Money and Sovereignty in the Colonial Americas

This panel addresses the entangled monetary histories of colonial North America and Spanish America between the sixteenth and the early nineteenth centuries. The papers examine different forms of colonial-era money, ranging from silver in Potosí to paper bills in Massachusetts and fiduciary copper coins in Mexico. The panel incorporates diverse methodologies, including microeconomic, public finance, numismatic, and archival approaches to the study of money. The panelists hope to shed light on the commonalities and differences in how colonial Americans and their governments across the hemisphere addressed their monetary needs in the early modern era. Catalina Vizcarra (University of Vermont) will present a paper that employs a microeconomic approach to examine the Potosí and Lima mints’ output in Spanish Peru. Jane Knodell (University of Vermont) will present a paper on the monetary and fiscal tools that Massachusetts Bay Colony used to finance its war with the Narragansett nation. Jesse Kraft (The American Numismatic Society) will present a paper on the necessity of regional nomenclature for the successful circulation of Spanish-American coinage in the transition to the United States dollar. Andrew Konove (University of Texas at San Antonio) will present a paper on the significance of copper fractional currency for nation-state building and political sovereignty in Mexico during the country’s independence wars of the early nineteenth century.