Speculation Nation: Land Mania in the Revolutionary American Republic

During the quarter-century after 1776, the new United States was swept by a wave of land speculation so unprecedented in intensity and scale that contemporaries and historians alike have dubbed it a “mania.” From Maine to the Mississippi and Georgia to the Great Lakes, wily merchants, lawyers, planters, and financiers purchased claims to millions of acres of land - chasing fantastical visions of profit by investing in the United States’ future expansion across Native American territories. Although such ambitious schemes drove many speculators into bankruptcy and debtors’ prison, they also indelibly shaped the development of American capitalism and the U.S. “empire of liberty.” In this talk, historian Michael Blaakman, author of Speculation Nation: Land Mania in the Revolutionary American Republic, discussed the revolutionary origins of this real-estate bonanza and what it means for our understanding of the American founding.