This is an Ohio Seminar in Early American History & Culture event.
Aidan Collins, PhD, is a Lecturer in Early Modern History at Newcastle University.
Abstract:
Debt and morality go hand in hand. The notion ‘one has to repay one’s debts’ is not an economic statement, but a moral judgement. The ways in which these judgements are made in relation to social and cultural norms — both in the past and in the present — remains unclear. This paper will provide the preliminary findings of the first stage of a larger research project which focuses on the conceptualisation of debt in early modern America. By analysing commercial cases litigated in the New York court of Chancery, the paper will reveal the criteria used by early modern people to judge what they deemed to be respectable and credible actions when repaying debts on the one hand, and fraudulent and criminal activity on the other. By paying close attention to the changes in narrative which occur through the different stages of the legal process, the paper will demonstrate how the language surrounding debt came to rely not just on an understanding of economic stability, but on a combination of social, community, and religious values of the period. As the concept of debt is undoubtedly one of the great topics of contemporary society, the paper will provide new evidence of the language of credit, debt, and failure inherited by modern American — and even Western — society. Ultimately, this will provide lessons from the past and will have wider ramifications for how we treat indebtedness in modern society, allowing us to remove aspects of shame and the stigma surrounding debt and debt recovery.
