At the southernmost verge of the Niger Delta, alongside the Brass River Estuary, about 55 miles (88 km.) west-southwest of Port Harcourt. The name is an Anglicization of Barasin; the original capital of this state was upriver some miles, at the present site of the state capital at Nembe; when it was moved to it's current location on the site of a village named Tuwon, a European mis-transliteration that name led to the appellation of Brass-Town. Brass was a slave brokerage state until the British stopped the slave trade in the early 19th century - thereafter, Brass involved itself in the palm oil business. Owing to restrictive and monopolistic trade practices on the part of the Oil Company which were slowly shattering the local economy, a Brass army attacked the local company depot in 1895 and, carrying off 43 captives, ate them. This resulted in Brass being sacked by the British the next year, and the region placed under direct British rule in 1898.