Description: A fascinating examination of the activities of the joint-stock royal charter companies that established settlements in the British North American colonies and which were pivotal in shaping the political-economic transformation of early America and its capitalist evolution.
Brief description:
Heather Whiteside is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo, Ontario and Fellow at the Balsillie School of International Affairs.
Review Quotes: A vital, timely, complex, and insightful book which deftly weaves the threads property and jurisdiction, sovereignty and colonialism, corporate capital and accumulation to craft a foundational story of political economy that shapes so much of our current experience on both sides of the Canada/US border. A book of remarkable geographic scope and time depth, tracing how property is made and sovereignty exercised from diverse examples from historic Vancouver Island to modern-day metro Vancouver, New England to the Red River Colonies, and other places between. We come to understand how through the language of property (and its many distinct forms) that these Indigenous places have been transformed into something divisible and alienable, how land has become a speculative asset which launched capitalist states and markets, exploiting workers, and dispossessing Indigenous peoples. Whiteside's work is not just about history but helps us grasp the complex hybridity of the contemporary property regime that has grown across the continent, rooted in feudal land relations and now part of the tool kit of Indigenous peoples to reclaim, decolonize, and prosper in the future.--Brian Thom, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Victoria