Shell Money as the Original Currency in the American Colonies

This guest post was authored by 2024 Junior Fellow Kelsey Moore, a University of North Carolina at Greensboro graduate, with a B.A. in Spanish and B.S. in Information Science. Kelsey is continuing her studies at UNCG in the MLIS program.

While currency has faced many developments and changes over time, in even the earliest known civilizations people attributed value to materials they could use to exchange for other goods. Items of value that acted as currency varied from salt and gold to animal furs and stamped leather. In the case of many Native Americans, trade was facilitated with the use of shell money. They turned the shells of their regions into strings of beads, which the Algonquin called wampumpeag. Broken down, the word wampumpeag is the plural form (ag) of describing something white (wamp) that has been strung on a cord (umpe). As trade between the Native Americans and European colonists grew, this currency became referred to as wampum.

When going through the pamphlet collection that the Library received from the American Bankers Association for my project as a Junior Fellow, I found that the collection holds many treasures on banking history. These included two pamphlets on North American shell money, which circulated before the rise of silver and gold in the colonies. Ethno-Conchology – A Study of Primitive Money is one that highlights the types of shells found along the coasts of North America while sharing how tribes crafted them into wampum and the purposes for trading shells across regions.

“Indian Money as a Factor in New England Civilization,” a paper presented to the Historical and Political Science Association of Johns Hopkins University, is also found in the collection and gives insight into the perceptions and responses of the colonists to Native American shell money as it became incorporated into trade within the colonies, eventually creating a legal form of currency to back the beginnings of paper money. This paper states that from 1627 to 1661, New England regarded wampum as legal tender for payments of up to ten pounds.

Along with the pamphlet collection, newspaper articles from Chronicling America played a key role in my research on shell money. One article explains that wampum in North America was made from shells such as the quahaug or the common periwinkle. Though the shells used to make wampum were not incredibly rare, their value came from the laborious process of drilling holes in the shells with stone awls to string them as beads. In addition, the colors of the shells determined their value, making some more highly sought after. When shells were cut into pieces to create beads, they were divided into white and black money. Black wampum, which came from the purple outer rim of quahaug shells, was considered twice as valuable as white wampum. For example, when white wampum shells were legally six to a penny in 1641, the purple pieces would have been three to a penny. Additionally, a “fathom” of wampum beads was worth 5 shillings, which could be measured by comparing the length of a string to the length of one’s arms

While colonists benefitted from having wampum as legal tender for trading and paying taxes and fines, wampum was recognized as more than mere currency by the Native Americans. It marked a crucial part of their lives by its presence in ceremonial traditions for the establishment of treaties and for marriage. In addition to strings of beads, Native Americans crafted wampum into belts to tell the stories of significant moments, such as wars or the creation of treaties between tribes. Similar to how wampum was used to pay fines in the colonies, Native Americans gifted wampum belts to the victimized parties of crimes to display the gravity of their apologies. Just as Native Americans adorned themselves with wampum in life, they also wore wampum in burials to ensure their spirits could tip the deities on their journey into the afterlife.

Unfortunately, like money today, the valuation of wampum fluctuated throughout the years. When the beaver market plummeted in Europe, the value of wampum followed. Once a prized form of currency, wampum faced many factors that led to its downfall. When colonists began to mint wampum, they introduced new tools and machinery that cheapened the production of wampum by creating standardized, polished shells. Counterfeit wampum also flooded the market as colonists attempted to pass wood, glass, horn, and bone as currency. Soon, with the increase in the availability of precious metals, the colonies lost their interest in collecting the depreciated wampum as currency. The use of wampum may have carried on beyond the end of its role as legal tender in the colonies, but by the start of the twentieth century, wampum was no longer acknowledged for its precedent to the formation of U.S. currency.

Learn More about Early Currency in America:

Visit the Library of Congress research guides on the History of Money or Banking in Colonial America to find out more about currency in its earliest stages.

Find the linked newspaper articles at Chronicling America, the free Library of Congress online resource of digitized newspapers from 1789-1963. Using the search terms “Wampum” and “Shell Money” will provide additional articles covering this topic! (The Chronicling America historic newspapers online collection is a product of the National Digital Newspaper Program and jointly sponsored by the Library and the National Endowment for the Humanities.)

For Additional Reading

Shell Game: A True Account of Beads and Money in North America by Jerry Martien, San Francisco: Mercury House, c1996.

Wampum, War, and Trade Goods, West of the Hudson by Gilbert W. Hagerty, Interlaken, N.Y.: Heart of the Lakes Pub., 1985, c1984.

The Functions of Wampum Among the Eastern Algonkian by Frank G. Speck, Lancaster, Pa., American Anthropological Association, 1919.

Wampum Belts of the Iroquois by Tehanetorens, Summertown, Tennessee: Book Pub., 1999.

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