The colonial currency’s association with taxes drove local resistance to it

Evidence

Such authoritarian measures were not always successful in overcoming local resistance. There were many reasons why the local populations were reluctant to adopt the French currency. Not only did they struggle to become familiarised with the singularity of the calculation system, but the coins were hard to store due to their small size, and the poor quality banknotes resembled pieces of cloth. But it was above all the association of the colonial currency with taxes that caused its rejection, as the colonial administration demanded that the innumerable taxes that oppressed the colonised be regulated in this currency. — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 58

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Taxation in colonial currency was designed to force conversion to capitalism.; Colonial taxation chiefly aimed to force locals into the colonial capitalist system — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 58; Controlling currency was essential to the colonial appropriation of African riches — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 54 (+5 more)

Related

• Taxation in colonial currency was designed to force conversion to capitalism. (similarity 0.89)
• Controlling currency was essential to the colonial appropriation of African riches (similarity 0.88)
• Colonial taxation chiefly aimed to force locals into the colonial capitalist system (similarity 0.87)
• Former African colonies adopted national currencies upon independence. (similarity 0.83)
• Colonial-era monetary system survived into independence as four interlocked principles (similarity 0.81)
• France imposed its currency partly to counter English trading dominance (similarity 0.80)
• Currency arrangements can function as wealth-transfer mechanisms between societies. (similarity 0.80)
• Post-colonial monetary unions survived only in the franc zone and small dependencies (similarity 0.79)
• Currency arrangements can transfer wealth from colonies to metropolis (similarity 0.79)
• The colonial resource grab morphed into a neoliberal regime that maintained extraction mechanisms (similarity 0.79)
• Currency pegging institutionalized a principle of automaticity removing colonial control over exchange rates. (similarity 0.78)
• The currency was the core mechanism of French control despite formal sovereignty. (similarity 0.78)
• Precolonial Africa used diverse currencies where money was above all a social institution (similarity 0.78)
• France alone preserved its monetary empire after its African colonies gained independence (similarity 0.78)
• France uniquely maintained its currency in politically independent countries (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Colonial-era monetary system survived into independence as four interlocked principles #expands (0.45) — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 96