Description

Book Synopsis
This study examines the role of cowrie-shell money in West African trade, particularly the slave trade. Over a large part of West Africa they became the regular market currency, but then disappeared almost totally, except during the depression of the 1930s, and occasionally in the markets of remote frontier districts.

Table of Contents
Maps; Tables and chart; Preface; Introduction; 1. The cowrie; 2. The Maldive Islands; 3. The Portuguese domination; 4. The Dutch and English enter the trade (seventeenth century); 5. Prosperity for the cowrie commerce (eighteenth century); 6. Boom and slump for the cowrie trade (nineteenth century); 7. Collection, transport and distribution; 8. Cowries in Africa; 9. The cowrie as money: transport costs, values and inflation; 10. The last of the cowrie; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

The Shell Money of the Slave Trade

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    A Paperback by Jan Hogendorn, Marion Johnson

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      Publisher: Cambridge University Press
      Publication Date: 9/18/2003 12:00:00 AM
      ISBN13: 9780521541107, 978-0521541107
      ISBN10: 0521541107

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      This study examines the role of cowrie-shell money in West African trade, particularly the slave trade. Over a large part of West Africa they became the regular market currency, but then disappeared almost totally, except during the depression of the 1930s, and occasionally in the markets of remote frontier districts.

      Table of Contents
      Maps; Tables and chart; Preface; Introduction; 1. The cowrie; 2. The Maldive Islands; 3. The Portuguese domination; 4. The Dutch and English enter the trade (seventeenth century); 5. Prosperity for the cowrie commerce (eighteenth century); 6. Boom and slump for the cowrie trade (nineteenth century); 7. Collection, transport and distribution; 8. Cowries in Africa; 9. The cowrie as money: transport costs, values and inflation; 10. The last of the cowrie; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

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