“The Fruit of the Yazoo Compromise”: Mississippi Stock and the Panic of 1819

Abstract (Lang: English):

The Mississippi Stock contributed to the Panic of 1819 in Alabama by fueling speculation, funneling investment, inflating land prices, and swelling land debt. Centering the stock shows how the state’s economic crisis arose from a convergence of settler-colonial ideology and state-sponsored finance. Like the Panic it inflamed, the Mississippi Stock emerged from the interplay between public policy and private interests.