The Aru Igbo Trust Network and Slave-dealing in Igboland and the Lower Southeast Niger Basin: Assessing the Impacts and Consequences of Initial Abolitionary Efforts by Governments in the Atlantic World in the Period,1787–1807

Abstract

Although existing research on trust networks shows that ethnic networks, for example, have sustained long-distance trade from the origins of cities and states onward, this article reveals that, even in the absence of connections to cities and states, by their nature and because of their commitment component, trust networks can also be uniquely customized and made to lend themselves to the peculiar enterprise that was slave-dealing in Igboland, even in contexts that are devoid of cities and states and their governmental trappings. This assertion about trust networks is substantiated in the article with an account of the effectiveness of the Aru Igbo trust network, which enabled the extensive participation of the Aru¹ Igbo in the slave trade in the lower southeast Niger basin. Also, the article taps into Charles Tilly’s theoretical formulation on error correction to demonstrate that, in spite of the error, correction measures adopted by the abolitionist campaigners to bolster the purposive action that characterized the initial phase of their campaign, slave-dealing and trade in Igboland and in the lower southeast were sustained in spite of all that largely because of the durability and resilience of the Aru Igbo trust network.