An absolute dependence on palm oil as a major trade commodity rather than an adjunct to the slave trade was unsatisfactory to the Calabar elites, who saw that Calabar was in desperate need of resourceful people to sustain it and brighten its fortunes, irrespective of their ethnicity and nationality (Imbua, 2009, p. 195), and wrote a series of letters calling for European missionaries. For the Calabar elites of the mid-nineteenth century understood the power of civilization and technology in religious terms and believed missionaries to have the keys to unlock Calabar's potential; and they were convinced, as is evident in their letters, that they would bring the knowledge and skills required to cultivate the cash crops such as cotton, coffee and sugar produced in the Americas with slave labour (Waddell, 1863, pp. 663-665). When missionaries arrived and settled in, the Efik soon realized that they had neither the resources nor the technical skills to facilitate Calabar's economic transition. Some Efik elites, in frustration, contemplated expelling them but were deterred by a fear of reprisals by the British consul, who was on the side of the missionaries and sent a gunboat to oblige the Efik either to cooperate with or at least tolerate them.