The Cameroonian coast was of major strategic importance due to its geographical location halfway between two major trading centers: the Senegalese coast and the Angolan coast; it played a role of transit and supply for long-distance travelers; it provided security and discretion, throughout the Wouri estuary, for this highly competitive traffic that was subsequently detrimental to the dignity and freedom of human beings as soon as abolition was proclaimed. The traffic circuits and the exchange methods inherited from the previous period remained in force for a long time. Commercial operations were carried out from the main trading points around which villages were formed, living off the ancillary activities of the slave trade. Despite the gradual reduction of slavery practices underground, the trafficking routes were almost the same as those usually used for trade and the market networks that linked the various chiefdoms.
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