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AFRICA AND THE PRICE REVOLUTION: CURRENCY IMPORTS AND SOCIOECONOMIC CHANGE IN WEST AND WEST-CENTRAL AFRICA DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2016

TOBY GREEN
TOBY GREEN*
Affiliation:
King's College London
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Abstract

The past decade has seen much ink spilled on global interconnections in the early modern economy, especially those linking European and Asian economies. But this Eurasian concentration has excluded Africa from the discussion. This article addresses this absence by showing that West and West-Central Africa were integral to the global price revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Considering evidence from West and West-Central Africa reveals how the price revolution was a genuinely global phenomenon, with increasing imports of locally-used currencies that created inflation in line with the inflation of gold and silver in Europe and Asia. The article argues that the coexistence of exchangeable value and other social uses of currencies also contributed to a relative depreciation in Africa's global economic strength. Also related to this phenomenon were the rise of an export slave trade and changes in the production and distribution of West and West-Central African cloth industries.

Keywords

West AfricaWest-Central Africaprice revolutioncurrenciesAfrican economic historyglobal history
Type
Global Currency Trade and Economic Transformation in Western Africa
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 1 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank the Leverhulme Trust, who provided generous funding throughout the three years in which the research for this article was undertaken. Mamadou Diouf, Richard Drayton, Bronwen Everill, Jane Guyer, Tony Hopkins, Paul Lovejoy, Linda Newson, Benedetta Rossi, Alexandra Sapoznik, the editors, and various anonymous reviewers have all read drafts of this article and have given me very helpful advice. Author's email: [email protected]

References

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24 Lovejoy, ‘Interregional monetary flows’, 568–9.

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26 Inflation could also – as this article shows – accompany market growth; see Lovejoy, ‘Interregional monetary flows’, 565, for a strong argument on how inflation of cowries in Nigeria from the late eighteenth-century onwards was a symptom of the expansion of the capital market inland from the coast.

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36 Guyer, Marginal Gains, x.

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38 On cowrie depreciation in the nineteenth century, see also Hogendorn and Johnson, Shell Money; Sündstrom, Exchange Economy, 76.

39 For general background to this region, see especially I. Akinjogbin, Dahomey and its Neighbours: 1708–1818 (Cambridge, 1967); J. Bato`ora Ballong-wen-Menuda, São Jorge da Mina, 1482–1637: la Vie d'un Comptoir Portugais en Afrique Occidentale, 2 Volumes (Paris and Lisbon, 1993); H. den Heijer, Goud, Ivoor en Slaven: Scheepvaart en Handel van de Tweede Westindische Compagnie op Afrika, 1674–1740 (Zutphens, 1997); R. Law, The Kingdom of Allada ( Leiden, 1997); F. R. da Silva, Dutch and Portuguese in Western Africa: Empires, Merchants and the Atlantic System, 1580–1674 (Leiden, 2011); Ryder, A. F. C., ‘Dutch trade on the Nigeria coast in the seventeenth century’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, 3:2 (1965), 195–210Google Scholar; J. L. Vogt, Portuguese Rule on the Gold Coast (1469–1682) (Athens, OH, 1979). Note that Allada is also known as Arda and Ardra in the documentation.

40 N. Ngou-Mve, El Africa Bantú en la Colonización de México (Madrid, 1994), 43, 170.

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45 M. Calado, O Valeroso Lucideno e Triumpho da Liberdade (Lisbon, 1648), 161.

46 S. P. l'Honoré Naber (ed.), Toortse der Zee-vaart door Dierick Ruiters 1623 (‘S-Gravenhage, 1913), 76. It is possible that Ruiters relied on some of the Portuguese sources cited below – see Ryder, ‘Dutch trade’, 197.

47 Biblioteca da Ájuda, Lisbon (BA), Códice 51 – IX -25, fol. 74r.

48 A. Brásio, Monumenta Misionária Africana: África Ocidental: Segunda Série, Volume V (1958–2004), 293.

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50 Biblioteca Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, DL 31/02/31, ‘chegava de volta da sua viagem [pela Costa] desembarcava escravos e Panos pa[ra] a Alfa[ndega]’. This export of cloth is noted by Kriger: C. E. Kriger, ‘“Guinea-cloth”: production and consumption of cotton textiles in West Africa before and during the Atlantic slave trade’, in G. Riello and P. Parthasarathi (eds.), The Spinning World: A Global History of Cotton Textiles, 1200–1850 (Oxford, 2011), 112–13.

51 L. Jadin (ed.), L'Ancien Congo et l'Angola 1649–1655, d'Après les Archives Romaines, Portugaises, Néerlandaises et Espagnoles, Volume I (Brussels and Rome, 1975), 122. On cloth purchased by the Dutch in the 1640s, see also Ryder, ‘Dutch trade’, 203.

52 Jadin, Congo et l'Angola I, 219. Some of this cloth was also manufactured in the small kingdom of Xabu. BA, Códice 51-IX-25, fol. 74r.

53 l’Honoré Naber, S. P., ‘Nota van Pieter Mortamer over het Gewest Angola’, Bijdragen en mededeelingen van het historisch genootschap, 54 (1934), 33Google Scholar.

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55 N. I. de Moraes, À la Découverte de la Petite Côte au XVIIème siècle (Sénégal et Gambie), Volume III (Dakar, 1998), 299.

56 Arquivo da Santa Casa da Misericórdia da Bahia, Salvador, Maço 41, Livro do Tombo (2), fol. 406r.

57 BA, Códice 51 – IX -25, fols. 74r–v.

58 J. A. Gonsalves de Mello, Fontes Para a História do Brasil Holandês (Recife, 2004), 107.

59 Ratelband, Vijf Dagregisters, 36–7, 148; Jadin, Congo et l'Angola I, 271, 280.

60 Ibid. 281.

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63 See G. Riello and T. Roy (eds.), How India Clothed the World: the World of South Asian Textiles, 1500 – 1850 (Leiden, 2009); especially the chapter by J. E, Inikori, ‘English versus Indian cotton textiles: the impact of imports on cotton textile production in West Africa’.

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65 See, for example, Hogendorn and Johnson, The Shell Money, 36 where a lack of archival data on the subject is suggested.

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71 Inikori, ‘Africa and the globalization process’.

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74 E. W. Herbert, Red Gold of Africa: Copper in Precolonial History and Culture (Madison, WI, 1984), 126.

75 Johnson, ‘Cowrie currencies of West Africa’, 37, 332. See also Lovejoy, ‘Interregional monetary flows’, 565, 570, arguing that these cowries flowed northwards; and Hiskett, ‘Materials’, 357, who argues that the value of the mithqal in cowries in northern Nigeria rose sharply in the eighteenth century, suggesting a flow northwards.

76 I. Wilks, Forests of Gold: Essays on the Akan and the Kingdom of Asante (Athens, OH, 1993), 5–17.

77 I. Blanchard, Russia's Age of Silver: Precious-Metal Production and Economic Growth in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1989), 25–7.

78 Kea, Trade, Settlements and Polities, 194.

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81 Lovejoy, Caravans, 14–15. Northrup, Trade Without Rulers, 158, also suggests that the Igbo-Ukwu adopted cowries as a currency in the eighteenth century.

82 R. Ferreira, ‘From Brazil to West Africa: Dutch-Portuguese rivalry, gold-smuggling, and African politics in the Bight of Benin’, in M. van Groesen (ed.), The Legacy of Dutch Brazil (Cambridge, 2014), ch. 6.

83 See fn. 19.

84 M. de Ruyter and J. C. van Meppelen, Journael Gehouden op ‘s landts-schip de Spiegel (Amsterdam, 1665), 52.

85 Hogendorn and Johnson, Shell Money, 15–19; Johnson, ‘Cowrie currencies of West Africa’, 18–19.

86 Brásio, Monumenta Misionária Africana, África Ocidental I (1953), 515.

87 R. Garfield, A History of São Tomé Island 1470–1655: The Key to Guinea (San Francisco, 1992), 34.

88 Johnson, ‘Cowrie currencies of West Africa’, 347.

89 Herbert, Red Gold of Africa, 133–5.

90 Nationaal Archief, The Hague (NA), Oude West Indische Compagnie (OWIC), Inventarisnummer 47, 22 Nov. 1652 and Apr. 1653.

91 A. F. C. Ryder, Benin and the Europeans, 1485–1897 (Harlow, 1969), 53.

92 On the growth of iron bars as a currency on the Gold Coast in the mid-1640s, see Ratelband, Vijf Dagregisters, 239–40.

93 NA OWIC, Inventarisnummer 11, no. 92 – 10,0000 pieces of ordinary lijwaet cloth were imported to a value of 35,625 florins, as against 7,000 iron bars to a value of 21,000 florins; another ship of the same year imported 80,000 pieces of cloth to a value of 28,500 florins and 6,000 iron bars to a value of 18,000 florins (NA OWIC, Inventarisnummer 11, no. 107). This valuation reveals that in terms of profits these changes matter, even though the weights of the relative metal exports from the Netherlands are not known.

94 M. Anguiano, Misiones Capuchinas en Africa: Vol. 1, la Misión del Congo (Madrid, 1950), 180; Ratelband, Vijf Dagregisters, 185.

95 NA OWIC, Inventarisnummer 47, 16 Oct. 1652.

96 Archivo General de las Indias, Seville (AGIS), Escribanía, 591A, Pieza 1, fol. 33r – Manuel de Ledesma on a 1634 trading voyage to Angola noted that his trade goods in Angola were worth more than usual (‘suçedio tener las dhas mercaderias mas balor que otras vezes’); AGIS, Pieza 5, fol. 157r – Manuel Rodriguez noted the same on a 1635 voyage to Upper Guinea (‘con las mercadurias que llevo Para el resgate hiço mas caudal de que presumio por tener como subieron mas baler en aquella occasion’).

97 Archivo General de la Nación, Lima (AGNL), So-Co, Caja 18, doc. 197, fols. 553r, 576r. See also Newson, L. A., ‘The slave trading accounts of Manoel Batista Peres, 1613–1619: Double–entry bookkeeping in cloth money’, Accounting History, 18:3 (2013), 343–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

98 For a good general discussion, see J. K. Thornton, The Kingdom of Kongo: Civil War and Transition, 1641–1718 (1983), 33. On the extent of the inflation, see W. G. R. Randles, L'Ancien Royaume du Congo: des Origines à la Fin du XIXe siècle (Paris, 1968), 137.

99 R. Law (ed.), The English in West Africa 1681–1683: The Local Correspondence of the Royal African Company of England (Oxford, 1997), 223.

100 A. Van Dantzig, The Dutch and the Guinea Coast 1674–1742: A Collection of Documents from the General State Archives at The Hague (Accra, 1978), 27, 111. On cowries on the Slave Coast, see also Law, The Slave Coast, 50–4.

101 Law, The English in West Africa 1681–1683, 223.

102 Van Dantzig, The Dutch and the Guinea Coast, 27, 111.

103 Inikori, ‘Africa and the globalization process’.

104 Austin, G., ‘Factor markets in Niebohr conditions: pre-colonial West Africa, c. 1500-–c. 1900’, Continuity and Change, 24:1 (2009), 23–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The view of an abundance of land in West Africa is however challenged in a new work by Assan Sarr – see Sarr, Islam, Power, and Dependency in West Africa: The Politics of Land Control in the Gambia River Basin, c. 1790s –1940s (Rochester, 2016, forthcoming).

105 Martin, ‘Power, cloth and currency on the Loango coast’, 7.

106 J. M. Postma, The Dutch in the Atlantic Slave Trade 1600–1815 (Cambridge, 1990), 60.

107 P. M. Martin, ‘The trade of Loango in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’, in J. E. Inikori (ed.), Forced Migration: The Impact of the Export Slave Trade on African Societies (London, 1982), 211.

108 Guyer, Marginal Gains, 4–5.

109 Ratelband, Vijf Dagregisters Appendix K.

110 Ibid. Appendix L.

111 G. Connah, The Archaeology of Benin: Excavations and Other Researches in and around Benin City, Nigeria (Oxford, 1975), 2.

112 Herbert, Red Gold, 301–2.

113 Ibid. 121.

114 A. Parreira, Economia e Sociedade em Angola na Época da Rainha Jinga (século XVII) (Lisbon, 1990), 55–6; on the ritual value of kola see discussion by Lovejoy, Caravans, and the description by F. L. Coelho in D. Peres (ed.), Duas Descrições Seiscentistas da Guiné de Francisco Lemos Coelho (Lisbon, 1990), 38. That kola was a unit of account in Upper Guinea emerges in accounts from the 1610s, where debts are held in kola – see AGNL, So-Co, Caja 18, doc, 197, fol. 314r: ‘e asim me ficaram mais de fora desta parsaria em mão de Ant[onio] rodrigez em hum conhecimento duzentos panos pretos de Cola que lhe vendi antes de fazer esta parsaria’.

115 Ogundiran, ‘Of small things remembered’.

116 Anonymous, The Golden Coast, or a Description of Guinney (London, 1665), 17.

117 Guyer, Marginal Gains, 66.

118 For Segu, oral literatures describe how ‘the cowrie throwers scattered cowries on the floor of a room and sat down to study them’ – D. C. Conrad, A State of Intrigue: The Epic of Bamana Segu According to Tayiru Banbera (Oxford, 1990), 111. Accounts of oral divination with cowries are frequent in Kaabu orature – see National Centre for Arts and Culture, Banjul, Research and Documentation Division, Transcribed Cassette 217C.

119 Conrad, State of Intrigue, 152.

120 Ogundiran, ‘Of small things remembered’.

121 Ratelband, Vijf Dagregisters, Appendix K.

122 AHU CU, São Tomé, Caixa 2, docs. 65, 99.

123 Moraes, À la Découverte, Volume II, 241.

124 Lovejoy, Caravans, 15.

125 Eltis, D. and Jennings, L., ‘Trade between Western Africa and the Atlantic world in the pre-colonial era’, American Historical Review, 93:4 (1988), 936–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; M. Klein, The Atlantic Slave Trade (Cambridge, 1999), 86; J. K. Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1680 (Cambridge, 1992), 44–53; Kriger, ‘Guinea-cloth’, 106, 122.

126 Lovejoy, Caravans, 11; Sündstrom, Exchange Economy, 21, 147; M. Candotti, ‘The Hausa textile industry: origins and development in the precolonial period’, in A. Haour and B. Rossi (eds.), Being and Becoming Hausa: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Leiden, 2010), 190–94.

127 Northrup, Trade Without Rulers, 169–70.

128 V. Lamb, Looms Past and Present: Around the Mediterranean and Elsewhere (Hertingfordbury, 2005), 261.

129 Kriger, ‘Guinea-cloth’, 122.

130 Lovejoy, ‘Interregional monetary flows’.

131 F. Bontinck (ed.), Brève Relation de la Fondation de la Mission des Frères Mineurs Capucins du Seraphique Père Saint François au Royaume de Congo, et des Particularités, Coutumes et Façons de Vivre des Habitants de ce Royaume (Louvain, 1964), 85.

132 A. C. da Montecuccolo, Istorica Descrizione de’ tre’ Regni Congo, Matamba, et Angola Situati Nelli’ Etiopia Inferiore Occidentale e delle Missioni Apostoliche Esercitatevi da Religiosi Capuccini (Bologna, 1687), 61.

133 R. J. Sparks, Where the Negroes are Masters: an African Port in the Era of the Slave Trade (Cambridge, MA, 2013), 157.

134 Connah, The Archaeology of Benin, 242; W. Bosman also suggested in 1705 that the population of Benin was smaller than in the surrounding areas – see W. Bosman, A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea: Divided into the Gold, the Slave and the Ivory Coasts (London, 1967), 430.

135 There were of course other contributory economic factors impoverishing Africa associated with the slave trade, which is something I am currently working on for another publication.