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Open Access

Crossing Borders, Counting Coins

Taxation and Multiple Currencies at the Haute Volta/Gold Coast Border in the Early Twentieth Century

Domenico Cristofaro and Seiji Nakao
African Economic History, June 2025, 53 (1) 89-118; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3368/aeh.53.1.89
Domenico Cristofaro
Domenico Cristofaro is a research fellow and adjunct lecturer at the University of Bologna. He is a historian of Africa with an anthropological background. His interests encompass urban history, economic history, and the relationship between African planning, political changes, currencies, and commercial and infrastructural transitions. He has published with international publishers and journals such as the International Journal of African Historical Studies and The Journal of African History.
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  • For correspondence: domenico.cristofaro2{at}unibo.it
Seiji Nakao
Seiji Nakao is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University. He has conducted his research in Burkina Faso, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, and France and received his PhD (Anthropology) from Nanzan University in 2017. He won the 33rd Japan Association for African Studies Research Award for his book, Modernities of the Interior West Africa: Historical Anthropology of State and Stateless Societies (2020, Fukyosha, in Japanese) in 2021.
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  • For correspondence: nakao.seiji.2i{at}kyoto-u.ac.jp
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    Figure 1.

    Map of the Haute Volta and Gold Coast in the 1920s (study area is shown in gray).

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    Figure 2.

    Changes to the border between French and British territories during the colonial period. Adapted from: Henry P. Northcott, Report on the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast (London: Harrison and Sons, 1899); The National Archives, London [hereafter TNA]: CO 98/18, Northern Territories of the Gold Coast, Report for 1910; Heinrich Schnee, Deutsches Koloniallexikon (Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer, 1920); TNA: CO98/46, Report 1925–26; Annual Report on the Gold Coast for the year 1946, London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1948.

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African Economic History: 53 (1)
African Economic History
Vol. 53, Issue 1
1 Jun 2025
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Crossing Borders, Counting Coins
Domenico Cristofaro, Seiji Nakao
African Economic History Jun 2025, 53 (1) 89-118; DOI: 10.3368/aeh.53.1.89

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Crossing Borders, Counting Coins
Domenico Cristofaro, Seiji Nakao
African Economic History Jun 2025, 53 (1) 89-118; DOI: 10.3368/aeh.53.1.89
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Jump to section

  • Article
    • Abstract
    • Introduction
    • Caravan Trade and Multiple Currencies: Commercial Vitality in the Volta Basin
    • Tracing the Anglo-French border: the Creation of a Colonial Frontier
    • Divergent Colonial Fiscal Policies in the Northern Territories and Haute Volta
    • Currencies in the Early Colonial Context: (Non-)Acceptance of Colonial Coins
    • Fluctuating Values: Exchange Between Francs, Shillings, and Cowries
    • The Dynamics of Currency Speculation: Arbitrage Profits on the Border
    • Conclusion
    • Footnotes
  • Figures & Data
  • Info & Metrics
  • References
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More in this TOC Section

  • From Commodity to Colonial Currencies in West Africa
  • The French Invasion of the Upper Senegal River and Payment Issues, 1880–1900
  • Trade and Money in British West Africa, 1912–1970
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Keywords

  • taxation
  • multiple currencies
  • boundaries
  • Burkina Faso
  • Ghana
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