Money, often portrayed as a straightforward representation of market
value, is also a political force, a technology for remaking space and
population. This was especially true in nineteenth- and
twentieth-century Canada, where money - in many forms - provided an
effective means of disseminating colonial social values, laying claim to
national space, and disciplining colonized peoples. Colonialism's
Currency analyzes the historical experiences and interactions of three
distinct First Nations - the Wendat of Wendake, the Innu of
Mashteuiatsh, and the Moose Factory Cree - with monetary forms and
practices created by colonial powers. Whether treaty payments and
welfare provisions such as the paper vouchers favoured by the Department
of Indian Affairs, the Canadian Dominion's standardized paper notes, or
the "made beaver" (the Hudson's Bay Company's money of account), each
monetary form allowed the state to communicate and enforce political,
economic, and cultural sovereignty over Indigenous peoples and their
lands. Surveying a range of historical cases, Brian Gettler shows how
currency simultaneously placed First Nations beyond the bounds of
settler society while justifying colonial interventions in their
communities. Testifying to the destructive and the legitimizing power of
money, Colonialism's Currency is an intriguing exploration of the
complex relationship between First Nations and the state.