![]() The Pice was the common unit of exchange giving rise to the word “Pesa”. The use of these rupees inland was noted by the different communities, introducing words into their languages for currency. The construction, largely the work of Indian labour meant familiarity with the use of rupee coins and notes. Penetration of coins and notes only started when construction of the railway commenced in Mombasa in May, 1896, to reach Port Florence – present day Kisumu – in December, 1901. The Indian Rupees and some of the IBEA fractional coins that were silver were still in use and hence easily exchanged with equivalent Indian coins of the same denomination (given weight and fitness). A single coin, the copper Pice was minted and was the only piece of currency to bear the name East Africa Protectorate and unlike the Imperial British East Africa (IBEA) coinage which used Latin on the face. However, IBEA went bankrupt resulting in the Foreign Office taking responsibility of the area. They then issued the Pice, Rupees and Annas as the currency of the region. The British chartered company, the Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEA), got the concession to trade in the area referred to as Kenya today. These two silver coins were of the same quality but of different weights hence the exchange rate was determined by the quantity of silver in each. By the 1860s, sailing ships from the relatively recently independent United States of America started to frequent Zanzibar, bringing not only a coarse cloth (merikani) as a commodity but also using the United States Silver dollar.Īround the same period, the silver rupee minted by the British East India Company (1600-1858) was increasingly being used along the Indian Ocean coast as the monsoon-dependent dhow trade with India expanded. In Muscat, they used a silver coin called the Maria Theresa Thaler (MT$), first minted in Austria in 1741 and, not surprisingly, they continued using it when the Sultanate moved to Zanzibar in 1832. In fact, by 1902 the half-cent coin was introduced to replace the cowrie (nsimbi), which had been used in Uganda.Įarly use of currency in Kenya commenced with the Arab influence who were among the first to use currency as we know it. Proto currencies were a pre-cursor to formal currencies and they were easily portable and divisible, while their utility (largely associated with ornaments) ensured that they were widely acceptable. It was an advancement of the barter trading system which already had its challenges of sub-division. The use of proto currencies such as cowrie shells (Cypraea Moneta), cloth, wire and beads in the hinterland began to form a key component of money for exchange during the early periods. The lack of common currency facilitated the growth of barter, with communities exchanging what they needed with what they already had in surplus. But, with no clear form of measuring how much a good was worth in exchange of another, the upper hand was left to the trader that was least in need. ![]() Various trade routes were born linking the different communities and creating new demand and supply chains for various products from the different regions. Clothes, ivory and beads were popular items of trade among East African communities. Goods from the coast and the Indian Ocean were exchanged for rice, millet and bananas for local consumption while rock crystal, ivory, and rhinoceros horn were shipped overseas. Through these special caravans, the exchange of ivory, salt and iron boomed. Trade caravans which came when the Arabs landed at the coastal towns of Kenya and Tanzania, created long distance trade channels for exchange. Close communities in Kenya exchanged pastoral and agricultural commodities. The African economy as a whole, traded by exchange of goods and services under the Barter trade system. Barter trade was one of the primary forms of trade during these early periods. These items found in archaeological sites have helped historians and anthropologists to map out the early trade economies and identify the extent of contact between various communities. Various items have surfaced from archaeological findings that have shown a thriving trade culture existed in the past. Before the onset of the modern day currency, Kenya’s communities traded and exchanged goods and services, one to another or using intermediaries that had been accepted for trade.
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