Banknotes, bookkeeping barter, and cloth money: Conversions of “special‐purpose money” in the cloth and dammar trade of Sulawesi, Indonesia, 1860–1905

Abstract

The trade in cotton cloth and dammar in late nineteenth‐century Sulawesi passed through three distinct exchange spheres mediated by barter. The highland end users transformed European‐made cloth into a special‐purpose money like the classic case of brass rods among the Tiv. In contrast to Bohannon's treatment of the Tiv, I set the highlanders' use of cloth money in the same analytic frame as the money of European trading companies and their local intermediaries. Each of these three exchange spheres utilized a different special‐purpose money, each of which performed only a few of the functions of general‐purpose money. European traders utilized “financial paper” as a “means of exchange” with European partners. They utilized a system of “bookkeeping barter” to manage the trade with their local intermediaries, where money now served as a “standard of value” and “unit of account.” Lastly, the highlanders utilized the cotton cloth they bartered for dammar as a “means of payment” but not as a “means of exchange.” By examining the terms by which money was socially embedded in all three exchange spheres, we gain an alternate perspective on the creation of many of the classic “social currencies” emerging out of early international trade networks.