In this book, I have departed from the sharp distinction that is often made between the roles of internal and external agencies in bringing about change in African history. Rather than seeing agency and causation in terms of these binary opposites, the book acknowledges the collaborative relevance of African and external agencies in shaping the transatlantic slave trade and its impact. Central to this approach is an emphasis on the interactions between slaving and culture and between the Bight of Biafra and the rest of the Atlantic world. Such a perspective has shaped the five main questions that have underpinned this study. These questions have implications for both the history of the region and the Atlantic system at large.

The first question concerns the dramatic rise of the Biafra Atlantic trade during the mid-eighteenth century. The emergence of the Aro in the early seventeenth century and their expansion that gathered momentum in the second quarter of the eighteenth century, facilitated the expansion of the Biafra Atlantic slave trade and shaped its character. Although this study has emphasized that Aro organization rested on identifiable institutions that had both state and diaspora characteristics, an Atlantic perspective is key to an understanding of the slave trade and its aftermath. The region responded to escalating labor demand in the Americas, and it was the Aro organization that ensured the gathering, bulking, transportation, and delivery of huge numbers of captives to the coast.