The Gourd Standard
What gives money its value? These days money derives its worth by representing something else, like gold, silver, faith in the government or the data in blockchains . . . what ever that means. Other forms of money have intrinsic value, and people will pay for things with precious materials, like gold, silver . . . or squash.
Plant-based currencies are nothing new in the history of the world. The world’s first official currency was barley, used by the Sumerians back in 3,000 BC. From Ancient Rome to the Middle Ages, peppercorns preceded crude oil as “black gold,” and for centuries, cocoa beans were used as money by the Mayans and Aztecs of Mesoamerica before they were eventually accepted as currency in Europe. One of the most recent plant-based currencies, however, is Haiti’s use of gourds.
In 1804, after a long and bloody slave uprising, the island nation of Haiti officially declared its independence from France. At the helm of this new republic, starting in 1807, was the former slave and a prominent lieutenant in the uprising, Henri Christophe. This new president’s first and most serious problem: his country was completely bankrupt and had no currency. What did Haiti have of value that could be used as currency to stabilize the country’s economy? This is where the gourds come in.
Gourds were a daily necessity in Haitian society. The dried fruits were used to make all kinds of household utensils, including bowls, cups, plates, saucers and spoons. These utensils eventually wore out or broke and had to be replaced. In what turned out to be a clever move, Christophe confiscated all of the nations gourds and hoarded them as the nation’s “treasury,” putting an arbitrary value of 20 French sous on each fruit. He then bought up tons of coffee beans from the nation’s farmers, paying them with the highly sought-after gourds. The coffee beans were sold to foreign countries for gold. Over time, the nation amassed enough of the precious metal to back its currency and replace the squash-standard. Because most people would rather be paid in gold than gourds, this opened up Haiti to greater world-trade and brought economic stability.
This, of course, must have come as a great relief to the people of Haiti, whose wallets and purses had been irrevocably mangled from being stuffed with squash.
Brian Rutter, PhD, is the cofounder of Thing in a Pot Productions and a postdoctoral researcher in plant biology at Indiana University. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive our “Things About Things – Odd Facts About Plants” and video production tips in your inbox every month!
Works Cited:
Bradford, Ralph. “Gourds for Dollars.” fee.org, 1 August 1978, https://fee.org/articles/gourds-and-dollars/
Foulkes, Debbie. “Henry Christophe (1767 - 1820) King of Haiti.” forgottennewsmakers.com, 2011, https://forgottennewsmakers.com/2011/01/28/henry-christophe-1767-–-1820-king-of-haiti/
Gentle, P. "Cocoa as an Early form of Money in the Economic Sense: Satisfying Store of Value, Unit of Account and Medium of Exchange Requirements." (2021).
“Peppercorn: A Very Brief History.” thespiceacademy.com, 9 November 2017, https://thespiceacademy.com/peppercorn-very-brief-history/
Powell, Marvin. "Money in Mesopotamia." Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 39.3 (1996): 224-242.