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Research ArticleArticle

Rethinking West African Monetary History

The Complementarity Between Monies and the Economic Growth of the Sokoto Caliphate

Marisa Candotti
African Economic History, May 2023, 51 (1) 24-47; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3368/aeh.51.1.24
Marisa Candotti
Marisa Candotti obtained her PhD in African History at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. The title of her PhD thesis is “Cotton Growing and Textile Production in Northern Nigeria: from Caliphate to Protectorate, c. 1804–1914”. Recently she has also conducted research at SOAS as Research Associate of the Department of History. Her main research interests concern the colonial and pre-colonial West African economic history in a global perspective.
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Abstract

This article provides a new answer to one of the central questions in precolonial West African histories: the interaction of credit with the expansion of production for the market. According to Hopkins, during the nineteenth century long-distance commercial capital had a limited effect on West African local production. In contrast, this article argues that surplus trading profits played a crucial role in the growth of manufacturing. However, to fully appreciate the interaction of trading profits and local manufacturing, it is necessary to reconsider the approach to West African monetary history. Recently, world economic historians have devoted renewed attention to African monetary history, suggesting a new theoretical approach that enables a reconsideration of how multiple monetary transactions worked in practice. This approach is based on the “complementary” relationship among monies circulating side by side. This article argues that a complementary relationship between multiple markets and monies makes possible the articulation of a different perspective on the place of money within the process of economic growth in precolonial savanna economies.

KEYWORDS:
  • African economic history
  • West African trade
  • precolonial currencies
  • monetary history
  • multiple markets
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African Economic History: 51 (1)
African Economic History
Vol. 51, Issue 1
1 May 2023
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Rethinking West African Monetary History
Marisa Candotti
African Economic History May 2023, 51 (1) 24-47; DOI: 10.3368/aeh.51.1.24

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Rethinking West African Monetary History
Marisa Candotti
African Economic History May 2023, 51 (1) 24-47; DOI: 10.3368/aeh.51.1.24
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  • Article
    • Abstract
    • Introduction
    • West African Monetary History: An “Evolutionary” Path?
    • The Complementarity of Monies: Rethinking Preindustrial Monetary History
    • Rethinking West African Monetary History
    • Credit Networks and the Complementarity of Currencies in the Sokoto Caliphate
    • Conclusion
    • Footnotes
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Keywords

  • African economic history
  • West African trade
  • precolonial currencies
  • monetary history
  • multiple markets
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