Before the Gold Standard: Alternative Currencies in West Africa

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Maritime Archaeology in West Africa", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Manillas and cowry shells served as alternative currencies in the trans-Atlantic trade in West Africa. Cowries are marine snails native to the Indian Ocean whose shells were brought into West Africa by trans-Saharan traders and adopted as an everyday alternative currency exchangeable for anything from food to slaves. Manillas are brass bracelets with lozenge shaped “feet” that were produced in Europe exclusively for use as currency to trade with West Africa for slaves or other trade goods. This paper examines manillas and cowries that are part of a larger assemblage from the Elmina Wreck discovered by Dr. Gregory Cook in 2003. The Elmina Wreck is a Dutch trading vessel assumed to be the Groeningen that wrecked off the coast of Elmina, Ghana before making port. The analysis of the Elmina Wreck assemblage of manillas and cowries will be the basis for a comparison of both terrestrial and maritime contemporary assemblages.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023   •
• Maritime Archaeology in West Africa

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow