Latest / The Songhai Empire: Africa's Powerful Forgotten Kingdom — Fexingo History / The Songhai Imperial Currency That Never Existed
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Songhai's trade — the salt, the gold, the silent barter — but there's one thing I realised we never really addressed. Did the Songhai Empire mint its own coins? It's such a basic question, and the answer is surprisingly subtle. Luna: Wait — didn't they? I just assumed they had some kind of currency. Lucas: That's what I thought too. But the evidence is really thin. For an empire that controlled some of the richest trade routes in the medieval world, there's almost no archaeological or textual record of Songhai minting its own coins. And that's actually pretty telling. Luna: So what did they use instead? Just barter? Lucas: Partly, but it's more interesting than that. They had multiple forms of 'currency' — cowrie shells from the Maldives, gold dust they called tubal, salt bars from Taghaza and Taoudenni, and even cloth. But none of it was minted by the state. It's what economists call 'commodity money' — the thing itself has value. Lucas: Cowrie shells are fascinating. They were imported all the way from the Indian Ocean, through North Africa, and into the Sahel. They came in strings or bags, counted by number. And they were accepted across a huge region — from the Niger bend to the Hausa states. But they had problems: they were lightweight, easy to counterfeit with clay copies, and not great for big transactions. Luna: So for something like buying a slave or a camel, you'd need a ton of shells. Lucas: Exactly. That's where gold dust came in. The Songhai word for gold dust was tubal, and it was measured by weight using a small balance scale called a mithqal — which is actually the same word used for the Islamic gold dinar coin. The mithqal was a unit of weight, about 4.25 grams. So you'd have your gold dust in a little pouch, and you'd weigh it out for each transaction. This was the high-value currency of the empire. Luna: But they never actually stamped it into coins? That seems like a missed opportunity. Lucas: Well, there are a couple of records that suggest Askia Muhammad did mint a few coins. The historian al-Sa'di mentions something in the Tarikh al-Sudan, and there's a reference in the writings of al-Hasan al-Wazzan — you might know him as Leo Africanus. But the coins that have been found are extremely rare, and they seem to have been more ceremonial or used for specific purposes, not a standard imperial currency. Lucas: One reason might be that Songhai was a collection of very different economic zones. In the north, the Saharan trade used gold and salt bars. In the south, along the Niger, cowrie shells were common. In the agricultural heartland, barter for grain and livestock was normal. Trying to impose a single coinage across all that would have been incredibly difficult — and maybe unnecessary. Luna: Did the earlier Mali Empire mint coins? Mansa Musa was so rich, you'd think he would have. Lucas: That's the thing: neither did Mali. There's no evidence the Mali Empire minted coins either. Mansa Musa brought back gold from his famous hajj, but he didn't set up a mint. In fact, the only pre-colonial West African mint that we know of was in the Hausa city-state of Kano, much later, in the 18th century. So Songhai wasn't an exception — it was the norm. Luna: But didn't they use the Almoravid dinar? I feel like I've heard about that. Lucas: Absolutely. The Almoravid gold dinar, minted in North Africa and Spain, circulated widely in the trans-Saharan trade. It was trusted because it was pure gold and had a consistent weight. But it was used by merchants for long-distance trade, not by ordinary people in local markets. In Gao and Timbuktu, you'd find merchants counting dinars, but at the village level, you'd be paying with cowries or salt. Lucas: And there's another layer: the Songhai state actually collected taxes and tribute in kind. They took grain, livestock, cloth, and slaves — not coins. So the whole administrative system was built around commodity payments. Even the military was paid with booty and land grants, not a salary in coins. So the absence of a mint wasn't a failure — it was a choice that fit their economy. Luna: So when the Saadians invaded with their arquebuses and their own coinage, that must have really disrupted things. Lucas: It did. The Saadian expedition led by Judar Pasha brought Spanish silver coins — reales — and Moroccan gold dinars. After the Battle of Tondibi in 1591, the Saadian Pashalik of Timbuktu tried to impose a cash economy. They paid their troops in coins, demanded taxes in silver, and that actually caused inflation and resentment. Local traders had to adapt, and the old cowrie-and-gold-dust system started to break down. Lucas: But here's the irony: even after the Saadian conquest, cowrie shells continued to be used in the interior for centuries. The British and French later imported millions of cowries from the Indian Ocean to pay for slaves and palm oil. So the shell currency outlasted both the Songhai Empire and the Saadian occupation. Luna: That's wild. So the lack of a Songhai coin isn't a gap — it's actually a clue about how the whole economy worked. Lucas: Exactly. It shows us that Songhai was a vast, decentralised empire where the state didn't need a monopoly on currency. The economy was flexible, diverse, and based on trust in the commodities themselves. And that's a really different way of thinking about power and wealth than the European or Chinese model.