Great work,In depth as always. In Toby Greene's Book a fistful of shells he covers the unequal exchange in coastal trade and devaluation of cowries by European powers dumping them en mass on the coast in the later years of trans Atlantic trade, this raises the question; how did currency regulation occur in the various west African states, did they have a formalized fiscal policy. I know the mansas used the gold monopoly to prevent inflation and regulate the gold flow but what about it states that lacked regular access to gold. How was the cloth currency regulated or are commodity currencies a different ball game?
Of course you've already covered it 😅. The sheer variety of African currencies is astonishing, the traders and merchants would've had to manage so many diverse currencies and exchange rates.
I will definitely check out Thornton's book, information on Kongo is quite all over the place.
Great work,In depth as always. In Toby Greene's Book a fistful of shells he covers the unequal exchange in coastal trade and devaluation of cowries by European powers dumping them en mass on the coast in the later years of trans Atlantic trade, this raises the question; how did currency regulation occur in the various west African states, did they have a formalized fiscal policy. I know the mansas used the gold monopoly to prevent inflation and regulate the gold flow but what about it states that lacked regular access to gold. How was the cloth currency regulated or are commodity currencies a different ball game?
I think regulation was relatively easier for the cowrie shell currency than the cloth currency (see the case of Dahomey under Gezo vs Bornu under Al Kanemi and Umar). In any case, Thornton criticized Toby Green's thesis on the supposed devaluation of the shell currency of Kongo, https://www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/a-history-of-currencies-and-monetary?utm_source=publication-search#footnote-anchor-9-175278267
Of course you've already covered it 😅. The sheer variety of African currencies is astonishing, the traders and merchants would've had to manage so many diverse currencies and exchange rates.
I will definitely check out Thornton's book, information on Kongo is quite all over the place.