Horseshoe-shaped brass rings known as manillas functioned simultaneously as currency, adornment, and raw material for artistic production in the Kingdom of Benin and surrounding West African regions from the late 15th century until their official withdrawal from circulation in 1948. Portuguese traders introduced manillas to West Africa after establishing direct maritime contact with Benin in 1485, though indigenous copper bracelets imported through trans-Saharan trade networks had circulated for centuries prior to European contact. The standard manilla measured approximately 5 to 7 centimeters in width and height with thicknesses of 1 to 2 centimeters, weighing between 70 and 100 grams depending on type and manufacturer. The name derives from Portuguese "manilha" meaning hand-ring or bracelet, rendered in local languages as "okpoho" in Calabar, Efik, Annang, and Ibibio dialects, a term synonymous with money or brass. Recent geochemical analysis using lead isotope ratios and trace element composition confirmed that early Portuguese manillas were manufactured in the Rhineland region between Germany and Belgium, contradicting earlier assumptions attributing their origin to Britain or Flanders. British colonial authorities launched a major recall operation in 1948, purchasing approximately 32 million manillas against currency issued by the West African Currency Board, ending over 450 years of continuous use.
Material and Craftsmanship
Early Portuguese manillas, produced between the late 15th and mid-18th centuries and known as "tacoais" in written sources, consisted of leaded brass with compositions averaging 70 percent copper, variable zinc content derived from calamine ore, and intentionally high lead additions reaching 20 to 30 percent by weight. This specific alloy composition resulted from deliberate metallurgical choices rather than incidental impurities. The high lead content created an easy-flowing casting brass that reduced porosity and facilitated detailed mold filling, properties highly valued by African craftspeople who melted manillas down to cast sculptures, plaques, and other objects.
The manufacturing process occurred in the Rhineland mining region, where copper and zinc ores were extracted, smelted, and alloyed into brass. The Fugger family, German merchants based in Augsburg, received commissions from the Portuguese crown to supply massive quantities of manillas for West African trade. Documentary evidence from 1548 records the Portuguese king commissioning 432 tons of manillas, approximately 1.4 million individual bracelets, to be delivered over a three-year period. These contracts referred to the products as "messing ringe," brass rings, establishing clear connection between Rhineland production and West African distribution.
The casting process involved pouring molten brass into horseshoe-shaped molds, allowing the metal to cool, then finishing the pieces through filing and polishing. The characteristic form featured thick, penannular rings with slightly flared or hooked terminations at the open ends. The terminals, described in documentation as lozenge-shaped or diamond-form, interlocked when manillas were stacked for storage or transport. This design facilitated portability, enabled visual and tactile verification of authenticity, and allowed the objects to be worn as bracelets or anklets.
The surface characteristics varied according to production period and manufacturer. Early Portuguese tacoais displayed rough grey or reddish-brown surfaces resulting from oxidation during cooling. The thickness remained relatively uniform around each ring, though individual manillas showed variation in overall size and weight. Quality control focused on alloy composition rather than precise dimensional standardization, as African traders demonstrated particular preferences for specific types and rejected inferior examples by the hundreds when presented with substandard goods.
Birmingham manillas, manufactured in England beginning in the 18th century after British industries displaced Portuguese dominance in West African trade, exhibited different compositional characteristics. These later versions contained lower lead percentages, approximately 5 to 15 percent, with higher zinc content creating brighter, more golden-colored brass. The lead isotope signatures of Birmingham manillas matched ores from Cornwall and Wales rather than Rhineland sources, documenting the geographic shift in production centers accompanying changing political control of Atlantic commerce.
A transitional category called "popo" manillas, French in origin, displayed stylistic and compositional features intermediate between Portuguese tacoais and Birmingham types. These variations created complex marketplace dynamics where African traders differentiated between regional subtypes, named them according to local conventions, valued them differently, and accepted only preferred varieties in transactions.
The smallest manillas, manufactured in Birmingham specifically for slave trade operations and too small to wear as functional bracelets, represented cynical adaptation of material forms to maximize profit from human trafficking. These miniature versions allowed traders to claim payment of agreed-upon quantities while reducing actual metal transferred, a practice that contributed to inflation documented in historical records showing slave prices rising from 12 to 15 manillas in the 1490s to 50 manillas by 1522.
Form and Features
Manillas exhibited remarkable diversity in size, weight, composition, and decorative treatment despite sharing basic horseshoe configuration. The earliest Portuguese tacoais measured approximately 8 to 9 centimeters in width, substantially larger than 19th and 20th-century versions that might span only 3 to 4 centimeters. This size reduction over centuries reflected changing economic conditions, material availability, and evolving preferences among African traders and European manufacturers.
The cross-sectional profiles ranged from circular to oval to flattened rectangular depending on casting techniques and intended use. Thicker, heavier manillas served primarily as currency and wealth storage, their substantial weight precluding comfortable wear as ornaments. Lighter examples functioned genuinely as bracelets and anklets, blurring distinctions between money and adornment. Some wealthy individuals wore such quantities of manillas on arms and legs that the weight impeded movement, creating characteristic gaits that signaled prosperity and status.
The terminal treatments varied according to production tradition. Portuguese tacoais typically featured simple flared ends without elaborate decoration. Birmingham manillas sometimes displayed more refined finishing with beveled edges and polished terminals. Some examples incorporated decorative elements including incised patterns, raised ridges, or textural variations created during casting. The open gap between terminals measured approximately 1 to 3 centimeters, sufficient spacing to allow the rings to be slipped over wrists or ankles but narrow enough to prevent accidental loss during wear.
The patina developing on manillas through circulation and burial created distinctive surface characteristics valued by collectors and researchers. Copper oxidation produced green verdigris, while brass surfaces developed brownish or reddish tones. Manillas retrieved from shipwrecks or buried hoards showed encrustation with marine organisms or soil minerals, creating complex surface textures documenting their histories. Well-worn examples evidencing heavy circulation commanded premiums in numismatic markets due to authentication markers including wear patterns, casting flaws deliberately left uncorrected, and patination impossible to replicate artificially.
The weight variations among manilla types created different value categories within African economic systems. Heavy "king" and "queen" manillas, forged in Africa from imported examples or local copper sources, served high-value transactions including bride price payments, compensation for serious offenses, and purchases of expensive goods. Standard okpoho-type manillas handled ordinary market exchanges. The smallest popo manillas facilitated minor transactions alongside cowrie shells, which were valued at small fractions of manilla purchasing power.
Function and Use
Manillas functioned as general-purpose currency throughout coastal West Africa and Niger River regions from Calabar to Benin River, employed by indigenous groups including Hausa, Fulani, Igbo, Efik, and Ibibio for diverse transactions. Market purchases, bride price payments, fines, compensation to diviners, and burial offerings all involved manilla transfers. The versatility distinguishing manillas from special-purpose currencies limited to specific transaction types made them the first true general-purpose money known in West Africa, predating European coinage introduction by centuries.
In 1505 at Calabar, a slave could be purchased for 8 to 10 manillas, and an elephant tusk for one copper manilla. These exchange rates documented both the relative values Europeans assigned to different African commodities and the quantities of manillas flooding into regional economies. By 1522, inflation driven by massive imports estimated at 150,000 manillas annually had increased slave prices to approximately 50 manillas for a 16-year-old female. The Portuguese king attempted to limit this inflation by capping slave prices at 40 manillas, though enforcement proved difficult given competitive pressures from Dutch, English, and French traders entering West African commerce.
The integration of manillas into Atlantic slave trade operations created horrific human consequences. European slavers and traders used manillas as primary currency for purchasing enslaved Africans transported to Caribbean and American plantations. Dutch traders in 1688 bought slaves against payment in rough grey copper armlets that had to be very well made, otherwise Africans rejected them by the hundreds. This quality consciousness among African sellers demonstrated their metallurgical knowledge and refusal to accept inferior goods despite the moral catastrophe of participating in slave commerce.
Beyond their role as transaction medium, manillas served wealth storage and display functions. Individuals accumulated manillas as portable property convertible to other goods when needed. The metal's intrinsic value as raw material ensured manillas maintained purchasing power even as specific exchange rates fluctuated. Wealthy persons wore multiple manillas simultaneously, stacking heavy rings on arms and legs to visibly demonstrate prosperity. The movement restrictions created by wearing dozens of manillas transformed normal walking into distinctive, constrained gaits that became status markers.
Manillas participated in life-cycle ceremonies and religious practices. Bride price payments often required substantial manilla quantities, establishing economic foundations for marriages while transferring wealth between families. Upon death, manillas were hung over graves to show the deceased's wealth and social position. In the Degema area near Benin, women wore large manillas around their necks at funerals, later laying these objects on family shrines as permanent offerings to ancestral spirits. This transition from functional currency to sacred offering demonstrated how material objects moved between economic and religious spheres.
The most historically significant function of manillas in Benin Kingdom involved their conversion into raw material for bronze casting. African craftspeople melted down manillas, mixing the resulting brass with scrap metal to achieve desired alloy compositions, then cast the molten metal using lost-wax techniques to create commemorative heads, relief plaques, figurines, bells, and other objects now known collectively as Benin Bronzes. Recent scientific analysis comparing lead isotope ratios and trace element compositions confirmed that manillas provided the brass used in over 700 analyzed Benin artworks, proving the long-suspected connection between currency and sculpture.
This repurposing transformed objects of European manufacture into African masterpieces. The high lead content European metallurgists built into early Portuguese manillas, approximately 20 to 30 percent by weight, created brass that flowed easily when melted and filled molds completely, allowing Edo craftspeople to cast extraordinarily thin plaques measuring only 3 millimeters thick and achieve fine detail impossible with less fluid alloys. The irony of Europe's cheapest metal becoming raw material for West Africa's finest art demonstrates African metallurgical sophistication and artistic vision transcending the materials' commercial origins.
Cultural Context
The Kingdom of Benin occupied territories in what is now southwestern Nigeria, controlling trade routes connecting forest zones producing palm oil, pepper, ivory, and textiles to coastal ports where European ships anchored. The kingdom's political organization centered on the Oba, divine monarch whose authority derived from claimed descent from Oduduwa, mythical founder of Yoruba civilization. The court supported specialized craft guilds including the Igun Eronmwon brass casters, who maintained hereditary monopoly over metal sculpture production for royal patrons.
Portuguese contact beginning in 1485 transformed Benin's economy and material culture. The establishment of direct maritime trade provided unprecedented access to European manufactured goods including brass manillas, textiles, firearms, and other commodities exchanged for African products. This commerce enriched the kingdom while creating dependencies on imported materials that altered indigenous production systems and consumption patterns.
The relationship between Benin and the Atlantic slave trade remains contested among historians. Some evidence suggests the kingdom participated less extensively in slave trading than neighboring polities, instead focusing commerce on palm oil, ivory, textiles, and pepper. Benin's inland location, not directly accessible to ships involved in slave trafficking, combined with the kingdom's substantial natural resources and established industries, reduced dependence on slave exports relative to coastal kingdoms more integrated into Atlantic networks. However, Portuguese records document slave purchases in Benin using manilla currency, establishing that the kingdom participated in this commerce even if not to the extent of more slave-dependent economies.
The theological frameworks underlying Edo kingship and court ceremonialism required elaborate material culture including brass sculptures, ivory carvings, coral regalia, and other prestige objects. The annual Igue festival renewed the Oba's supernatural powers through sacrifice and ritual. Ancestral altars dedicated to deceased kings and queen mothers assembled commemorative heads, carved tusks, bells, and other brass objects into complex assemblages mediating between living and dead. The production of these ritual materials depended on imported brass, making manillas essential not merely to economic transactions but to religious practices sustaining royal authority.
The Igun Eronmwon guild's organization paralleled other specialized craft groups including ivory carvers, wood sculptors, and coral bead workers, all maintaining hereditary monopolies over production for royal patrons. Guild membership passed from fathers to sons within families, creating lineages of specialized knowledge transmitted across generations. This organizational structure ensured technical expertise continuity while positioning craftspeople under direct Oba control, preventing unauthorized production and reinforcing royal monopolies over prestige materials.
Discovery and Preservation
Unlike the commemorative heads, plaques, and sculptures cast from manillas that were looted during the 1897 British assault on Benin City, the manillas themselves remained in active circulation throughout West Africa until the mid-20th century. British colonial authorities attempted to introduce Western-style monetary systems beginning in the late 19th century, prohibiting manilla imports in 1902 unless authorized by colonial government. However, local populations continued using manillas for decades, resisting imposed currency systems and maintaining indigenous economic practices.
The 1948 recall operation represented the colonial government's final effort to eliminate manillas from circulation. Authorities offered to exchange manillas for notes and coins issued by the West African Currency Board, paying rates intended to approximate the brass's metal value rather than its purchasing power in local economies. Approximately 32 million manillas were collected during this campaign and presumably melted down, though some quantities remained in private hands as stored wealth or family heirlooms.
The scholarly investigation of manillas accelerated after the 1897 British expedition publicized Benin artistic achievements to European audiences. Early ethnographic collectors acquired examples for museums, recognizing their significance as currency forms and potential connections to bronze casting traditions. The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, the British Museum in London, and other institutions assembled manilla collections documenting typological variation, regional distribution, and compositional differences.
The archaeological recovery of manillas from shipwrecks provided crucial data for understanding Atlantic trade networks and metallurgical provenances. Five shipwrecks examined in recent research yielded 67 manillas for geochemical analysis. The earliest wreck, a Flemish trade ship chartered by Portuguese merchants from Lisbon and lost off Getaria in northern Spain around 1524, contained 313 manillas. A 17th-century vessel that sank in the Vigo estuary off northwest Spain held 156 manillas. The Dutch ship Groeningen, which exploded near Elmina Castle trading post in present-day Ghana in 1647, carried 636 manillas alongside brass basins, 3,800 glass beads, and cowrie shells.
Additional manillas recovered from a Cape Cod shipwreck and land sites in West Africa, Western Europe, and other locations provided comparative materials documenting production shifts over centuries. The lead isotope analysis conducted on these assemblages, comparing signatures with geochemical databases of European ore sources, identified Rhineland mines as primary suppliers for early Portuguese manillas, while later Birmingham examples showed Cornwall and Wales signatures. This scientific confirmation resolved longstanding debates about brass origins and established definitive connections between European metallurgy and African artistic production.
The contemporary market for manillas operates primarily among collectors of primitive currencies and ethnographic artifacts. Auction records document prices ranging from several hundred to over one thousand dollars for well-provenanced examples with clear typological identification and documented histories. Heavy wear patterns, authentic patination, and casting flaws deliberately left uncorrected serve as authentication markers commanding premium prices. Nineteenth-century Nigerian okpoho manillas and early Portuguese tacoais attract particular interest due to their historical significance and connection to Benin bronze casting.
The symbolic appearance of manillas on five-shilling banknotes issued by the Republic of Biafra in 1968 during the Nigerian Civil War demonstrated continuing cultural significance decades after official currency withdrawal. This iconographic choice referenced precolonial economic systems and indigenous monetary traditions as part of Biafran nationalist rhetoric asserting distinct identity separate from Nigerian federal structures.
Why It Matters
Benin brass manillas document the integration of West African economies into Atlantic trade networks from the late 15th century onwards, functioning simultaneously as currency, adornment, wealth storage, and raw material for artistic production across multiple cultural contexts. The recent scientific confirmation that early Portuguese manillas were manufactured in the Rhineland region of Germany establishes previously unknown connections between German mining and metallurgy, Portuguese Atlantic commerce, and African artistic achievement. The deliberate high-lead composition of Portuguese tacoais reflects metallurgical sophistication recognizing African craftspeople's needs for easy-flowing casting brass, demonstrating European awareness of and adaptation to indigenous technical requirements. The transformation of imported currency into Benin Bronzes through melting and recasting illustrates African artistic agency and metallurgical knowledge, creating masterworks from European raw materials that transcended their commercial origins. The extended use of manillas until 1948 despite colonial efforts to impose Western monetary systems demonstrates indigenous economic resilience and resistance to imposed currency reforms. The problematic role of manillas as primary medium facilitating Atlantic slave trade operations connects these objects to historical atrocities while simultaneously documenting African economic systems, technological capabilities, and artistic traditions that survived despite catastrophic violence and dispossession.