A200, History of American Capitalisms

So far we have interrogated some key terms in the history of American capitalisms, starting with the term “capitalism” itself, along with the term “the economy” and the term “free market.”  All of these terms were inventions of the early to mid 20th century:  “capitalism” as a rhetorical contrast to the Russian Revolution, “the economy” as a bid for expertise in response to the Great Depression, and the “free market” as an effort by big business to influence government policy and cultural assumptions.  One can see the constructed and myopic nature of these shorthand concepts in their disinclination to account for housework as an economic function, and also in the pre-consumerism and anti-consumerist imperative to make rather than buy things.

This week we will be turning ourselves to the early 19th century, and the American imperial project of conquering the North American continent, with the helping hand of vital, albeit destructive economic techniques.  Historians have recently begun conducting research to uncover the many connections between “capitalism” and the dispossession of Native Americans in 19th-century American history.  Follow the money, is the classic mantra.  Many historians have examined the role of civilian and military bureaucracies that orchestrated this sustained and massive displacement and dispossession of indigenous Americans across the 19th century, but how was the dispossession paid for?  One must ask a preliminary question:  what required paying for, in order to accomplish the task?  In other words, what was required to dispossess so many different groups of people off so much land, over so many years — and how was it paid for, over so many years?

Claudio Saunt and Robert Lee each focus on crucial elements of “capitalism”:  capital investment and financing.  Other forms of “capitalism,” such as arrant land grabbing, pre-dated the many financial innovations characterizing the 19th century.  Saunt and Lee follow the money — the sinews created by financial instruments — through their many locations, spanning Britain and the United States, the North and the South, whites and indigenous Americans.