Antera Duke (alive as late as 1788) was a leading African

slave Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

dealer and Efik chief from

Old Calabar Old or OLD may refer to: Places * Old, Baranya, Hungary * Old, Northamptonshire, England *Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD) *OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, M ...

in the

Bight of Biafra The Bight of Biafra (known as the Bight of Bonny in Nigeria) is a bight off the West African coast, in the easternmost part of the Gulf of Guinea. Geography The Bight of Biafra, or Mafra (named after the town Mafra in southern Portugal), between ...

in eastern

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

(now in Cross River State) during the late eighteenth century. He gradually prospered and was member of the local

Ekpe Ekpe, also known as Mgbe/Egbo (Ekoi language: ''leopard''; derived from the Ibibio term for the same), is a West African secret society in Nigeria and Cameroon flourishing chiefly among the Efiks. It is also found among a number of other ethni ...

society that had a great amount of power over slave trade. He arranged funerals, which for men of standing like himself included the ritual sacrifice of slaves, who were decapitated to accompany the master into the spirit world. Duke and his fellow Efik traders "dressed as white men" and entertained captains of Slave ships. His diary, written in Nigerian Pidgin English, was discovered in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

and published. This diary records his interactions with British merchants to whom he sold slaves; he writes about wearing "white man trousers" and entertaining the merchants he traded with. In addition to trading slaves, Duke sometimes caught the slaves himself. According to his diary, once he settled an old score with a

Bakassi Bakassi is a peninsula on the Gulf of Guinea. It lies between the Cross River estuary, near the city of Calabar and the Rio del Ray estuary on the east. It is governed by Cameroon, following the transfer of sovereignty from neighbouring Niger ...

merchant by capturing him and his two slaves and personally delivering them aboard a slave ship. During the three years he kept his diary (1785-88), he noted the departure of twenty vessels (all from

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

) he had helped to "slave". A new edition of his diary, edited by

Stephen D. Behrendt Stephen D. Behrendt is a historian at Victoria University Wellington who specialises in the transatlantic slave trade. He earned his MA and PhD from the University of Wisconsin. His updating of James A. Rawley's ''The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A H ...

, A. J. H. Latham, and

David Northrup David Northrup (born March 6, 1961, in Laramie, Wyoming) is an American politician and Republican Party member of the Wyoming House of Representatives representing the 25th district since January 10, 2023. Northrup represented the 50th district i ...

, was published by Oxford University Press in 2010.

References

Further reading