BY the twentieth century, the southern Yoruba town of Abeokuta was integrated into the international economy both as an exporter of cash crops and an importer of manufactured products. It became one of the primary producing areas of cocoa and kola nuts in western Nigeria. Abeokuta's integration into the international economy had a profound effect on its local textile industry. As weavers gained access to European threads and dyers gained access to European cloth, relations of production were transformed. Both sets of producers became dependent on European trading firms for their raw materials and were thus brought squarely into the nexus of international trade. Dyeing, which was predominantly a women's industry, benefited substantially from this economic relationship. Dyers' access to cloth as well as credit from the European firms allowed them to become autonomous producers of tie-dyed cloth, adire, that was in great demand across Nigeria, the Gold Coast, Senegal and the Belgian Congo.