RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 From Commodity to Colonial Currencies in West Africa
JF African Economic History
FD University of Wisconsin Press
SP 1
OP 20
DO 10.3368/aeh.53.1.1
VO 53
IS 1
A1 Austin, Gareth
YR 2025
UL https://aeh.uwpress.org/aeh.uwpress.org/content/53/1/1.abstract
AB This special issue examines the transition from commodity currencies, such as cowries and gold dust, to colonial currencies in West Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This introduction presents the six research articles that follow in the context of the longer-term history of currencies in West Africa, and of the existing historiography of the currency transition. It highlights the historical significance of the change from an era of currencies which operated in a manner primarily determined by African merchants and markets, to the colonial currency regimes, within which, in each case, a fiat (token) currency linked to that of the imperial metropolis became the sole legal tender. Finally, it offers a critical reflection from West African history on the theoretical concept of “commodity currencies.”