Commercial Sectors in the Economy of Nineteenth Century Central Sudan: The Trans-Saharan Trade and the Desert-Side Salt Trade

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Periodical article

Title:	Commercial Sectors in the Economy of Nineteenth Century Central Sudan: The Trans-Saharan Trade and the Desert-Side Salt Trade
Author:	Lovejoy, Paul E.
Year:	1984
Periodical:	African Economic History
Volume:	13
Pages:	85-116
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	West Africa Sahara
Subjects:	mercantile history History and Exploration Economics and Trade Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/3601480
Abstract:	This article compares the volume and value of the trans-Saharan trade between Tripoli and the Central Sudan with the desert-side salt trade of the Sokoto Caliphate and Borno in the nineteenth century. The export trade in slaves, ivory, ostrich feathers, and tanned skins, the most important exports from the Sokoto Caliphate and Borno, is used as an index of the commercial linkages between the Sokoto Caliphate and Borno economies and the trade world market, dominated by Europe. By contrast, the salt trade within the Central Sudan is used as an indicator of the scale and value of the regional economy, which the Sokoto Caliphate dominated. The data presented here clearly establish that the regional economy was far more important than the links with the outside world, even as late as 1900. Ref., tab.