Making value, moving goods
Production close to home
Kongo's economy included farmers, potters, metalworkers, and weavers alongside merchants. Regional trade moved copper, salt, ivory, and other products. Nzimbu shells served as a medium of exchange and a way to measure value. Money therefore need not mean minted coins: locally recognized materials helped people compare goods and pay for labor within established commercial networks. [54]
Cloth as accumulated labor
Raffia textiles turned a local plant into portable wealth through considerable skill and time. Fine weaving circulated within a wider Central African economy, including exchange farther south. Diplomatic presentation cloths also crossed the Atlantic-facing routes to European collections. Their survival highlights luxury objects, but those collections should not be mistaken for a complete sample of what everyone wore or used in everyday exchange. [59]
The human cost of Atlantic demand
Afonso's 1526 complaint describes people kidnapped and sold because traders and local participants wanted imported merchandise. It also links uncontrolled trade to the loss of royal leverage. The letter gives a contemporary African account of that harm, although its author speaks from the position of a monarch. His protest should not be treated as a complete account of slavery in Kongo or of the interests of every participant. Commercial growth could enrich some people while destroying the security and freedom of others. [55]