52 Atlantic African, American, and European Backgrounds to Contact, Commerce, and Enslavementoccupy, but the development of a unifi ed identity among
these peoples was something facilitated in the Americas by
slavery and in the Biafran interior by European imperialism.
In this way, speaking Igbo and being Igbo were not the same
thing (just as speaking English and being English are not).
Typically, identity in the precolonial Biafran interior—and
for that matter, other parts of the African continent—was
based on local or provisional concerns. Th us, across the
various Igbo-speaking cities and villages, despite similari-
ties in language and culture, the people would have under-
stood themselves to be distinct based on a range of factors,
including political affi liation with a particular polity. Th e
“Igbo” did not exist as a distinct ethnicity in Atlantic Africa
until they were created in the 20th century as a direct con-
sequence of British colonial policy and the need for soli-
darity in the presence of a new and foreign enemy. Like a
number of ethnonyms used by Europeans during the slave
trade era, Calabar, Moko, and Igbo were imprecise and, at
times, overlapping identities that Africans in this region did
not create or embrace. However, “Igbo” was a term Igbo-
speaking people embraced abroad and the best example of
this comes from the most famous Igbo-speaker to be en-
slaved in the Americas—Olaudah Equiano.
In the Americas, the Igbo were generally reviled as
enslaved imports due to their alleged propensity to com-
mit suicide. In general, European preferences for certain
African ethnic groups in the Americas were due to a range
of factors—the cost of importing enslaved Africans from
certain regions, limited access to certain slave markets on
the Atlantic African coast, or the demand for Africans from
specifi c regions with expertise in the cultivation of certain
crops and other skills. In the case of the Igbo, the various
stereotypes associated with them—their propensity for sui-
cide, their slight stature, and physical endurance—relegated
them to backwater slave colonies and, in some cases, rele-
gated them to domestic service. Regarding their concentra-
tion in backwater colonies, the Du Bois Institute database
bears out this conclusion. Th e Du Bois database, for exam-
ple, demonstrates that of 101,925 enslaved Africans from
identifi able locations sent to Virginia, 44.8 percent came
from the Bight of Biafra. In South Carolina—a more cen-
tral colony in terms of the slave trade—enslaved Africans
from the Bight of Biafra accounted for just 9.89 percent of
identifi able imports; in British North America/the United
States as a whole, Bight of Biafra exports were 18.6 percent
of those imported. So it is possible to discuss, as historians
Lorena Walsh, James Sidbury, and Douglas Chambers have,Bibliography
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Igbo
Igbo-speakers from the Bight of Biafra—the inland region of
modern Nigeria—had a signifi cant infl uence on what became
African American culture. Known variably as Ebo(e), Ibo(e),
and Eboan, Igbo-speakers represent loosely connected lan-
guage cohorts and not a single or unifi ed ethnic group or
people. Th e Bight of Biafra itself was a region of vast cultural
diversity and included a variety of language cohorts—Igbo,
Ibibio, Igala, Efi k, and Ijo, among others. Despite this diver-
sity, three-quarters of all enslaved Africans embarked on Eu-
ropean ships in Biafra and Calabar were of likely Igbo- and
Ibibio-speaking backgrounds. During the course of the At-
lantic slave trade, it became standard practice to lump to-
gether most if not all Africans exported from the Bight of
Biafra under the “Igbo” linguistic and cultural banner.
Kwa language groups including Igbo-speakers origi-
nated, historically, near the confl uence of the Niger and
Benue rivers and these groups eventually migrated to their
present-day homeland near the Niger and Cross rivers in
modern Nigeria. Igbo-speakers and others are credited with
the rise of Nok culture—an iron-based society in existence
between 500 bce to ce 200. By the 9th century ce, Igbo speak-
ers founded the Nri and Igbo-Ukwu—the latter known for
the production of bronze fi gurines and statuettes using the
lost wax technique. Igbo-speaking expertise in metalsmith-
ing and metallurgy served as a basis for the development
of the famous Benin and Ife bronzes created beginning in
the 10th century ce. Th ese earlier Igbo-speaking societies
were also notable for their high population densities, politi-
cal decentralization, and agrarian economies—patterns that
would persist into the 17th and 18th centuries.
By the beginning of the 17th century, Igbo-speaking
groups had largely settled into the areas they currently