Promise to Pay

An incisive account of the crucial role money played in the formation and development of British North America. Promise to Pay follows Americas first paper moneythe bills of credit of British North Americafrom its seventeenth-century origins as a means of war finance to its pivotal role in catalyzing the American Revolution. Katie A. Moore combs through treasury records, account books, and the bills themselves to tell a new story of moneys origins that challenges economic orthodoxy and mainstream histories. Promise to Pay shows how colonial governments imposed paper bills on settler communities through existing labor and kinship relations, their value secured by thousands of individual claims on the public pursedebtsand the states promise to take them back as payment for taxes owed. Born into a world of hierarchy and deference, early American money eroded old social ties and created new asymmetries of power, functioning simultaneously as a ticket to the world of goods, a lifeline for those on the margins, and a tool of imperial domination. Grounded in sustained engagement with scholarship from multiple disciplines, Promise to Pay breathes new life into old debates and offers an incisive account of the centrality of money in the politics and conflicts of empire, community, and everyday life.