with
safety the men first acquired confidence and drew near.
Soon the women began to peep through holes and
corners; and gradually they looked to find out with
amazement that the babes were not prodigies as was
pictured before but had hands and feet, eyes and ears,
mouths and noses like any other babies. They had never
seen twins at close quarters before. While Miss Miller
was there King Eyo sent out yams, and fresh orders to
the farm servants to take the best care of both mother
and children.
the boys, a gentleman's son, carried the infants sleeping
in a basket and the boy seemed proud of his little load.
No ill-feeling was shown by anyone. One of the on­
lookers exclaimed "they look so beautiful; very beautiful
indeed". King Eyo and his brother, Tom, also came to see
them, and he told the mother to be afraid of nothing, but
to take care of the children, and he would take care of
her. He was the first Efik King to give protection to twins.
All the mission domestics and school boys and girls were
happy to welcome the little strangers. The missionaries
themselves felt very happy at these developments,
which pOinted to social and moral improvements and the
ultimate success of their mission in the country.
It all happened in 1852, 24 years before Mary Siessor
arrived Old Calabar in 1876 to champion the cause of the
twins and their mothers.

At last, in this first case the missionaries decided to have

them near themselves; they were therefore to be
brought in publicly, and through the market with a
convoy which made a sensation. It was said that one of
[ill] 11251
 Chapter t hreats and coercion to get their end. In 1848 the French
gunboat, liLa Vigie, II threatened to blow up Old Calabar
Eleven unless it supplied slaves to the French schooner, "Luiz d'
Aubuquerque". The Efik rulers refused because they had
signed the abolition treaties with England in 1841 and
KING EYO IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS 1842 and the negotiation ended in their taking palm-oil .
Instead. The French trade on the Coast was vastly
1 expanded and increased from 11 million francs in 1840
to 23 million in 1846. . ~
The French
Before the end of August 1847 some confidential
Long before the arrival of the Presbyterian Mission team
Information was received that two French war steamers
in Old Calabar in 1846, various other European countries
were preparing to visit Old Calabar to sign a treaty with
had traded with Old Calabar. The Portuguese and the
the chiefs of the country for some unavowed object. On
Spaniards appeared briefly on the Coast, followed by the
this matter Mr. Young wrote:
French and the English.
"I hear news about French
As Nair* informs us, the French were doing business
man-of-war want to come here
with Old Calabar before 1830, it was John Beecroft who
for make we put hand for book
noticed that the British trade vessels in Old Calabar
to them for take country. That
Rivers were vastly out-numbered by the French slave
be what I never been hear since
trading vessels in spite of the abolition of the traffic. The
my grand father be. But I will
Oil Rivers vicinity was not yet under any European power
do no such thing".1
and so the French, taking advantage of their numerical
strength in the region defied all laws and conventions to
In 1847 two French boats, the II Foque" and the ·
. do as they liked. The activities of the British cruisers
"Australie", arrived Old Calabar, always in their
were only restricted to British nationals and of those
threatening and aggressive mood, in the same old spirit
European countries that had signed the abolition
of chauvinism of the Napoleonic age, and King Eyo did
treaties. By the 1840s the French were making their
not like this.2
presence felt both in Old Calabar and in the Delta. As it is
usual with empire bUilders, the French believed in

*Nair, K. K. Politics & Society In S. E. Nigeria, London, 1972, p.91 ft 126 1Waddell, Twenty-nine year, London, 1862, p3S0 127
(~ . 2Nalr, K. K. PolitiCS and Society in S. E. Nigeria, London, 1973, p90 ft.
 When they arrived they sent word to King Eyo that they
would call on him the next morning, in the hope of
making a treaty with Old Calabar for the suppression of
human sacrifices. The French had already been aware
that British missionaries were already in Old Calabar
working there, and their avowed policy now was what
the missionaries were already tackling. It was the
French pretext to rope Old Calabar in the French net of
imperialism; but imperialism is a shadow that fades
away when the object that casts it fades.
When the expected morning dawned, King Eyo hOisted a
British ensign over his house before the French arrival
and sent Rev. Waddell one to hoist at his house also. At
nine o'clock in the morning the French commodore
arrived, and with several junior officers. Eyo received
them cordially in his usual way and sat down with the
commodore on a sofa at the head of the room. Soon the
Rev. Waddell who was expected by king Eyo to be
present, arrived. Having exchanged formal salutations,
the king introduced Waddell to the visitor as "my
missionary". The rest of the party occupied the sofas on
the sides. A medical gentleman from the ships sat with
Rev. Waddell on a sofa at the foot of the room.
Attendants occupied the floor. There was an old slave
trader who acted as interpreter for the visitors, and also
spoke to King Eyo in English. The subject of the moment
was human sacrifices.
The commodore opened the talk by saying that the
French King had heard that "three thousand" had been
killed for Eyamba at his funeral, and thought it "very
barbarous and bad". King Eyo denied the accuracy of the
report, but said,
11281
"It live for my head long time to
stop all that; but it no can
knock off one time".
rhe commodore said that if they substitute bullocks for
tluman beings the French King would pay for them all.
Eyo replied that if substitution with bullocks could be
possible he could himself, that he was able and willing to
pay for the bullocks, if the country agreed to it. But that
all men were not prepared to adopt that new fashion all
at once.
The commodore said, "Your missionary will tell you, that
it is a very bad fashion". "Yes", Eyo replied, "he tell we all
that every time; and I know it must done soon". The
visitor added that the French King would send many
ships to trade with Old Calabar but for the barbarous
practice; but Eyo replied that if French ships should
come to trade they would do as English ships do.
After some talking in a low voice among themselves in
French they invited King Eyo to visit their ships that
evening, It was the Sabbath day and Eyo declined on
that account but proposed the next day; and they
suggested conveying him to the vessel in their own boat
with French colours; Eyo said, "no, I suppose I go in my
own boat, I carry English colours".
All that happened at this meeting of the French visit was
to get Old Calabar into the French Empire in spite of its
[ill]
 having already accepted the British. The imperialists
always like to paint themselves and their civilization as a
model of perfection and excellence, and yet seldom do
we have moral perfection in the past history of any race.
We all had to pass through this age of barbarism once
upon a time. The primitive religion of Druidism in France
(Gaul) and Britain and its religious savage cults of
human sacrifices are well known to us through the Latin
pens of Julius Caesar and Tacitus
King Eyo did not trust the French whose commodore
wanted to use him for his imperial design: they wanted
him to visit their ships under French colours and would
also have to hoist the French ensign at his house
because they could not salute him under English
colours. And had King Eyo yielded to the French
pressure as they demanded, it would have reflected
unfavourably on the English-French relationship. The
commodore in the end expressed his pleasure to note
that Eyo and Eyamba had signed the anti-slavery treaty
with England and that there were missionaries in Old
Calabar to teach the people; he promised to return to
Calabar after his visits to Bonny and other places on the
Coa~t, but he never returned, possibly because of some
pOlitical ferment in France that brought another
revolution there in 1848.
/139]
2
THE BRITISH IN THE OIL POLITICS
The Efik nation had the longest, the closest and the
most continuous contact with Britain than with any
other European nations that visited Old Calabar in the
past. The Portuguese that blazed the trail of this contact
in the fifteenth century were merely transient visitors,
so were the Spaniards, the Dutch and the French.
Britain's intensive contact with Old Calabar had come in
the early years of the eighteenth century when the
Treaty of Utrecht, which ended the War of the Spanish
Succession in Europe, was signed in 1713, and in the
wake of that treaty came the Asiento, signed the same
year, between Great Britain and Spain, granting Britain
the right to supply the Spanish American colonies with
4,800 African slaves annually for thirty years. It was
from this period that British ships· practically
monopolized the slave trade of the Guinea Coast.
Although the African slave trade retreated after its
abolition, the palm oil trade that superseded it was only
concerned with European traders, mostly British with
their crew and hands as in the slave trade era.
In 1854 there was the appearance in Old Calabar of the
mail steamer or mail packet. It was an age of European
revolution in water transport, the steamer was coming
to compete with the sailing ships of the supercargoes.
The arrival of this modern means of transport
lillJ
 introduced a new form of competition in the oil trade.
The steamer was faster, so that the oil could be shipped
immediately on her to Britain, whereas in the former
case the supercargoes who came for slaves by sailing
ship had to give out trust and wait for months to collect
them, or to return in the next trip for them. But now,
because of this revolution in transport, the days of the
sailing ships were numbered.
Again, the coming of the mail steamer to Old Calabar
was monthly; and one significant development in the oil
trade was that it brought liberated or free Africans from
Sierra Leone who came to Old Calabar to join in the oil
trade in order to ship oil to Britain. Most of these
emancipated slaves had claimed to have come from Old
Calabar, and would prefer to be in their country of origin,
and King Eyo had said that he would welcome those of
them who had come from the locality.
There were other groups of free Africans from the Coast
who were under British protection. One of these free
Africans was Fergusson, from Cape Coast. He had been
on the ill-fated Niger Expedition of 1841, and who for a
short time had to serve King Eyo as his clerk.
The appearance of the mail steamer, while it ushered in
a seeming era of prosperity for the oil trade, it also
brought in its wake an era of conflicts and animosity in
the trade and the ruins of many.
[D}J
The Sierra Leoneans who came to join in the oil trade
were many, and the numbers of these people in the
trade sparked off the hostility of the supercargoes
against them., because the Sierra Leoneans were
shipping their oil to Britain directly on the steamers, and
most of them had settled in Duke Town.
The supercargoes, in expressing their resentment,
persuaded King Duke of Duke Town to get these free
Africans to leave the country; but Consul Hutchinson did
not support their eviction and felt that they were entitled
to British protection.
One of these men was Peter Nicholls, a liberated African
from Sierra Leone, who had settled in Creek Town to do
business in oil. It was reported that King Eyo who was
then the greatest oil trader in the country was selling his
oil to Peter Nicholls instead of supplying the oil to the
supercargoes who had given him credit. What happened
was that 16 puncheons of oil belonging to Nicholls! were
seized while they lay on the beach ready for shipment;
they were seized by Captain Cuthbertson, who claimed
them because he had given King Eyo credit for the oil.
Peter Nicholls, an excellent and prosperous
businessman was highly respected in Sierra Leone. As a
man who understood business, recovered his property
after complaining first to the Consul, and then appealing
to the Foreign Secretary, Lord Clarendon, and after
suffering great expenses, trouble and delay. There were
others whO were too weak to fight for their rights and
had to lose them. 2 The Europeans who had given the
'Dike, K. 0 ., Trade & Politics In the Niger Delta, Oxford Clarendon, 1956 pp. 118 ff i 1133
'Dike, K. O. Politics In the Niger Delta .. pp 118 ft.

trusts, sooner or later, became impatient and began to
embark upon some machinations whereby the Africans
to whom they gave the trusts were pinned down as their
perpetual debtors, and every new white trader who gave
the trust was regarded · as an "interloper". In other
words, the Africans were not to trade with the
newcomers whose trusts were more attractive to them,
and which encouraged their temporary evasion of the
debts owed to old customers and which they began to
pay back . in bits. Naturally such a situation brought
constant controversy in the oil trade .
Soon the supercargoes began to lose their temper by
attacking the Sierra Leoneans and their Efik oil suppliers
in their houses in a bid to recover their debts.
Another incident of attack was on Lame Henshaw by
Captain Cuthbertson wh.o attacked him in his own house
with a stick and his fist on four different occasions. The
reason for the attack this time was not for any debt, but
that Lame Henshaw had openly expressed his
disapproval of Cuthbertson taking one of his kinswomen
in Henshaw Town as his mistress. 1 The natives were
offended because Lame Henshaw was ' not a debtor to
Cuthbertson, and so the young men got together and
attacked the latter in retaliation, "inflicting several
smart blows on his person". The supercargoes reported
the matter to the Consul in spite of the chiefs' effort to
mediate on the matter. The British Consul, Hutchinson,
fined Cuthbertson only four puncheons of oil while
Henshaw was fined twenty puncheons of oil. His report
of the incident to the Foreign Office in London went as
follows:
'Latham, Old Calabar, Oxford, p 106 /134]
"I would not have made this
latter so seemingly severe had
it not been deposed before me
that the young Africans who
had attacked Cuthbertson had
threatened to murder white
men if they continued going to
demand payment of debts in
their homes .
In 1855 the Acting Consul appeared under pretext of
obtaining "the testimony of King Eyo and Duke Ephraim
to the value of his measures in the interest of civilization
and commerce". King Eyo would not sign any papers to
that effect, and King Duke would not even attend the
meeting. King Eyo had learned the real state of matters,
and conceded nothing. When they declared that the
natives of Creek Town were insolent, Lynslager brought
his warship, "HMS Minx", into Creek Town to terrorise
the people and to dispel their false sense of security in
the isolation of Creek Town in the. narrow creek. On
board his warship were all his river gentry, . as a
demonstration of p'ower, and a "silent reminder of what
could happen". It was on 10th October 1855, and it was
the first time that a man-of-war had entered Creek
Town.
At the meeting Lynslager accused Eyo of "defrauding the
supercargoes and English merchants who had been his
friends, by sending oil on his own to England and
I
transacting business with perfect strangers. But King
Eyo in self-defence replied that he was "trying to meet
'Waddell, Twenty-nine Years, London, 1862 p. 580 l!1il'
the demands of both the Sierra Leoneans and the
supercargoes because the former as well as the latter
had paid him comey". He informed him that the non­
payment of the debt was not because the Sierra
Leoneans had come, but because they were all in the
very dry season when the oil was always scare. He
further added that the white men were bothering him
too much, and that he had no peace from them day and
night. Finally, HMS Minx had to leave Creek Town as she
came with all the river gentry on board her. In the words
of Waddell, So our 'hero' returned with all his friends the
same day, without firing even blank cartridge in our
quiet waters' 3
The supercargoes were beginning to be desperate, and
seizing the oil belonging to Sierra Leoneans, at the same
time declaring that the Sierra Leoneas were planning to
expel the chiefs and take possession of their country;
and as soon as events had come to this, King Duke
Ephraim of Duke Town passed a proclamation forbidding
his subjects to have any dealings with either the
missionaries or Sierra Leoneans. It was King Eyo's
intervention that saved the situation.
Each new day the river politics was worsening, and if it
so continued it might draw Britain into the commercial
affray. Lord Charendon of the British Foreign Office,
himself felt that the African small traders must be given
a fairchance to .c ompete with others, and asked
Hutchinson, who never shared his view, to convey the
following message to the supercargoes:
3 Waddell, HM. TWenty-nine years, London, 1862, p. 577
"If in order to recover debts
owed by the natives to them
they choose to have recourse to
unjust, violent and highhanded
measures such as detaining
one man on board ships as
hostage for another, or seizing
palm oil, the property of one
man in payment of a debt due
to another, the British consul at
Fernando Po must leave the
supereargoes to themselves
and abandon as useless all
attempts to arbitrate between
them and the native chiefs" .5
Meanwhile, other developments in the oil trade in Old
Calat>ar followed suit, and these appeared to have been
against the supercargoes. In 1857 what became known
as the "Olinda Incident" occurred. This ship, lithe
Olinda", arrived from Liverpool in the river and was
chartered by King Eyo Honesty 11, and sailed away fully
loaded in July6. It was the greatest effort of King Eyo to
charter a whole ship to try to see if he could salvage his
trade that was declining. .
Meanwhile King Eyo still continued shipping his oil
through his steward on the mail packets. In June 1857
two Scotsmen, Mr IngliS and Mr. Smith, also arrived Old ·
Calabar to begin shipping oil on the steamers. Now to
the supercargoes, with all these competitors in the oil
136
'Nair, K. K. Politics & Society in S. E. Nigeria, pp 126- 127 ff [37\
'Latham, old Calabar, 1600-1891, Oxford, 1973, p. 61

trade, the situation was even more desperate and
frustrating, and their future chances in the oil trade
looked bleak. The Scotsmen were British citizens and
were free to take part in the oil trade.
3 tribunal that would help bring in the supercargoes, the
THE "COURT OF EQUITY"
Throughout the years of the slave trade on the West
African Coast there was no need to create a court of
justice or a tribunal, because the very nature of the
. traffic did not attract many, and it made no room for
such. But when the oil trade displaced the other, a
situation was created that gave rise to constant brawls
and conflicts among those involved in the trade.
In the early period of the trade the king tried to integrate
and coordinate the relations between the supereargoes
and the people. What worsened the situation was the
continuous use of the credit system by the supercargoes
in their business transactions with their local clients, and
this increased debts among their local agents who could
not supply the needed oil in time. A serious economic
stress crept into the bargain, especially in the second
half of the nineteenth century. Debts among the local
agents multiplied and the use of the tribunal was
necessary, and this was motivated by the need to collect
the debts due to the supereargoes.
The situation became . almost critical when in 1854
. serious competitions emerged when the improved
means of water transport became real in the appearance .
If3]]
of the mail steamer services that brought free Africans
from Sierra Leone and other parts of the Coast into Old
Calabar to share in the oil trade. In 1856 Consul
Hutchinson, the British Consul, instigated the formation
of a tribunal or the "Court of Equity", an independent
two kings as heads of their communities, to mobilize the
communities in order to collect their debts.
The court was to handle commercial matters, and the
Consul was to have the final authority; 1 but the court .
proved inefficient and unsuccessful in the discharge of
its cluties.
After the Olinda incident Consul Hutchinson's
performances began to be closely watched by the British
3
Foreign Office. Nair2 and Dike agree that he (Consul)
was accused of receiving bribes from Hearn, a Liverpool
supercargo for aiding that man in his' disorderly
behaviour in the Calabar River. The Commission of
Equiry sat on the matter and found him guilty and was
removed from office, though Latham says that he was
able to defend himself against the bribery charge and
that he was translated from Fernando Po to Callao in
Peru, for his lack of judgment and discretion. It was the
collapse of the "Court of Equity".
• Latham, Old Calabar, 1600-1891 Oxford , 1973, p. 137.
'Nair, K.K. Politics and Society, London, Casso P224
"1Il2l
'Dike, K.O. Trade and Politics, Oxf. 1956. P124
 Chapter converted must be studied in their environment, their
social background what they sincerely believed in, and
Twelve how to tackle those social problems that were likely to·
crop up during those trying periods of conversion. These
added knowledge can help to minimize the labour, time
THE CRUX OF EVANGELISM or irritability and bitter confrontations over certain
unforeseen issues during any religious or moral
1 interactions with the people.
The Converts When the Presbyterian missionaries arrived in Old
Calabar in the mid-nineteenth century, they came and
The purpose of evangelizing the people, where met certain aspects of Efik culture that were thought
Christianity was concerned, was to instruct them in the repugnant to them and to Christian ethics. One of these
gospels, or to preach the gospel of Christ according to was polygamy which, to the Efik society, was a matter of
the religious truth as taught in the New Testament, and course. But the misSionary, instead of being in sympathy
thereby convert them to Christianity. Indeed, to make with the people, started by condemning their culture as
them believers in Jesus Christ. But Christianity is a an abomination, a voluntary transgression of the divine
religion that is guided by its own intellectual and moral law, or a moral depravity, and every polygamist was a
tenets. stark sinner.

The Christian missionaries who came to Africa to
christianize the Africans in those early days were mostly
Europeans or Americans, men and women who had
been totally steeped in their own culture and civilization,
and whose backgrounds were mostly different from
those of their potential converts. Therefore, to be
successful in their calling as missionaries in · these
circumstances, certain aspects of human knowledge are
not considered irrelevant in equipping them for this
most important divine responsibility - social
anthropology and human psychology. The people to be
U401 [WJ
Another of these that was always brought to a focus was
witchcraft (ifot), or what has always been touched on in .
pidgin English in these essays as "free-mason". The Efik
belief in witchcraft as a powerful social evil had been
very strong, and it played a very significant role in the
destruction of lives among themselves in the past.
In the social history of mankind in general the belief in
this demonic institution had worked so much havoc on
human societies and fortunes, especially during those
primitive clays when mankind was the slave of its own
superstitions.
 Another very powerful institution among the Efik was
the Ekpe Fraternity which the early missionaries held as
a hideous and monstrous cult and insisted that it should
make way for Christianity because, as the minister
maintained, Ekpe laws were "despotic". But Ekpe
culture was so deeply rooted in Efikland that any
attempt at its abrupt termination would make the
society fall back on a line of desperate and bitter defence
of their indigenous culture, because without Ekpe at that
time and epoch, they would feel stripped of their
essential being and personality. That was why Old Ekpo
Jack in 1852 equated Ekpe law with God's law, and one
Hogan Bassey declared openly that three things, he
said, kept Creek Town:
liKing Eyo, Ekpe and Missionaryll.
Fortunately for the missionary, the Old Efik religion, the
worship of Ndem Efik, was passing through a period of
dissolution, and this removed from them any possible
formidable religious rivalry. The people, for the fear of
withcraft, sought safety in fetish culture, already strictly
in opposition to Christianity.
When Rev. Waddell took over Creek Town as his
permanent station, he concentrated more on trying to
cure the Efik society there of its social evils than on
actual conversion of the people to Christianity. Indeed,
he actually believed that any country that had
voluntarily consigned itself to healthenism for IIS0 many
centuries would be irredeemable unless it was morally
[421
c1eansed~ For this reason nobody was qualified for
baptism until he or she nearly attained that perfection of
christian purity. The result was that from 1846, when
the christian mission arrived in Old Calabar, to 1852, not
a single case of baptism had been reported.
In 1853 Rev. Waddell was on leave to recover his health,
and within the period of his absence from Creek Town,
Rev. Goldie had to take charge of his station; and while
still on leave his friends in Creek Town wrote him letters
informing him of the condition of things at his station in
his absence. One of his correspondents was Esien Eyo
Honesty, King Eyo's second son, who gave Waddell the
news of many deaths in Creek Town since he left, lIyet
not one man turns to follow God", and that Mr. Goldie
had preached a touching sermon to the congregation on
'God's goodness' by sending his only begotten son to die ·
for our salvation, that Agoo (Ako), his sister had finished
her preparations and was soon to marry Ekpo Bassey;
that his brother Young Eyo, the Crown Prince, would
soon marry Ansa Ibok Eyo; and that his father, King Eyo,
who had recently married Ansa John Eyo, was still
taking more wives and sins against God ll .
Towards the close of 1853 more tidings reached Rev.
Waddell in Scottland while still on his furlough, 11that the
natives of Calabar had begun publicly to confess the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ by baptism, and many
rejoiced there at In October (1853)) Mr. Goldie, who
occupied Creek Town in the minister's absence
II rece ived Esien Esien Ukpabio into the family of the
[1431

Lord's people". Ukpabio had been an inmate of Rev.
Waddell's family for over two years; he had attended
school regularly and made good progress, and had been
a candidate for baptism for a year previous to his
admission to the church and was baptized by Rev. Goldie
in 1853.
Young Eyo was baptized two weeks afterwards. He had
been married to the object of his choice a few month
previously; and he was moved by the baptism of Esien
Esien Ukpabio to delay no longer the confession of his
faith in Christ. We are informed that all the brethren
regarded him as a true disciple. Before his baptism Rev.
Anderson wrote:
"In Young · Eyo's yard I was
much delighted by an
extempore prayer he offered at
the commencement of the
meeting, and could not help
feeling that the spirit of grace
and supplication was at work in
that young man's heart.... If
When Rev. Waddell returned to Calabar in 1854 after his
leave, he found the work of God prospering. "One
soweth and another reapeth", he said, "that both he that
. soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together". Both
at Duke Town and Old Town, converts .had been
received, and he noted lithe first fruits of all the stations
offered to the Lord". There were baptisms of five more
[ffi]
young members at Creek Town and he felt that these
baptisms "should have been deferred till his arrival". He
felt also that though exceedingly well instructed and the
candidates well behaved, he considered that "they were
so young, untried, and inexperienced that they would
have required a longer period of probation, and they
would have been the better for it, and others after them
would have been the better for it toO". Waddell himself
noted:
II The n ec e s sit Y t hat
everywhere exists, of laying
the foundations of a mission
church with the soundest
materials, and of maintaining a
high standard of qualification
for membership, existed at
Calabar with peculiar fo rce II •
A few weeks after, King Eyo was at his farms at Isong
Inyang to see how his people were faring there. The
Sabbath day met him there and he decided to keep it
holy. Even though he was absent from the public
assemblies in town he desired Esien Ukpabio, the first
convert, to bring his books and pray with them, as usual;
he was himself a member of the audience.
What was soon noticed was that there began a division .
in the community between the young converts and their
elders who were somewhat cautious and tardy in
embracing the new faith so readily. There was therefore
[l45]
 the tendency for the new converts to demonstrate some
subtle rebellion against the elders, because they
believed themselves, as the missionaries made them to
believe, that they belonged to 'the Lord's family in the
community while others did not. Young Eyo who had
assumed the leadership of the new converts said:
"When my father, and some of
his head men and gentlemen
that stand with him, .make
plenty palaver with us and say
all they can, I and the six boys
(converts) all stand on God's
side, and Eshen (Esien his
brother) and Hogan with · us,
and we speak God's words with
them, till they have nothing
again to say".
Very soon difficulties arose between the young converts
and the King, and one of them was put in chains for
challenging King Eyo, refusing to serve him by raising
objection to going in a canoe to the oil market on a
Saturday. The convert reported the matter to the
minister who alluded to the subject before King Eyo by
observing that while the King kept God's day in town he
broke it in the country by sending his people to market
on that day. Eyo replied that he always sent them on
Saturday. The minister said that sending them on
Saturday would keep them pulling paddle all the holy
Sabbath: that he should rather make them start on
Saturday morning, to spend the Sabbath at Isong
Inyang, and go forward early on Monday.
1 Waddel, Twenty-nine years, London, 1863, p 527
146
Waddell made all these suggestions as if he was .
completely knowledgeable about the time and method
of how the palm oil was produced. What happened was
that the church made distinctions between converts anq
non-converts, and these infused jealousies and enmities
among the people, and households became opposed.
The elders of the town were beginning to share among
themselves the view that "the new fashions would spoil
their country", and further added that they knew that
the work the missionaries had in hand was great and
would take a long time and that they could not
accomplish it immediately. The minister defended the
situation that "eight years were long enough for them to
learn to do the will of God;" that year was 1854; but it
took Europe not merely years but centuries for
Christianity to settle down with them amidst brutal
killings and burnings of their early christian converts.
2
KING EYO AND HIS MISSIONARY
From the beginning of the missionaries' efforts to
christianize Old Calabar, it was their ardent wish to
convert the rulers to Christianity in the hope that by
doing so the Kings themselves would make their efforts
a plain sailing. It was true that the two rulers, Eyamba V
and Eyo Honesty 11, had written requesting for the
missionaries; but unfortunately Eyamba had passed
away after only within a year of their efforts, and Eyo
had to remain to see them at their work for over a
decade. Naturally it was King Eyo whom they had now to
rely on wholly.
[1471

 Duke Town had to pass through three rulers within the
period: after Eyamba there was a two-year
interregnum, then followed by two other Kings with very
brief reigns and whose attitudes and temperaments to
the invading religious and social order were as variable
as the weather. Efik Kings were the guardians and
custodians of their traditions and culture and were not
disposed to let their people down under these
circumstances. Naturally therefore, it was Eyo alone
who had now to bear the brunt of the alien impact. It was
necessary therefore, to try to convert him to the new
order at all costs.
I had pOinted out that Creek Town Church was publicly
consecrated to the service of God by Reverend Waddell
on the 9th of September 1855, and that date Signalled
the transfer of the Sabbath-day worship from the King's
yard to the consecrated church. It was on that last
Sabbath in King Eyo's yard that Rev. Waddell created an
Opportunity to have a private serious meeting with King
Eyo "about the state of his soul and his family".
rhe Minister began by his acknowledgements of the aid
Eyo had given them all the past years, espeCially in
calling the people together, and being always ready to
speak for them to his people the word of God.
King Eyo, no doubt, received the thanks with evident
satisfaction. The minister also felt it was proper to ask
Eyo what good he and his family had derived from the
. work of God preached in his house for those many years.
· /148]
Mr. Waddell also hinted that the king's two eldest sons,
with a few of hi's house servants, appeared to be the only
ones who had received "the gospel in faith and love",
and that his wives and daughters, and nearly all his
people were still insensible to it. That Eyo had himself
gained much knowledge and made some outward
reforms, but he did not lay the truth of God to heart, and
did not believe in, and obey, the Son of God for salvation.
. The minister then touched on Eyo's spiritual state, "yet
still dead in sins, by multiplying wives and concubines",
and also touched on the difficulties which the young men
growing up with some education and Christian
knowledge had in finding suitable wives from girls not
being sent to school. He also mentioned that some of the
converts were made to pass through hardships of being
kept away at the far markets for months at a time.
King Eyo listened attentively to the minister without
being irritated as his character was, but remained calm
and rigid, and made little reply to the minister's
imputations.
Christianity is a powerful religion, because its founder
was a powerful personality. One thing outstanding about
this religion is its adaptability to the greatest varieties of
culture as it has also · responded to their individual
needs. At first it appeared as though the core of' the
lives of the people would not admit its absorption, or at
least if it did, it would be but a thin veneer; but as we
observe it today in Africa, there is a revefation of an
liliJ
 impact formidable and penetrating, though in some
manifestations with various corrupt episodes. When it
first came it was a simple spiritual transfer from the
western world to Africa, and was very alien to the soil.
Culture contact is not a new thing in human history,
either in the ancient world or in the modern, but it is
much more menacing in the latter than in the former,
because of the trends of modern media of information,
academic interactions and the unprecedented ease of
human mobility.
When the missionaries brought Christianity to Old
Calabar they were not aware of the fact that in the
matter of religion among Africans there was a strong
belief in harmful spirits which overwhelmed the society,
though it still lingers on in many quarters today. The
African cults, like those of the ancient Greeks, were
"apotropaic", that is, to ward off enmity rather than
solicit friendship. Naturally this called for fetish
preparations supposed to possess virtues that brought
benefits to their owners. For these reasons amulets or
charms were sometimes worn, or certain concoctions
drunk, or some dark powder incised into the body to
render the individual immuned from any external harm.
These were superstitions and were often associated with
idol worship. To Christianity this is horrible sin. Yet even
some African ministers of Christian religion, while
preaching their sermons to their congregations, have
their charms tied secretly round their waists or arms.
This is manifestly a conflict of two values.
11501
' Waddell, Twenty-nine years, London, 1863, p. 293
King Eyo Honesty II was a wonderful man who was "far
in advance of his countrymen": he was never any
'fetishist under wraps', even as early as in the
nineteenth century when he lived. But his missionary
lamented over Eyo's polygamous life, and who had
openly refused baptism because he must have thought
seriously about this, especially in relation to his personal
position and status among his people. To be fully .
converted to Christianity he would have to think about
getting rid of his wives since the religion strictly supports
one husband to one wife. The minister perhaps never
thought seriously of the fate of those women to be
thrown out of their home for Eyo to be a good Christian,
in order to please Mr. Waddell and his Christian brethren.
Eyo himself had earlier told the minister that he was "an '
old tree now and could not bend like a young one", and
King Eyamba had also made the latter know that "them
old fashion can't knock off in one day".1 What Eyo did
was plain honesty to the Christian belief instead of
playing the hypocrite in the eyes of the public. If I were
the missionary, conversion of the elders to Christian life
would be optional and persuasive, but concentrate more
on the young and the willing, the new generation
already pliable and not much wrapped up in the secular
affairs of the world, and ready to adapt themselves to
changing circumstances.
King Eyo was accused of making some of the converts to
pass through hardships of being kept away at the far
markets for months on end. But they had been doing so
long before the Mission arrived, because it was their
151
source of earnings. The main 'source of their income was
from the palm oil trade, and this product could not come
without the king's agents placed there to supervise its
production and transportation to Calabar. If the converts
were not to do that anymore, from what source would
they eat'? Opportunities for earning a living were very
limited in those days, restricted to farming, fishing,
trading and commercial engagements with the ships.
Furthermore, the minister complained of the girls not
being sent to school to qualify them as suitable wives for
the few converted and educated lads; but Eyo had no
control over people's daughters and could not dictate to
them over their domestics. All he did in this regard was
to show example by sending his own daughters to school
as we have noted earlier in these essays. Attitude to
formal education for girls has only recently been liberal.
In 1846 when the Mission team presented King Eyamba
a Bible at his palace, a prominent chief in Duke Town,
Ene Cobham, openly declared that "this book no good
for woman". To them Christian education was mainly for
boys; because it was maintained that formal education
for girls would be improper because women were not
engaged in trade with the ships.
King Eyo had given his full moral and material support to
th-e survival of Christianity in Calabar, and had allowed
his sons to Christian conversion. He had served the
Mission he had invited up to a point, and could not do
more.
11521
Rev. Waddell, in character, spirit and practice, was an
ardent disciple of Puritanism, excessively strict, rigid
and austere, and who wished to free Old Calabar
overnight from its superstitions and otherwise corrupt
observances retained throughout the centuries. He
posed as the champion of the King's religious liberty.
The harshness and rigidity of his views, and even his
belief that he was in duty bound to supervise the
personal morality of King Eyo and the Old Calabar
society was enough to cause a severe reaction against
the Mission. Throughout the centuries, history has made
it abundantly clear that radical and abrupt changes have
always brought in their wake revolts and rebellions, and
these upheavals have generally expressed themselves
also _in poor social relationships, divisions in the
community, and these are inimical to progress. King Eyo
must have thought seriously about the fate of his late
father and would not swallow Rev. Waddell's bait that
might likely antagonize his relationships with his nobles,
chiefs and supporters, because it might create a
situation aiming at forcing them to try to break suddenly
with the past, a condition they would resist to the bitter
end, and Eyo would certainly be the greatest victim and
which might even cost him his throne.
lill.l

 Chapter
There was no mention made of Old Town in these
Thirteen
though the supercargoes and the consular authorities
CONSTRAINED RELATIONSHIP
1 station was still there. Therefore to have ignored
Obutong Incident Again
We have already noted in chapter one that Obutong or
Old Town had a nasty encounter with the supercargoes
in 1767 and things did fare badly with Old Town.
The question of immolation at the deaths of men of rank
in Old Calabar generally had been observed for centuries
past, and it was from the Mission agenda that its end
came . Thus, in alliance with Ekpe law and the native
authorities it was at least settled at an important
meeting on the 12th of February 1850, that the two
rulers of' Duke Town and Creek Town and twenty-six of
their principal men "signed an engagement to abolish
for ever, by Egbo law, the practice of human sacrifices in
Old Calabar". Three days later the law was officially
proclaimed with all due solemnity in Creek Town by an
Ekpe display from Duke Town, and in Duke Town by an
Ekpe display from Creek Town. "Thus the two towns
became guardians of each other, and guarantees for the
observance of their engagement".
1154]
arrangements, and since the 1767 disaster it looked as
appeared to have ignored Obutong because it was no
longer prosperous and commercially useful to them. But
Obutong was a veritable part of Old Calabar in spite of its
adverse circumstances at that time, and a mission
Obutong in so serious a bargain was a mistake pregnant
with another unfortunate event.
Four years later in 1854 the ruler of Old Town, Willy Tom
Robins (Asibong Eso), breathed his last. Many in Old
Town were sacrificed to the ancient superstitions. It was
felt that this was a gross violation of the law against
human sacrifices committed in the place and it therefore
required to be promptly and severely dealt with, and
when it was formally made known by the missionaries to
the native authorities an Ekpe interdict was laid on the
guilty place forbidding the funeral rites for the deceased
ruler till the breach of law was atoned for. The
supercargoes who hated Old Town wanted more
vigorous policy. King Eyo supported the imposition of a
fine on the culprits responsible for the sacrifices.
-"
In January 1855 the so-called "gentlemen of the
shipping" called a meeting to determine the fate of Old
Town for violating the law against human sacrifices as
settled on 12th of February 1850. The supercargoes,
with the Acting Consul, prepared a statement of the case
and asked Mr. Edgerley, the missionary at Old Town, to
@
l
sign as a witness. Their intention was to "destroy the
town". The rulers of Duke Town and Creek Town strongly
objected to such a measure, and proposed a fine
according to Ekpe law. The shipping party insisted upon
destruction unless the seven criminals responsible for
the sacrifices be delivered to them within 24 hours, to be
carried away as prisoners. But they had scattered away
and it was impossible to get them at so short a time .
Meanwhile they had already sent for Lynslager, the
acting consul in Fernando Po, and when he arrived with
the warship "Antelope", he complied with the wishes of
his countrymen, and on the 19th January, 1855, Old
Town was bombarded and destroyed from the river.
When the case went up to the British Parliament the
missionaries sent a memorandum protesting to the
British Government that they were not implicated in the
tragedy and that the attack by the supercargoes and the
consular authorities was illegal, and that there was no
treaty made between Old Town and the British
Government for the abolition of human sacrifices at
funerals; that the attack was carried out in strict
defiance of their protests; that by their display of their .
illegal authority, the white man's impression on the
African mind was poor, and that the prohibition of the
rebuilding of the town by the acting consul was wrong.
Creek Town and Duke Town were most unhappy about
the supercargo~s and the consular authorities taking
the law into their own hands. King Eyo and the people of
1156]
ITS)]
Creek Town were deeply afflicted by the punishment of
Old Town and finally fell back on their own defence by
placing the Guinea Company, a British firm in Adiabo,
under an Ekpe interdict, and reduced it to submission,
so that not a soul would trade with the company until it
folded up eventually till today.
When Old Town was bombarded and destroyed, its
executioners decided that it should no longer be rebuilt.
In 1856 the new Consul visited Old Calahar to arrange
for the restoration of the town. The rulers of Creek
Town, Duke Town and the chiefs of Old Town with the
missionaries inclusive were invited for the meeting; also
in attendance was Commander Williams of the warship
"Bloodhound". The following were Considered for the
treaty:
(1) that human sacrifices be abolished,
(2) that twin-born children be preserved,
(3) that the use of esere ordeal should end,
(4) that the safety of the missionaries be guaranteed.
Rev. Waddell felt that the last clause was unnecessary,
after all the missionaries had lived there in safety for the
last ten years. During the discussions the Old Town
people strongly objected to the preservation of the
twins and said that though twins were allowed to live
they should not enter their town, and that the esere
ordeal should be allowed in extreme cases as protection
against "free-mason" or witchcraft.

Any further problems arising in future would be left for
King Eyo and his Duke Town counterpart. The treaty was
signed and witnessed, and all present seemed happy
and hoped that "Old Town would yet see better days".
The town was now to be rebuilt.
Obutong or Old Town, once the most prosperous and
powerful of all Efik settlements in Old Calabar, had
started to decline during the very peak of its affluence
and ascendancy in the second half of the eighteenth
century, to be precise, from 1767, through series of
unfortunate events in its long and chequered history,
until the depth of its fall occurred during the rulers of
Willy Tom Robins line, when it was destroyed in 1855. It
later survived its ordeal and recovered from its shock;
but in 1964, aftera hundred and nine years, a significant
change came in its life when it became necessary for the
inhabitants to abandon the inauspicious site for the
cement industry in Calabar. Thus in 1964, the bush-clad
and hilly landscape of Obutong was cleared and
subjected to the discipline of modern technology when
huge caterpillar tractors and heavy bulldozers mowed
down, levelled and pressed flat what was formerly a
rugged habitable and arable hill slope, exposing to sun
and air the beautiful orange coloured earth that was
concealed beneath dark brown humus for centuries.
st
It was on the 21 of November, 1964 that the foundation
stone of the cement factory was laid; and it was in that
hot and steamy afternoon of the 7th day of February
1967 that the grand German-built factory was officially
opened/ to make it exactly two centuries from 1767
when that decline started.
'Aye, E. U. Old Calabar, Through the centuries, H. W. T. I Press, 1967, p. 182
2
THE DRIFT APART
In 1856 the missionaries In Duke Town declared
themselves independent from the authorities there and
labelled their mission house a "cell of civilization". In
their house they harboured fugitives who defied the
town laws, and they brought in young people to learn
English and to live like Englishmen. They rejected Ekpe
laws and dissociated themselves from any type of
reformation in which the authorities were concerned.
There were two people accused of being responsible for
the death of a little boy by witchcraft, and to avoid the
usual esere ordeal they took shelter in the mission
house. The missionaries refused to surrender them and
King Duke of Duke Town placed the Mission under Ekpe
interdict, and King Eyo supported it.
Naturally the town population were forbidden any .
intercourse with the Mission house; those who had
children or servants living in the mission premises were
to withdraw them at once; no person was to visit the
missionaries; no child must be sent to 'school; and no
meetings must be allowed in any gentleman's yard on
the Sabbath day. Markets were closed and church
meetings fail. People began to run away from Rev.
Anderson whenever he wanted to talk to them. It was
the intervention of the consul that reversed the ban.
158 ~
 When the case was made known to the Secretary to the
Presbyterian Mission Committee he pointed out that the
Mission placing itself as asylum was dangerous:
"The principle involved in this
seems to me a dangerous one,
liable to be greatly
misunderstood and abused. It
is the principle which in the
palmy days of popery made the
clergy demand exemption from
the operation of civil power.
Missionaries cannot interfere
with the civil administration of a
country any further than
teaching what is right. Their
office is instruction".l
In the same year, 1856, King Eyo had imported a large
and elegant house with excellent furniture from
Liverpool, apparently to replace the one destroyed by
Fire in 1852.
From the first arrival of Christianity in Old Calabar in
1846, and for the next ten years to 1856, it was the
greatest period of exertion of King Eyo to get the
christian religion firmly established in Calabar. For
almost nine years of this period when the church
Sabbath meetings were held in the King's yard he was
the interpreter for the minister for a good part of this
period. As the interpreter he handled his job with great
'Nair, K. K. Politics & Society in S. E. Nigeria, (London, Cass 1972), p 112
zeal and love. Goldie noted that he used to interpret the
sermons "paragraph by paragraph" and even when he
was blamed for his opinion he expressed his own views
on the subject,' Ayandele adds that Eyo was the
Individual around whom the political and social
implications of missionary enterprise revolved among
the people ofCalabar. 2
Waddell was always in haste and wished Calabar be
christianized overnight, and he said in 1849 that "for
three years God's word had been preached in Calabar,
and as yet we saw no one give himself to the Lord to
believe and obey him". On this point King Eyo disagreed
with him by saying that the word of God had begun to
grow", a little in Calabar, but added that England, which
had it more than a thousand years, did not yet
altogether believe and obey it, and he hoped that God
would be patient with Calabar. 3
On another occasion in 1848 when the minister said that
"these your fashions are all contrary to the law of God
and to common sense, and must be changed". The
people replied that they were born into these fashions
and had lived in them blindfolded before God's word
came to them, and that it would not be easy to get things
changed for the better all at once. Eyo then added that
white men who had God's book and learned it from their
youth, would be worse off in the day of judgment than
the black men who lived and died ignorant of it like
beasts. 4 Though in many instances he accepted the
truth in some of the teachings of the missionary and
owned that some of the customs in Calabar are "fool
1160
---.~
'Ayandele, Missionary impact on Modern Nigeria, London, Longman, l~oo,.p"" ' 1161
'Waddell, Twenty-nine years London, p397.
'Waddell, Twenty-nine years, p.383.


things".
Within the period of King Eyo's patronage of the
missionaries' programmes in Calabar, Ayandele notes
that he made the revolutionary programmes of the
missionaries possible in a short time. Eyo's intentions
mostly were for education for the young, he believed
that it would be at their time that those bad practices of
culture would be done away with, and not with the elders
already imbued with the defects of their environments,
but he was unable to discern the intentions of his foreign
friends. He had done the spade-work that paved the way
for the missionary enterprise; and as soon as he had
helped them make further reforms as the missionaries
pressed him on, and treaties for reforms signed, things
bad
began to change.
Now the missionaries in alliance with the supercargoes
snatched the initiative from Eyo and formed liThe society '
for the abolition of inhuman and superstitious customs
and for promoting civilization in Old Calabar".l The chief
concern of this society was to spy on Ekpe activities, its
laws and their implementation, The traditional structure
of the Efik society was demolishing: children began to
defy their parents as I have already referred to in the
section on liThe converts". The servants began to
disobey their masters. The missionaries engaged
themselves more in spying on King Eyo's private life,
which provided them with their normal topics of scandal
with the supereargoes.
When King Eyo finally discovered what was transpiring
around him, and as Oku puts it "the scales began to fall
off Eyo's eyes 2, he felt he had been "betrayed by the
'Ayandele, Missionary Impact... Pp. 21 ff. ~
'Oku, Kings and Chiefs of old Calabar. p 141
people whom he had done so much to assist". He began
to impose restrictions on their movements, especially to
his trade centres for fear of their disrupting those places.
In the late 1850's his relationship with the missionaries
was no longer as smooth as before; both were beginning
to drift apart since Eyo had refused baptism and was still
in polygamy. He protested at their interference in his
government when they had no business there. Not being
satisfied with their destructive activities on him in Old
Calabar, they began to destroy his character in their
Missionary Records in their own country. Nair reports of
"horrifying stories" recorded of his "cruelties and
brutalities" and of the "disordered fleshly lusts" of Eyo;
they caricatured him as a licentious despot whose way of
life was simply abominable".1
In 1857, Waddell himself, unable to conceal his
feeling for King Eyo, now his pet aversion, wrote:
"Our King seemed to be
growing perfectly overbearing . .
Having outstripped all rivals
among his countrymen, and
risen far above them, and
having freed himself from
dependence on the old
supercargoes, by getting out a
ship consigned to himself, the
clerk, of which lived in his yard
and transacted his business, he
seemed determined to subject
us also to his will, and then he
would be supreme. Poor man,
his greatness was but as the
flower of the field, which soon
withered away,,2 .
'N air, K. K. Politics and society in S. E. Ni geria. London , 1972, pp 65ff.
'Waddell, Twenty-nine years. London. 1863 P 616
ID
 Chapter
Rev. Goldie, formerly stationed at Ikoneto, took over the
management of Creek Town Church; Mr. Timson, who
Fourteen
had just arrived, supplied the school at Creek Town. Mr.
Thomson went over to Ikoneto. Mr. Anderson was
expected from home soon, and perhaps for Duke Town,
THE END OF AN ERA and Mr. Baillie would occupy Ikorofiong. Waddell himself
wrote.
1
"It was satisfactory to be able
to leave the work of God at
Rev. Waddell: 'Goodbye, Calabar!'
Creek Town in a condition of
prosperity. The Sabbath-day
It was early In 1858 that it began to be noised abroad congregation was still regularly
that the Rev. Hope Masterton Waddell would soon leave large, and the Church
the Calabar Mission for good. Many people began to membership had been steadily
wonder why leave so early. When be arrived in 1846 he though slowly increasing. It
was 42, and after serving for twelve years he turned 54, numbered twenty-one native
and with sufficient energy for future labours, especially communicants, with twenty­
with all the vast tropical experiences he already four catechumens, .preparing
acquired both in the West Indies and in Calabar for confessedly for baptism ... "
further service in Africa; his health was still in good "The native members at Creek
form. Town sent with me to the
mission treasury seventy-one
When Rev. Waddell's departure from Calabar became pounds sterling as thank­
offering for gospel blessings;
inevitable he noted that it was unnecessary for him lIto
Young Eyo, as was fit,
specify the various reasons, both of a personal and
contributing the largest part".
relative nature, which rendered this step unavoidable".
And according to him, "Our Board of Missions, and our All were so sudden and there was no send-off party for
brethren in the country, having been duly consulted, the retiring minister; the mail steamer from England
acquiesced in our views, and sanctioned our retirement unexpectedly arrived earlier than expected on 25th May
from that field of labour". 1858 and would have to leave with the Waddells at six in
the morning.
1164]
\165\

'.1
 King Eyo was expecting the Waddells, and when they
met, it was with evident feeling to witness their solemn
and affectionate parting words, "as to things past and
things to come". According to the minister,
"our hearts were full as we
looked on him and thought that
he was not yet a converted
man".
Even at that moment he entreated Eyo "to repent and
believe the gospel" . Yet in spite of all that transpired
between them in their peculiar connection, there had
been mutual goodwill, confidence and cooperation when
they first commenced a great new work twelve years
ago.
As it had quickly spread that the Waddells were leaving
for good, a great company assembled at their home and
accompanied them to the beach, some giving audible
expression of their feelings. Dr. Hewan, the mission
his grace; so that we believed
his work there begun should
continue for ever".
Epitaph
The Reverend Hope Masterton Waddell retired from the
service of the Calabar Mission in 1858. It was in 1895
that the Board of the Missions in Scotland decided and
requested the Synod of the United Presbyterian Church
to commemorate the work of the Reverend Hope
Masterton Waddell in Calabar by naming the new centre
of learning there "Hope Waddell Training Institution".
Rev. Waddell himself, who had retired from the Calabar
Mission in 1858, was now a grand old pensioner, aged
ninety-one years, and was living at his home in Dublin.
Unfortunately, like Moses who never lived to enter the
promised land, he never heard of the proposal nor lived
to see the monument in his name. He died on the 18th of
April, 1895, two days after the request was made:
I

doctor, took them in his boat from Creek Town beach to

the steamer at Duke Town where they were to embark. "And no more deserving
A number of Creek Town youths came down the river in epitaph on him than what the
time to see them off; a group of missionary band, black Record bore on his behalf: 'No
and white, filled the deck of the steamer to wish them a worthier wreath could the
safe journey home. Waddell's last statement was: . Synod lay upon his honoured
grave than it has done by
We left Calabar with associating his name with what
confidence, the past caused no we .thought will be for many
regrets, and the future no
apprehensions. We thank God years to come a fountain of
that he had sent us thither with ever growing blessing to
his holy gospel, and that he had Western Africa"
given testimony to the word of
[661
[671

('!'

 2 back on his sofa, said nothing, and gave up the ghost. It
Etinyin Eyo: 'Farewell, Obioko!'.
. It was getting towards the close of 1858 when it all
happened, that King Eyo was, from time to time, to
suffer from severe pains in his heart. He must have felt
his health deteriorating; then taking this as a warning,
he publicly and officially recognized his eldest son,
Young Eyo, as his successor, and charged his son and his
nobles, too, that in the event of his breathing his last, no
person should be sacrificed at his funeral, as the ancient
custom was.
After this, he left for one of his plantations at Uwet, and
it was there again that he had another violent heart
attack, thereupon he sent for Dr. Hewan, the mission
doctor, and he soon recovered. It was on a Sabbath-day
and he asked for the suspension of all work on that day
as usual to keep the Sabbath Day holy; he assembled
the people together for public worship, and desired
Esien Esien Ukpablo, the first native convert, to officiate.
Ukpabio addressed the audience with the King present,
from a solemn text:
"Watch, for ye know neither the day nor the hour
when the Lord cometh".
Returning from his plantation to town, he transacted his
business as usual for another week. On the 3rd of
December, 1858, in the evening he had all his brothers
At to .supper: with him as was his custom, but feeling quite
. unwell he ate and drank very little. After supper they all
left, but as he was rising to retire, he staggered and fell ·
[@
was the end of a great career.
The news of King Eyo's death produced a terrible
consternation seldom experienced in Creek Town and its
environs. Panic descended upon the poor town like a bad
weather, and his terror-stricken servants fled in all
directions; many without knowing where to go; some
sought their hiding places in the plantations and in the
bushes and forests outside the town. Some of the king's
women escaped to the mission house and sought their
hiding-places in some of its inner rooms, and all they
said was the whisper, "King dead"!. They were afraid of
their lives, afraid of being sacrificed to satisfy the old
superstitions. But they all knew that the deceased king
had been acknowledged as the champion of the new law
against inhumation; but as things then stood, and in the
absence for ever of the champion of the new law they
were not prepared to take chances and to trust those he
had left behind, who might gladly break the law.
A good part of the town population fled, the christians
were the ones remaining, and it was the christian house
servants alone who stood by Young Eyo in his difficult
and sad moment, and he had pledged his word for their
safety. Thus, the small band of christian friends, native
disciples, servants, sons, brethren in Christ, dug the
grave deep and interred their monarch beneath his royal
residence, in the presence of the nobles, gentlemen of
the town, and without a single drop of human blood shed
at that fu nera I.
11691
The sad news of King Eyo's death spread like wild fire
abroad and produced great commotions everywhere,
especially on the Creek Town plantations, where the
slave population began to assemble, to arm themselves
with guns, powder magazine, matchets, clubs, cudgels,
alt for self-defence in case those who remained might
dream of bringing back the ancient customs. They
entered into a blood covenant for mutual defence. They
were not afraid of their late monarch's sons, but they
mistrusted some of his brothers and others in the town.
Having finally been assured of no danger by Young Eyo,
the Crown Prince, they dispersed to their respective
homes.

The late King's second daughter, Inyang, described as

an "imperious woman", was most displeased and
complained bitterly that her father was dishonoured at
his funeral, because he was buried without the usual
sanguinary funeral according to the ancient custom of
the land. And she lamented, "never before had so great
a man as he been buried alone in obedience to a foreign
custorn". But she pleaded in vain, because the insurgent
slaves were everywhere eavesdropping to make sure
that the old custom was dead and gone. And when Eyo
III died in 1861 after a very brief reign, she was
suspected of involvement in the young King's death by
witchcraft; she was asked to prove her innocence in it by
the usual esere ordeal, and she became a victim of the
ancient custom she so much supported.
Rev. Esien Esien Ukpabio

[701
IlliJ
 The old king's funeral having been completed and
settled, and the election of the new one secured, Young
Eyo now became Eyo Honesty III. Thus, the young
master had to go everywhere through the country,
markets, farms etc to allay the fears of the people in·
order to prevent any disturbances; and all his father's
servants resolved to be his own also. The head men
administered oath of allegiance to all under them. "They
Swore to be true to him, to obey his word and to do his
work"
It was within a few weeks after King Eyo's death that
another terrible incident occurred in Creek Town again:
King Eyo's magnificent palace, and all the splendid
furniture in it, were burnt to ashes. It all happened at
mid-day, in the sight of all the townspeople. The fire was
accidental in origin, and it spread so fast and so furious
that nothing could be done to arrest its progress. "The
flames," it was observed, "reached his old 'Great­
house', and consumed it too". The amount of property
lost was incalculable. But there were no lives lost,
though some people were burnt in an attempt to save
some of the valuables.
"far in advance of his
Tribute to King Evo's Memorv
During the life time of King Eyo Honesty 11, he had lived
to witness the traditional obsequies of some men of rank
in Efik society: those of his father, Eyo Willy Honesty in
1820, those of the Great Duke Ephraim in 1834, those of
Eyamba V in 1847, those of Archibong I in 1852, and
those of Willy Tom Robins of Old Town in 1854 which
proved to be the last straw that broke the camel's back
[!]1J
. .'
in 1855, when it finally brought the destruction of Old
Town.
All these funeral rites were expressive in their copious
effusion of human blood to satisfy the ancient
superstitious beliefs, except those of Archibong I which
the conspiracy of the "blood brotherhood" had nipped
the obnoxious tradition in the bud. To King Eyo's credit,
therefore, it is always said that he was the first '" Efik
monarch of his pedigree who ever descended to his
gave, at his own request, without a drop of human
blood, because he was enlightened enough to detest the
obnoxious ancient funeral rites. Rev. Waddell himself,
long before their clash of personalities, had found king
Eyo to be a really fine man", and added that "to Eyo's
credit be it said that he never bore a grudge".
Rev. Hugh Goldie, who succeeded Waddell in Creek
Town, writing to Mr. Irvin, said that King Eyo was:
countrymen. having thrown off
much of the superstition by
which they were enslaved and
was earnestly desirous of
promoting their
enlightenment". I've thought
he might have gone faster in
putting down evil customs but
he said if he should outrage the
minds of the people by a too
hasty or thorough opposition to
[73\
 them, they might contrive to
get rid of him. He largely
encouraged our work in the
Mission, in school and in
Church. 1
Consul Hutchinson, who was constantly in opposition to
King Eyo over the Olinda incident wrote in 1858:
"All the kingdoms of Western
Africa would very soon present
a difference from their present
condition Were they governed
by such men as King Eyo ... He
is anxious for the civilization of
his country. Those who agree
with me in thinking Christianity
and civilization to be cause and
effect in Africa as they are all
over the world, will rejoice to
hear that he has~ given every
countenance and assistance to
the body of Presbyterian
Missionaries settled at Old
Calabar,,2
Ayandele sees that no contemporary chief in Nigeria
could destroy important religious and social basis of
indigenous society in order to patronize missionary
enterprise as Eyo did, and so made the missionaries
revolutionary programme succeed in so short a time. He .
opened the floodgate to further reforms as the
missionaries demanded.
'Gold ie H. Letter to Mr Irvin
' Hutc hinson, T. J. Impress ions of West em Africa, London , 1858, p. 13 1
King Eyo Honest 11 lived and passed through one of the
most critical periods in human history, a period
characterized by much of human exertions and
turbulence. There was this savage era of the slave trade
and slavery in which "man's inhumanity to man" was
accepted by global convention.
When the human commerce ended it was replaced by
the palm oil trade. Eyo waded into the two economic
eras, from the first into the second. And during the
economic vacuum that divided the two eras, he worked
hard to bridge the vacuum so that his people might eat
and survive, and he succeeded.
As the ruler of the people he knew that he must exert
himself on behalf of his subjects and to carry them along
with him to make sure that they too, must equally work
hard to survive. The people took him fully into
confidence, because they knew that he would not let
them down, and to him they trusted their lives, their
future and their children. His life proved that very few
rulers of his calibre existed in West Africa at that time
and who had done so much for their people. His reliable
state of m.aterial wealth placed him in good stead, and
both his people and the supercargoes depended on him
for their commercial prosperity. King Eyo had inherited
his sagacious propensity for riches from his late father,
and it was this, indeed, that in the nineteenth century
Creek Town, the Eyo's were equated with affluence.
174 li7S1
Another quality that made King Eyo stand out so
prominently was his foresight. He knew that what beset
his people most were ignorance and superstition and
these could be eliminated from them through education,
he therefore insisted on the education that would make
the young grow out of the darkness of superstition that
so much enveloped his country and its people. To him
education was the only remedy against the power of
"abia-idiong", and to uproot all other influences that
subjected his people to their present state of
superstition and ignorance.
King Eyo was a disciplinarian to the core, and a
supporter of order and good conduct. He was hard on
irredeemable criminals; he was cruel to thieves, and
would brook no disobedience. When Rev. Waddell once
preached on adultery during one of his sermons on the
Decalogue, he expressed his approbation on the subject
and requested the minister to preach it to all of his
subjects because adultery was becoming a serious sin
committed in the community. He never believed in
talking much when so verbally confronted by · an
opponent, he would rather remain calm, hard and rigid.
Yet when we take into consideration his life history, all
told and all deductions made, we are most impressed by
the tremendous force of his personality.
11761
Chapter
Fifteen
THE CONFLICT OF VALUES
1
Polygamy Versus Monogamy
Every society the world over has its own peculiar
institutions set aside as its values. These may be
expressed in their social lives: customs, standards and
prinCiples, which they regard as desirable. They
consider these things with respect to their worth to
them, their usefulness or importance or what they may
regard or esteem highly.
When Rev Hope Waddell, the torch-bearer of
Presbyterianism in Nigeria, came to Old Calabar among
the Efik people in mid- 19th century, he discovered that
these people had already been deeply steeped in their
social values for centuries, and that they considered all
these as the normal order of things. Waddell therefore
approached his work with all its puritanical ardour: to
him the society of his new field of labour was corrupt,
sinful, contrary to the tenets of Christianity and
therefore needed a complete overhauling. He was
therefore excessively strict, rigid and austere, with strict
emphasis on the holiness of the Sabbath. He became the
U77J
centre from which radiated the forces of militant
protestantism. His religious attitude was that of the
Scottish Presbyterian, or the English Puritans, or the
Dutch Calvinists, or the French Huguenots, and they all
drew their inspiration from Geneva, and the stern tenets
of Calvinism, which were carried by the Pilgrim Fathers
to North America, and by the Boers to South Africa, both
of whom soon became corrupt in their racial attitude,
contrary to the tenets of the very Christianity which they
claimed to represent.
The protestant doctrine of predestination brought the
belief that the destiny of every man was fore-ordained
by God: those to be saved were the elect, or the chosen
people of God. This, as I have already pOinted out,
brought a division in Creek Town between the converts
and non-converts. Often times it made some to hold God
as a partial Deity.
Waddell believed that he was in duty-bound to supervise
the personal morality of his fellow-citizens, which of
course brought serious consequences of resentment in
its wake. He began his labour without letting the people
know exactly on which section of the Bible he was '
enlightening his converts: was it on Judaism of the Old
Testament, or Christianity of the New? The first of his
inaugural sermons in Creek Town was on the Ten
Commandments of Moses, and then he later began to
stress on the importance of monogamous life for a
christian. The Decalogue never mentioned the theory of
monogamy. The people appeared to have been taken
[ill]
aback, and were totally embarrassed over the minister's
stern condemnation of polygamy as a hideous and ugly
sin before God, and this topic so much dominated his
sermon on that day.
When the people later discovered in the scriptures that
even Abraham, the Jewish Patriarch and the beloved of
God, or King Solomon of Israel, was each a stark
polygamist, the minister did not at first believe that the
people did not take him very seriously over, this
monogamous 1ife for a Christian. Even between the Old
Testament.and the New, there exists this very conflict of
.'
values which should have been sufficiently explained to
the masses to allay their fears and misconceptions. King
Eyo deliberat~ly refused to be baptized because he
could not understand why such conflict should ever
appear in the Bible itself.
Every man in Efik in the early nineteenth century, during ,
those pre-christian days, believed sincerely in
polygamy. He was born into it; he cherished it, and
believed it was the normal condition of society for a man "­
to have more than a wife.
I do not personally support polygamy because a
polygamous family has never been peaceful, but the
method adopted by the minister to discourage it did not
seem to be appropriate enough, because he was trying
to force the people to own a pernicious sense of guilt for
having more than a wife at a time. Polygamy was to the
people one of their esteemed values. To discourage it,
(1791
 the method of approach demanded subtlety and tact,
not the open brutal condemnation of it to shame the
people: simply educate the girls in the right direction,
and the womanhood in them will work to liberate them
from the obnoxious custom, and they will take care of
themselves. After all, no normal woman is really happy
to share a man with another, and vice versa. When God
created Adam as our first bachelor, He gave him Eve for
a partner. Certainly He never added Ruth nor Sarah as
his additional partners. At least the Bible does not say
Hedid.
2 mutual promises before the congregation impressed the
THE FIRST CHURCH WEDDING IN CREEK TOWN
In February 1848, almost two years since "the Calabar
Mission" first reported for duty in Old Calabar, a new
form of marriage ceremony took place in Creek Town. It
was not a marriage of the natives; it was the first church
wedding to be celebrated there.
Miss Mary Brown,l a young lady who had come from
Jamaica, one of the domestics of Rev. and Mrs. Goldie at
Duke Town, was to be married to Mr. Henry Hamilton, a
West Indian Mission carpenter. The officiating minister
was the Rev. Waddell himself. King Eyo was informed
accordingly, and he was one of those asked to sign the
marriage register as witness. But before this he had to
inquire from one of the ship captains who was invited to
the wedding "'if white people always put hand for book
when married", and he was surprised to learn that even
kings and queens must do the same as others.
'Waddell, Twenty-nine years, London, 1862, p.369 ft.
180
The marriage was a big event in the Calabar Mission
history and the Minister preferred to shift its theatre of
operation to Creek Town to enrich its social history, and
it made a lot of news in town. All things were ready for
v the matrimonial occasion, and even school boys and
girls were encouraged to be present. After school, the
school children ran home, dressed and quickly returned,
and were very observant and listened to the
proceedings with keen interest. During the ceremony
the bride and the groom were addressed, and their
audience. At first they felt that Mr. and Mrs. Goldie, with
whom the bride was living, would charge the groom
heavy bride price; but when they learned that Mr.
Hamilton had paid nothing for the bride they were so
astonished, "what !" they said, "he got such a fine
woman for nothing! White man's fashion be very good".
At the end of the ceremony there was the usual "get
together" and feasting. In conclusion, King Eyo admitted
the need for reform, but left it to his son. Young Eyo
himself said, "if God keep my heart, I will never marry
Calabar fashion". The seed of church wedding was now
sown in Old Calabar.
Illil

3 demurred at the very idea, but finally gave in after some
The First Native Church Wedding In Creek Town
The first real native church wedding took place in Creek
Town in 1855, nine years since the Mission arrived in Old
Calabar. Rev. Waddell thought it "a respectable native
marriage" and "a reformation in that most important
relation". The Young man was Eyo Nsa, the second son of
"Ete Tom' known to Waddell as "Father TOm" and great
grand gentleman of Creek town and a senior brother of
King Eyo.
The young man wished to join the baptism class but
could not be admitted while keeping a IIgirl friend't who
was his unmarried companion. This girl, ~hose name I
have yet to trace, was intelligent and of good family, and
both of them good-looking. The minister advised the
young man to marry her and both of them to join the
class.
According to an ancient Efik custom, similar to that of
the Hebrew, there was an obstacle: as the young man's
elder brother was not yet married and so the younger
could not go first. To the minister that was "IICalabar
ll
fashion The minister placed before the couple that
•
they should be married in IIGod man's fashion" and not
in II"Calabar fashion" and not wait for the brother. It was
finally agreed, but the consent of the family was
imperative.
lilll
On hearing this, the family at first had a shock, and
delay. And so without banns the day was fixed after
some private negotiations.
On that day both the bride and groom came neatly and
simply dressed. A few friends attached to the Christian
cause accompanied them. Soon the usual services were
concluded, and their signatures made to the marriage
register; the groom, addressing the bride impromptu,
said, that he haod now married her 'true true", and
whatever she might do, he would never leave her, nor
take another. In this the young lady nodded her
agreement with a smiling expression of satisfaction.
As they were about to leave there was some difficulty,
Eyo Nsa had come alone and wanted to return alone for
fear of being laughed at in the town. That was not
allowed, he must not be ashamed of his lawful wife, and
must give her his company to his father's house where
both of them were to live. But he pleaded with
earnestness against the very idea of holding her arm
home, because it put him into a fit of terror, and her into
a fit of laughter. They were taken home by the Christian
party to protect them from public mockery.
By the beginning of the twentieth century girls began to
look at church wedding as a divine security and a
matrimonial model, while at the same time they desired
to retain the indigenous conjugal institutions, because
of the advantages they expected from both: in the first it
L®J
 was believed that church wedding would counteract
unrestrained divorces and check the polygamous
excesses of the men, indeed, they wanted security. In
the second case, they felt that any marriage without the
traditional "bride price" for their parents would not only
cheapen the sacred institution and humiliate them
before their spouses, but would also strip them of their
wifely worth if they were "got for nothing". The result is
that now marriages are partly a church or court affair,
and partly according to indigenous marriage
institutions, and this is an instance in which the old
values still die-hard and the society appears to be
helpless except to reconcile the two, old and the new
now in vogue in Efik .
Furthermore, Christianity has spoken very seriously
against polygamy, except in those African churches that
allow it, and we occasionally discover . that while a
husband may ostensibly attach himself to one wife to
escape church blame, he may keep concubines about
him outside marriage and find it hard to extricate
himself from the ancient custom. Here again, the old
values of polygamy and the new of monogamy are still in
conflict.
[84]
4
Formal Education Scandalized In Creek Town
In 1855 Creek Town School was nine years old and was
fairly firmly established; some of its pupils were already
passing out of it. These pupils could read and write fairly
well. They could read their English Bibles fairly fluently
and could feel at home in some religious discussions
when such opportunities offered themselves. Many of
them could serve the big traders in their simple
accounting jobs, or serve the supercargoes in their jobs
on board their ships.
King Eyo, who was then the greatest trader in the
country, more often offered these young people some
job opportunities as salesmen or saleswomen.
In that year, 1855, one of the girls became a
saleswoman for king Eyo. On one occasion she
discovered some deficiency in her proceeds which
exposed her shortage: at this discovery she took her
trade-book to her boy-friend and got him to alter the
amount of what she had received from the King's store.
When her book was called for, the King's eye and book
discovered the cheat, which was confirmed by the
storekeeper who released the goods to her. The girl, in
her guilty consciousness fled. But her lover who was
known was called to question. The young man owned his
fault, and pleaded that he was ignorant of her design
and innocent of any ill-intention on her part.
IT 851
This criminal incident was not so simple a matter to be
glossed over in an innocent community in which
trustworthiness was expected in their mutual dealings.
It became a town-talk for a week, and the school was
scandalized, especially among those who sternly
opposed the new changes. It was being spread about
, values. Every country in the world approves of it
that everyone who handled a pen would become a
forger and a cheat, and a falsifier of trade papers.
The community viewed the incident with all seriousness
and the missionaries were blamed for coming to convert
the new generation into forgers and cheats. It took Rev.
Waddell such an effort and time" to clear the air by
illustrating to the people the contents in individual
differences among mankind that good things were often
put to a bad use by bad people, and yet those good
things were good things still.
This girl was not heard of for a week. Many began to
speculate about her fate. Some believed she would
commit suicide for shame and fear rather than appear
for punishment. Others, from their recent knowledge
acquired from the Christian teaching, speculated that
even if she died in the hope to make "palaver set", that
is, the matter settled, they alluded to the judgment of
God still to come. At last she appeared and the King, as
punishment for her cheating, ordered her mouth to be
scrubbed with sand-paper leaf which abrased her lips to .
teach her not to falsify her trade account again, nor to
tell lies to her master.
II8§]
l!@
5
Formal Education: Its Essence
Formal education is one of the most modern of our social
because it is a powerful instrument that must condition
humanity to an approved basic social standard.
A good education aims at the refinement of the
individual, I:>Y giving him strength to his honestly,
protection for his health, support for his honest wealth,
support for his personal respect and for those of others,
encouragement for his fair dealings with his fellowmen.
It should remove from the life of man what is nasty and
brutish, or those other socially unacceptable conditions.
In short, a good education aims at civilizing the
individual and initiating him into reading culture which is
so disgracefully lacking among us in this country.
Reading culture is a decent, respectable and elevating
hobby that carries with it many«-advantages: apart from
the pleasure it affords the reader, it creates a situation
for him to develop a silent contact with different
environments other than his own and feeds him with a
wealth of information or knowledge of those places; in
short, it helps him to maintain his intellectual balance
and to minimize his chances of getting into crime.
Armed with reading culture, one seldom feels lonely.
And indeed, "'reading maketh a man", they say.
But this dream of civilization is not often realized
becauS! our human individual differences more often
militate against our good judgment, and against the
ideals of a good education. And some of our definitions
and understanding of education playa great part in our
failure to achieve the real function of education in the
individual.

To many of us education is mainly the process of

imparting or acquiring knowledge or skills for a
particular trade or profession, that is, as a means to an
end; or receiving instruction and discipline in general.
But these academic materials are mere tools for their
purposes, and which can be very dangerous in the hands
of the unscrupulous.

Many of us now use our education for criminal

assignments in order to prosper ourselves or get rich at
the expense of others; or to destroy a rival or an enemy.
Whoever has been conditioned to some criminal act is
certainly aware that his crime is not socially acceptable
in the society, but he prefers to risk to commit it because
of what he hopes to get out of his criminal desire. The
most pitiable situation is that many of these criminals
are from among the highly educated classes who use
their educational advantage to defraud, or ruin others
for their own selfish schemes. Their attitude to
education must therefore be in conflict with their
conscience; they can only try to deaden that conscience
to allow them carry out their evil deSigns, but they
cannot kill it. And to summarize it all, education is not
only a means to an end, but it is also an end in itself,
because it prepares us to use it in our life time by
acquiring reading habits.
[1881