“Here There Is No Gold Standard. Cows Are the Standard”. Multiple Currencies, Colonial Taxation and Monetary Transition in Upper Ghana (1896–1936)

Cristofaro analyses monetary practices in Upper Ghana to assess if the region transitioned to colonial currency in the first forty years of British colonial rule. Focusing on the inefficacy of the early taxation policies and revealing the actual use of British coins in the everyday commercial transactions, he demonstrates that the area never shifted to a single currency system. The chapter shows the ways Africans were able to adapt to colonial coinage and insert it in their economic life. From smuggling to agiotage and exploitation of exchanges rates, the author shows the role and use of nickel and silver coins in the African markets, concluding that traders and buyers embedded colonial coins among the other currencies, limiting in this way their circulation.