Cowries, Gold and Copper Rods: The Materiality of Money in Pre-Colonial West African Trade

This article examines the materiality of money in pre-colonial West African trade through a comparative study of cowrie shells, gold and copper rods. Moving beyond abstractions of “primitive” currency, it explores how the physical properties, social meanings and circulation patterns of these objects shaped trading practices, power relations and spheres of exchange. Drawing on archaeological evidence, travellers’ accounts and recent historiography, the study argues that West Africa developed a sophisticated, plural monetary ecology in which different currencies occupied distinct yet overlapping roles: cowries as highly divisible small change in everyday markets; gold as a high-value medium for long-distance commerce, elite wealth and political authority; and copper rods and manillas as specialized media for socially marked payments such as bride wealth and major trade transactions. The article further shows how this heterogeneous system mediated West Africa’s insertion into trans-Saharan and Atlantic commercial networks, and how its material foundations conditioned the uneven transition to colonial coinage. By foregrounding the material and symbolic dimensions of money, the study challenges linear narratives of monetary evolution and highlights the enduring entanglement of economic, cultural and political value in West African histories of exchange.