Salt used to be a currency
Story
There are many examples of food leading to a revolution or a war. One of the most famous is the Salt March led by Mahatma Gandhi.
In 1930, Gandhi started to protest how people in India were oppressed by the foreign British government. Indian people were for example, forced to buy expensive salt from Britain. Gandhi is known for saying: 'First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.'
Seventeen years after the Salt March, India was declared independent from British rule.
Facts
In ancient times, a person who was able to extract salt was very wealthy.
In the days when salt was a currency, you would say, “You are worth your salt,” to someone who did a job well.
The word “salary” was derived from the Latin word “salarium,” which means “salt money”.
Between the Asia and Africa continents, the Red Sea is a body of water that has so much salt in it that you just float in the water.
Big Picture
Long before there was money, people traded things to fulfill their needs. For example, a farmer who grew wheat had to negotiate with a meat farmer how much flour he would give him for a steak. This was complicated because it required both farmers to have their goods ready to trade whenever one needed something from the other.
Then people started using things that had some value for trading into goods — salt, for example, or beads, shells or silver. Even this proved to be too complicated, so they used silver coins.
Today, money doesn’t have a physical value. It is based on the trust in a country’s economy.
