The Role of the Wangara in the Economic Transformation of the Central Sudan in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries

1978 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul E. Lovejoy
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Economic Transformation ◽  
Textile Production ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Central Sudan ◽  
Monetary System ◽  
Major Turning Point ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Fifteenth ◽  
Combined Impact

The term ‘Wangara’ has most commonly been used to describe the gold merchants of ancient Mali and Ghana and has been equated with ‘Juula’ (Dyula). This article establishes another meaning for ‘Wangara’, as it has been used in the Central Sudan, particularly Hausaland. There the Wangara were descendants of merchants who were once connected with the Songhay Empire of the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Since the term is also used in Borgu to describe resident Muslim merchants in the Bariba states, it is postulated that the Wangara were once a Songhay-based commercial group which established diaspora communities in the Bariba and Hausa towns before the Songhay collapse of 1591. It is argued that these Wangara merchants were instrumental in the economic development of the Central Sudan in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They were not only associated with commerce but were involved in early leather and textile production and probably were responsible for the introduction of such new products as kola nuts and the spread of the Songhay monetary system, based on cowries and gold. The immigration of the Wangara came at a time when other economic changes were taking place in the Hausa cities and Borno. The combined impact of these developments were such as to mark the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as a major turning point in the economic history of the Central Sudan.

The Growth and Decline of Indigo Production in Colonial Brazil: A Study in Comparative Economic History

1965 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dauril Alden
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Global History ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
Limited Experience ◽  
Modern Chemical ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Colonial Brazil ◽  
Late Fifteenth ◽  
Indigo Production

Not long ago an authority on dyeing observed that “in the history of the dyeing industry indigo holds a unique place by reason of its irresistible rise to supremacy among dyestuffs and its equally rapid dethronement by the modern chemical colors. …” Among the sources of this once flourishing industry, one that has never been studied adequately is that of colonial Brazil. Commercial indigo production began there in the early 1760's, but after an impressive start the industry disappeared within less than two generations. Its beginnings occurred at a time when Portugal, like other imperial powers of that era, was seeking to diversify the agriculture of her colonies so as to make them more lucrative to the mother country. A study of the industry's brief tenure in Portugal's most important colony reveals some of the problems that confronted its planters, merchants, and royal officials as they attempted, with limited experience and inadequate supporting capital, to develop new sources of income during a period of keen international economic rivalry. The factors involved in the rise and decline of the Brazilian indigo industry can best be appreciated when it is examined as part of the global history of indigo production and trade between the late fifteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

The Shanghai Mint and Establishing a Silver Standard in China, 1920–1933

2020 ◽  
pp. 117-146
Author(s):  
Austin Dean
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Monetary Reform ◽  
Financial History ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Silver Standard ◽  
Physical Plant ◽  
Currency Reform ◽  
History Of ◽  
Technical Details

This chapter uses the story of the Shanghai Mint as a lens to examine the financial history of China in the 1920s and early 1930s to show how familiar events occurred in economic history. It reviews political and economic changes within China that influenced monetary reform on the last silver frontier. It also talks about the construction of the mint, which started in 1921 and produced coins in the spring of 1933. The chapter refers to China's movement from the warlord period of the late 1910s and early 1920s to the Nationalist period wherein the new government inherited the goals of currency reform from its predecessors and the half-finished physical plant of the Shanghai Mint. It looks at the history of the mint that connects small technical details to much larger political and economic issues, such as the types of coining equipment to be used and the design of coins.

The Economic History of South Africa before 1948

2021 ◽  
pp. 25-46
Author(s):  
Stefan Schirmer
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Racial Oppression ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Agricultural Communities ◽  
History Of ◽  
Huge Challenge

Starting from the time settled agricultural communities first emerged in South Africa, around 400, this chapter describes and analyses economic changes from the precolonial era, through the colonial period, into the first half of the twentieth century. It looks at how agriculture developed and how 19th century mineral discoveries changed the economy and ushered in the modern state. When accommodative spaces for socially engaged entrepreneurs expanded, so did the drivers of long-term economic change. Unfortunately, accommodations in the context of colonialism and racial oppression produced economically and socially destructive labour policies, drastically undermined the prospects for black commercial farmers, and produced segregated, unjust land allocations. The rise of manufacturing represented a huge challenge to the viability of this system, which created new political challenges and eventually resulted in the establishment of the Apartheid system in 1948.

Women's Work and Women's Property: Household Social Relations in the Maraka Textile Industry of the Nineteenth Century

1984 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Textile Industry ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
History Of ◽  
Atlantic Slave Trade ◽  
Islamic Militancy

A history of the Maraka textile industry provides a glimpse into the fitful and uneven social and economic changes taking place during the nineteenth century in the area of the Western Sudan that is now part of Mali. Although the major historical events of this period are well understood, historians know very little about the social and economic history of the West African interior. Exactly how the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, renewed Islamic militancy, and European territorial encroachment influenced African societies remains poorly understood. This is even more apparent for the Middle Niger valley, located near the geographical center of continental West Africa. Paradoxically, the gradual end of the Atlantic slave trade and the coincident expansion of the so-called legitimate trade in agricultural crops increased the use of slaves within Africa to meet demand for all types of African goods. The nineteenth century was thus an era of commodity production and market activity which was probably unparalleled in the history of West Africa prior to this period. The inhabitants of the Middle Niger participated in these changes, and this study describes what these changes meant to one group of African men and women.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document