Paying in Cents, Paying in Rupees. Colonial Currencies, Labour Relations, and the Payment of Wages in Early Colonial Kenya

This chapter focuses on labour relations and the payment of wages in early colonial Kenya. It looks at how colonial money was obtained, saved, and spent by African labourers, and it argues that the circulation and use of di ferent currency denominations was connected to the rhythms of wage and tax payments. The chapter contends that the supply of labourers in the early colonial period was partly determined by the type of currency denominations in which labour was paid and by the ways in which cash earned through waged work was used.The chapter is based on primary sources from the Kenya National Archives, Nairobi, The National Archives, London and the Government Publications Section, London School of Economics.