From the end of the nineteenth century until the onset of the Great
Depression, Wall Street embarked on a stunning, unprecedented, and
often bloody period of international expansion in the Caribbean. A
host of financial entities sought to control banking, trade, and
finance in the region. In the process, they not only trampled local
sovereignty, grappled with domestic banking regulation, and backed US
imperialism—but they also set the model for bad behavior by banks,
visible still today. In Bankers and Empire, Peter James Hudson
tells the provocative story of this period, taking a close look at
both the institutions and individuals who defined this era of
American capitalism in the West Indies. Whether in Wall Street
minstrel shows or in dubious practices across the Caribbean, the
behavior of the banks was deeply conditioned by bankers’ racial
views and prejudices. Drawing deeply on a broad range of sources,
Hudson reveals that the banks’ experimental practices and projects
in the Caribbean often led to embarrassing failure, and, eventually,
literal erasure from the archives.