One Certain Standard”

Colonial Currencies and the Politics of Economic Knowledge in Late Stuart Britain

Dados Bibliográficos

ID10064441
AutoresMara Caden (0000-0002-0892-0800, Film Independent, autor correspondente)
Ano2024
Volume63
Fascículo4
Páginas836-862
Data de publicação2024-10-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of British Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0021-9371 • E-ISSN: 1545-6986
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/jbr.2024.119
OpenAlexW4404726995
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências citadas47

Chronic coin shortages plagued Ireland and Britain's American colonies throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Despite complaints, every proposal to mint money in early modern Britain's overseas Atlantic empire failed, whether in Ireland, the Caribbean, or North America. This article explains why. Although the rulers in the court and Parliament were sometimes enthusiastic about colonial mints, the Officers of the Royal Mint exercised enduring influence and managed to obstruct each of these projects. The evolution of the Mint officers’ advice into a maxim of monetary uniformity allowed the doctrine of “one certain standard” to survive the ensuing decades of upheaval as it shed its visible politics. While their advice grew out of the particular politics of the early Restoration, it gained special power and durability when it took on the character of technocratic expertise. Still, an investigation of the same actors’ treatment of a parallel issue—the rates of the foreign coins that circulated in colonies—reveals that an authoritarian style had an enduring hold on imperial monetary policy. This article offers an explanation for the British Empire's peculiar monetary geography, and also demonstrates the way that seemingly apolitical technical knowledge can disguise a potent politics

Archaeology · Colonial rule · Colonialism · Economic history · Economics · Political science · Politics · Australian History and Society · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Law