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This volume is based on a remarkable diary kept by the Efik merchant Antera Duke between 1785 and 1788. Antera lived and traded in Duke Town, in the Cross River region of Old Calabar, and wrote and spoke Pidgin English. The diary is, today, the lengthiest surviving African text from the area's precolonial period. It was penned during the apex of regional trade, when about 15,000 slaves, along with yams, ivory, palm oil, dyewood, and pepper, were boarded on Atlantic vessels.
The diary has a fascinating history. Antera's grandson probably gave it to Scottish missionaries in the mid-nineteenth century. It was sent to Europe and kept by the Free Church of Scotland. It eventually ended up 'in a pile of rubbish', where a clerk discovered it, later loaning it to Arthur W. Wilke, who was on furlough from his mission in Duke Town. Before returning to Nigeria in 1908, Wilke transcribed extensive passages and gave the diary back to the Church. Unfortunately, the original cannot be located today, although Wilke's transcriptions survive. Late in his life, Wilke translated his transcriptions into English, wrote an introduction, and sought...