Barter appears as the elementary form of exchange in the Western Sudan. The celebrated “silent trade,” in which gold was exchanged for salt, illustrates an early stage in the development of commerce. As markets expanded, essential commodities themselves became media of exchange, allowing communities to transact with goods that possessed recognized value.

At the eleventh-century commercial centre of Silla on the Senegal, the listed media included millet, salt, copper rings, and small strips of cotton. Salt functioned as currency at Gao, while copper served as currency in Kanem and Takeddа in the fourteenth century. Pieces of cloth were used as money in Zawila, in the Sus, on the Gambia, and in Kanem.

Gold occupied a different position within the wider commercial system. It was described as the standard currency of North Africa and as current money in the commercial centres of the southern Sahara and the Sahel. In eleventh-century Awdaghust, gold dust served as the medium of exchange, while Tadmekka used unstamped gold dinars; by the beginning of the sixteenth century, gold was currency in Jenne and Timbuktu, especially for larger transactions.

Local exchange also required instruments for purchases of lesser value. People in Jenne paid for food provisions with pieces of iron, while cowries served as small change in Timbuktu. The resulting system was plural rather than uniform: commodities circulated according to local practice, the scale of the transaction, and the commercial connections of each centre.