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Paper short abstract:

This paper seeks to investigate the integration of British Somaliland into imperial monetary arrangements and to better understand its fiscal role in the Empire. It seeks to better understand the ways in which imperial policy related to finance affected or influenced trade, commerce, and economics.

Paper long abstract:

Little to nothing has been written on the monetary policy or the currency regimes of British Somaliland, ruled as a protectorate from 1886-1960. A peripheral part of the Empire for much of its history, it was intially tied into the Rupee complex extending from india for much of the 19th century, and later brought into the East African Currency board after World War II. Imperial monetary structures and logics underwent a profound series of transformations over this period, and the effects of this on Britains more peripheral colonies is insufficently understood. This paper seeks to investigate a series of questions about how British Somaliland was ruled and integrated into imperial monetary strucutures. For example, what currencies circulated prior to imperial rule and what was the nature of Somalilands regional economic integration? How did the entrance of empire affect the flow of finance and exisiting currency regimes? What was the role of the Gold Standard or the Treasury in dictating monetary policy for the colony? Looking at the role of Empire in the adminsitration and exercise of finance in its imperial periphery is an important and underlooked aspect of imperial history, and one which we should be ready to engage more fully in.