From Cowries to Coins: Money and Colonialism in the Gold Coast and British West Africa in the Early 20th Century (original) (raw)
Related papers
The currency revolution in Southern Nigeria, 1880-1948
1976
last few years. The banks pay it out but it does not come back; and where it is I do not know...." 6 He further indicated that the problem of transporting large quantities of money had not been solved by the introduction of British currency. "In this country", he said, "currency consists mainly of shillings and it is a very bulky business when dealing with them in millions." 7 These statements should demonstrate the kernel of the currency problem in Nigeria. Traditionally, the local population stored their money in great hoards, transporting them in any quantity only when needed for major purchases. Most wealthy men were invariably polygynists and heads of very large households, and in the precolonial setting, they had at their disposal the labour of their kinsmen and slaves as well. The labour costs involved in transporting large quantities of money, be it manillas, brass rods, cowries, or later, shillings, were therefore low or often non-existent (except in terms of costs to the porters themselves) as far as the men of means were concerned. Further, it is significant that when British currency finally gained local acceptance-and this was a gradual process involving about fifty years of continued local use of the pre-existing currencies-only the smallest denominations, shillings and pennies were readily taken, and these were generally hoarded in the traditional manner, thus perpetuating the transport problems earlier associated with the cowries and other currencies, and forcing the Government to pry them loose from their hoarders through the standard methods of increasing taxation. 8 This paper is the result of a re-examination of available evidence on the currency revolution in Southern Nigeria. To fully comprehend the nature and consequences of that revolution, one may ask the following questions: (1) What are the fundamental differences between the pre-colonial Nigerian currency system and the system the British Government wished to impose on the Nigerian economy? (2) Why did the British Government want to replace the pre-existing Nigerian currencies with British currency? and, (3) What costs did Nigerians pay as a result of the change in currency (or more generally, what were the costs and benefits of the new and old systems to British interests and Nigerians respectively)? To answer the first question, it is useful to reiterate, following Paul Samuelson, the fundamentals of money. 9 It is not a physical thing in essence, but rather, a compendium of functions broadly identified as follows: (a) a standard of value; (b) a medium of exchange; (c) a store of value; (d) a unit of account and a standard of deferred payments. All these functions are logically dependent upon the characteristic of liquidity, which is in turn affected by durability, acceptability over a wide range of transactions, and ease of accounting.
Nigerian Currency System, 1914-2014: A Century of Transformation
Journal of Asian and African Social Science and Humanities
In 1914, the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria and the Colony and Protectorate of southern Nigeria were merged by Sir Fredrick Lugard. The new territory became known as the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. Lugard became its first Governor General and ruled between 1914 and 1919. Before then, Southern Nigeria which was a British Protectorate in the coastal areas of modern-day Nigeria formed in 1900, was added to Lagos Colony in 1906, and the territory was officially renamed the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria. From that time till date, the country has been experiencing transformations in its currency system. This paper sets to offer a historical overview of the transformation of Nigeria’s currency system over a period of one hundred years, from 1914 to 2014. The paper demonstrates how the Nigerian currency system has evolved in the course of hundred years from a cash-based type to an increasingly cashless type. It was concluded that, although it is replete with challeng...
Money, Credit, and Banking in Colonial and Postcolonial West Africa
2002
Scholarship in African economic history has been dominated by a wave of revisionism lately. The degree of African indebtedness, the imperatives of loan repayment, and the long-term implications of ongoing political and economic changes, all make such a revision exigent indeed. Focusing on the Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria, this paper produces new evidence to reinterpret and redefine African precolonial financial institutions. The paper has two main parts. Part 1 focuses on the introduction of cowrie currency into Yorubaland and its impact on social stratification. Part 2 examines ajo, the savings institution, esusu, the rotating savings and credit associations (roscas), and the process of capital formation and accumulation among the Yoruba. [Nigeria, Yoruba, rotating savings and credit associations (roscas), capital formation, accumulation, cowries; social stratification]
Review of "Africa's Last Colonial Currency" by Fanny Pigeaud & Ndongo Samba Sylla
Society & Space, 2021
More than a dozen independent African nations use the CFA franc, a currency with colonial origins and ongoing colonial functions. A new study of the CFA franc explains the monetary mechanisms of persistent French domination in Africa and carries forward a radical tradition of economic critique and political struggle.
Colonial coinage and financial development
Until the 21st century, Africa remains the only region in the world where there are countries whose currency is derived from the colonial system. Very far from political and geostrategic considerations, the question has always been asked in order to know the effect of this lack of monetary sovereignty on the evolution of economic activity. Therefore, this study investigates the relationship between Colonial coinage and financial development by applying Generalised Method of Moments. The importance of this approach, is to correct heterogeneity and endogeneity problems. The sample consist of 48 African countries data over 10 years. This study findings are like-minded with those of economic literature around the law, finance and endowment theory. They suggest that in sub-Saharan Africa, the quality of nstitutions has a very large influence on access to domestic credit. Moreover, the main enclave for the development of the financial system due to colonial coinage is the sluggish stability of the latter colonial coinage in Africa.
The past decade has seen much ink spilled on global interconnections in the early modern economy, especially those linking European and Asian economies. But this Eurasian concentration has excluded Africa from the discussion. This article addresses this absence by showing that West and West-Central Africa were integral to the global price revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Considering evidence from West and West-Central Africa reveals how the price revolution was a genuinely global phenomenon, with increasing imports of locally-used currencies that created inflation in line with the inflation of gold and silver in Europe and Asia. The article argues that the coexistence of exchangeable value and other social uses of currencies also contributed to a relative depreciation in Africa's global economic strength. Also related to this phenomenon were the rise of an export slave trade and changes in the production and distribution of West and West-Central African cloth industries.
African Studies Review, 2023
Pallaver situates German East Africa within the framework of the broader East African region as a way to illuminate the processes of currency standardization in the colonial context. The monetary geography of the region was determined first by the circulation of the rupee and later by Great Britain’s interests to create a common currency for its East African colonies. Pallaver argues that transimperial, international, and regional contexts influenced currency circulation across and within colonies, drawing attention to forms of colonial money and their use by distinct groups, such as African laborers and Indian traders.