The Debt of a Nation by Tozer, Angela C.;

Long description:

You've got to speculate to accumulate. We apply that notion to individuals in pursuit of wealth, but what about countries? The Debt of a Nation is a comprehensive history of Canada's nineteenth-century public debt. Beginning in the 1820s, loans gave British North American governments access to unprecedented amounts of capital at low interest rates. The credit for such loans derived from colonial appropriation of Indigenous territories, and this process essentially created a market value for stolen land.

Angela Tozer explores the role of public debt financing in the consolidation of the settler state: Upper Canada's first public debt, issued as securities on the London Stock Exchange; the unique government land tenure of Prince Edward Island and attendant impact on Mi'kmaw homelands; and the purchase of Rupert's Land via a loan.

This history of the intimate relationship between public debt and colonization underscores the importance of the appropriation of Indigenous lands to global markets.

Table of Contents:

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Prologue: Debt and Land

Introduction: Racial Capital and Settler Public Credit

Part I: Public Debt and Colonialism

1 Colonial Reform: Political Economy, Labour, and Land Value

2 Wastelands: Indigenous Lands as ""Waste"" on the London Stock Exchange

Part II: Structural Indebtedness of the Settler State

3 Expansion Unbounded: Upper Canada and Public Debt Financing

4 The Island's Gambit: Mi'kmaw Territory and the Land Question

5 The New Canadian Empire: Imperial Credit and the Transfer of Sovereignty

Conclusion: Debt and Decolonization

Notes; Bibliography; Index