Racial Capital, Public Debt, and the Appropriation of Epekwitk, 1853–1873
This article argues that public debt financing facilitated the appropriation of the territories of Indigenous nations in the British settler colonies and does so through a detailed examination of Prince Edward Island’s public debt. The island’s government used public debt financing as a technique to...
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University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress)
2023
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/jcs-2022-0009 https://utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/jcs-2022-0009 |
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crunivtoronpr:10.3138/jcs-2022-0009 2023-12-31T10:09:16+01:00 Racial Capital, Public Debt, and the Appropriation of Epekwitk, 1853–1873 Tozer, Angela 2023 http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/jcs-2022-0009 https://utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/jcs-2022-0009 en eng University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) Journal of Canadian Studies volume 57, issue 2, page 233-254 ISSN 0021-9495 1911-0251 History Cultural Studies journal-article 2023 crunivtoronpr https://doi.org/10.3138/jcs-2022-0009 2023-12-01T08:18:27Z This article argues that public debt financing facilitated the appropriation of the territories of Indigenous nations in the British settler colonies and does so through a detailed examination of Prince Edward Island’s public debt. The island’s government used public debt financing as a technique to direct capital into the colony, but to receive loans, the colonial government first needed credit. Settler-colonial credit derived from colonial governments’ claiming the territories of Indigenous nations as government assets. This history highlights the deeply racial characteristics embedded in the expansion of global public debt financing that characterized finance capitalism beginning in the 1820s. In this way, the unique history of the island and its “land question” can be placed into the broader global context of debt markets and processes of racial capital. Specifically, the 1853 Land Purchase Act used public borrowing to purchase lands from British landowners so that the island’s government could hold the land title. British landowners had their ownership rights secured despite the eighteenth-century Peace and Friendship Treaties that guaranteed the Mi’kmaq nation rights to their territory, which included Epekwitk, what the British named Prince Edward Island. Article in Journal/Newspaper Mi’kmaq Prince Edward Island University of Toronto Press (U Toronto Press - via Crossref) Journal of Canadian Studies 57 2 233 254 |
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Open Polar |
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University of Toronto Press (U Toronto Press - via Crossref) |
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crunivtoronpr |
language |
English |
topic |
History Cultural Studies |
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History Cultural Studies Tozer, Angela Racial Capital, Public Debt, and the Appropriation of Epekwitk, 1853–1873 |
topic_facet |
History Cultural Studies |
description |
This article argues that public debt financing facilitated the appropriation of the territories of Indigenous nations in the British settler colonies and does so through a detailed examination of Prince Edward Island’s public debt. The island’s government used public debt financing as a technique to direct capital into the colony, but to receive loans, the colonial government first needed credit. Settler-colonial credit derived from colonial governments’ claiming the territories of Indigenous nations as government assets. This history highlights the deeply racial characteristics embedded in the expansion of global public debt financing that characterized finance capitalism beginning in the 1820s. In this way, the unique history of the island and its “land question” can be placed into the broader global context of debt markets and processes of racial capital. Specifically, the 1853 Land Purchase Act used public borrowing to purchase lands from British landowners so that the island’s government could hold the land title. British landowners had their ownership rights secured despite the eighteenth-century Peace and Friendship Treaties that guaranteed the Mi’kmaq nation rights to their territory, which included Epekwitk, what the British named Prince Edward Island. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Tozer, Angela |
author_facet |
Tozer, Angela |
author_sort |
Tozer, Angela |
title |
Racial Capital, Public Debt, and the Appropriation of Epekwitk, 1853–1873 |
title_short |
Racial Capital, Public Debt, and the Appropriation of Epekwitk, 1853–1873 |
title_full |
Racial Capital, Public Debt, and the Appropriation of Epekwitk, 1853–1873 |
title_fullStr |
Racial Capital, Public Debt, and the Appropriation of Epekwitk, 1853–1873 |
title_full_unstemmed |
Racial Capital, Public Debt, and the Appropriation of Epekwitk, 1853–1873 |
title_sort |
racial capital, public debt, and the appropriation of epekwitk, 1853–1873 |
publisher |
University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/jcs-2022-0009 https://utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/jcs-2022-0009 |
genre |
Mi’kmaq Prince Edward Island |
genre_facet |
Mi’kmaq Prince Edward Island |
op_source |
Journal of Canadian Studies volume 57, issue 2, page 233-254 ISSN 0021-9495 1911-0251 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3138/jcs-2022-0009 |
container_title |
Journal of Canadian Studies |
container_volume |
57 |
container_issue |
2 |
container_start_page |
233 |
op_container_end_page |
254 |
_version_ |
1786842317113524224 |