Rethinking West African Monetary History

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.