From Cross-Cultural Credit to Colonial Debt

In this article I argue that in order to understand how empires expand, we must pay close attention to cross-cultural credit relationships on imperial margins. A fine-grained comparative analysis of two simultaneous financial crises in Madras and Canton during the late eighteenth century shows how voluntary and (initially) mutually beneficial financial transactions and fiduciary relationships could morph into something imperial, and how cross-cultural credit could be transformed into colonial debt. More specifically, my analysis demonstrates how a global network of British brokers and investors connecting Madras, Canton, and London used legal, diplomatic, and military means, exploiting imperial resources while concurrently lobbying British statesmen in London to enforce their contracts abroad. This article thus reveals the interplay between events, actors, and interests abroad and at home, and makes visible the process by which imperial engagement became amplified and relationships of power could change.

Colonialism · Debt · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Fiduciary · Order (exchange) · Political science · Power (physics) · Australian History and Society · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Finance · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Law

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