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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Economy within an Economy: The Manilla Currency, Exchange Rate Instability and Social Conditions in South-Eastern Nigeria, 1900-1948
Author:Naanen, BenISNI
Year:1993
Periodical:The Journal of African History
Volume:34
Issue:3
Pages:425-446
Language:English
Geographic terms:Nigeria
Great Britain
Subjects:colonialism
money
currencies
Economics and Trade
History and Exploration
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/183101
Abstract:When British currency was introduced in southeastern Nigeria in 1901, the inability of the colonial authorities to put into circulation adequate supplies of British coins, coupled with historically entrenched use of traditional currencies, compelled the colonial State to recognize the latter as legal tender. However, the continuing circulation of these currencies alongside British coins created financial and economic difficulties, causing the colonial State to adopt a number of legislative measures to eradicate them. While other traditional currencies capitulated to these measures, the manilla continued to be popular. However, the constantly fluctuating exchange rate of the manilla generated discontent. These fluctuations, which were caused primarily by the gyrations of the world market, have remained, until now, unidentified causal links in the social uprisings which occurred in southeastern Nigeria from the 1920s to the 1940s. Intensified political tension in the 1940s, as well as the existing obstacles to trade and smooth collection of taxes (also caused by unabating manilla fluctuations), made the demonetization of the manilla through redemption inevitable in 1948. With the elimination of the manilla the colonial State's economic control of Nigeria can be said to have been completed. Notes, ref., sum.
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