Caribbean “Credit Nations”: Consignment Economies in the British West Indies

Abstract

A central tenet of English property law has been the protection of land and the interests of potential interest holders in such land. For centuries, creditors could not reach land to satisfy debts either in the British Isles or in the colonies. Against this background, Claire Priest delineates how the British Parliament, in a series of deeply controversial moves culminating in the Debt Recovery Act of 1732, modernized law in the American colonies so that it privileged creditors. More specifically, the Debt Recovery Act made it possible for creditors of colonial debtors to execute debt judgments on real property as well as on enslaved people for the recovery of debts. Colonial governments in the American colonies, building on this legislative framework, also promoted innovations that would allow creditors to reach both land and slaves more easily. For example, several colonial statutes were passed to make clear that enslaved persons were property that could be utilized as collateral for loans, and also auctioned, in the event that debtors later defaulted.