Bankers and Empire : How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean

From the end of the nineteenth century until the onset of the Great Depression, Wall Street embarked on a stunning, unprecedented, and often bloody period of international expansion in the Caribbean. A host of financial entities sought to control banking, trade, and finance in the region. In the process, they not only trampled local sovereignty, grappled with domestic banking regulation, and backed US imperialism—but they also set the model for bad behavior by banks, visible still today. In Bankers and Empire , Peter James Hudson tells the provocative story of this period, taking a close look at both the institutions and individuals who defined this era of American capitalism in the West Indies. Whether in Wall Street minstrel shows or in dubious practices across the Caribbean, the behavior of the banks was deeply conditioned by bankers’ racial views and prejudices. Drawing deeply on a broad range of sources, Hudson reveals that the banks’ experimental practices and projects in the Caribbean often led to embarrassing failure, and, eventually, literal erasure from the archives. Bankers and Empire reconstructs the history of the expansion of Wall Street’s banking houses and financial institutions (including the precursors to Citigroup and JPMorganChase) into the Caribbean region (including Haiti, Cuba, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico) during a period stretching from the end of the nineteenth century until the onset of the Great Depression. The period represents an initial, exploratory era of the internationalization of US banking, and the Caribbean region was Wall Street’s laboratory for foreign expansion. As such, the period was marked by experimentation in the organizational and managerial apparatus of foreign banking, challenges to the legal orders governing the regulation of international trade and finance, and the development and training of a first cohort of international managers and bank officers. In addition, Bankers and Empire demonstrates that this history was as much one of race and culture as it was of economics and money: the putatively financial concerns of Wall Street were embedded in and understood through racist discourses and ideas of racial difference. The book argues that the history of US imperialism, Wall Street’s internationalization, and the development of finance capitalism was braided through the history of racial capitalism. Finally, while the early twentieth century history of Wall Street’s internationalization rode a euphoric wave of US nationalism and expansionism, in reality it was a period marked by its repeated failures. Corruption, military interventions and occupations, financial and economic crises, and Caribbean resistance to imperialism put a brake on Wall Street’s ambitions "From the end of the nineteenth century until the onset of the Great Depression, Wall Street embarked on a stunning, unprecedented, and often bloody period of international expansion in the Caribbean. The precursors to institutions like Citibank and JPMorgan Chase, as well as a host of long-gone and lesser-known financial entities, sought to push out their European rivals so that they could control banking, trade, and finance in the region. In the process, they not only trampled local sovereignty, grappled with domestic banking regulation, and backed US imperialism but they set the model for bad behavior by banks, visible still today. In Bankers and Empire, Peter James Hudson tells the provocative story of this period, taking a close look at both the institutions and individuals who defined this era of American capitalism in the West Indies. Whether in Wall Street minstrel shows or in dubious practices across the Caribbean, the behavior of the banks was deeply conditioned by bankers racial views and prejudices. Drawing deeply on a broad range of sources, Hudson reveals that the banks experimental practices and projects in the Caribbean often led to embarrassing failure, and eventually literal erasure from the archives. Bankers and Empire is a groundbreaking book, one which will force readers to think anew about the relationship between capitalism and race" -- Publisher's description Contents 8 Introduction / Dark Finance 10 One / Colonial Methods 27 Two / Rogue Bankers 63 Three / Financial Occupations 90 Four / Foreign Regulation 126 Five / American Expansion 159 Six / Imperial Government 186 Seven / Odious Debt 231 Conclusion / Racial Capitalism 262 Acknowledgments 286 Notes 290 Index 354 Introduction : Dark finance -- Colonialism's methods -- Rogue bankers -- The bankers' occupation -- Empire's regulation -- American expansion -- Imperial government -- Odious debt -- Conclusion : Racial capitalism's crisis