Banking on Slavery: Financing Southern Expansion in the Antebellum United States

"A tremendous accomplishment . . . Banking on Slavery sets the stage for new understandings of the history of capitalism and its relation to slavery." —Claire Priest, author of Credit Nation

It's now widely understood that the fullest expression of nineteenth-century American capitalism was found in the structures of chattel slavery. It's also understood that almost every other institution and aspect of life then was at least entangled with—and often profited from—slavery's perpetuation. Yet...