Why read The Two Princes of Calabar?

Book cover of The Two Princes of Calabar: An Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Odyssey

Book description

In 1767, two "princes" of a ruling family in the port of Old Calabar, on the slave coast of Africa, were ambushed and captured by English slavers. The princes, Little Ephraim Robin John and Ancona Robin Robin John, were themselves slave traders who were betrayed by African competitors-and so began…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Two Princes of Calabar as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Vincent Carretta

Author

English enslavers called Ancona Robin Robin John and Little Ephraim Robin John “princes” because they were literate English-speaking members of one of two ruling African slave-trading families in present-day southeastern Nigeria.

The lives of the Johns illuminate the surprisingly complex relationships among the participants in the transatlantic slave trade, when African suppliers of enslaved Africans often had as much economic and political power as their European customers.

The English allies of the rival family captured the two men during a trade war between the families in 1767.

They were taken to the Caribbean and North America, with several escapes and…

From Vincent's list on recover early Black Atlantic lives.