The South Sea Company was a British joint-stock company founded in January 1711, created as a public-private partnership to consolidate and reduce the cost of the national debt. To generate income, in 1713 the company was granted a monopoly to supply African slaves to the islands in the "South Seas" and South America. When the company was created, Britain was involved in the War of the Spanish Succession and Spain and Portugal controlled most of South America. There was thus no realistic prospect that trade would take place, and as it turned out, the Company never realised any significant profit from its monopoly. However, Company stock rose greatly in value as it expanded its operations dealing in government debt, and peaked in 1720 before suddenly collapsing to little above its original flotation price. The notorious economic bubble thus created, which ruined thousands of investors, became known as the South Sea Bubble.
Bradley County is a county located in the U.S. state of Arkansas. As of the 2020 census, the population was 10,545. The county seat is Warren. It is Arkansas's 43rd county, formed on December 18, 1840, and named for Captain Hugh Bradley, who fought in the War of 1812.
John Law was a Scottish-French economist who distinguished money, a means of exchange, from national wealth dependent on trade. He served as Controller General of Finances under the Duke of Orleans, who was regent for the juvenile Louis XV of France. In 1716, Law set up a private Banque Générale in France. A year later it was nationalised at his request and renamed as Banque Royale. The private bank had been funded mainly by John Law and Louis XV; three-quarters of its capital consisted of government bills and government-accepted notes, effectively making it the nation's first central bank. Backed only partially by silver, it was a fractional reserve bank. Law also set up and directed the Mississippi Company, funded by the Banque Royale. Its chaotic collapse has been compared to the 17th-century tulip mania parable in Holland. The Mississippi bubble coincided with the South Sea bubble in England, which allegedly took ideas from it. Law was a gambler who would win card games by mentally calculating odds. He propounded ideas such as the scarcity theory of value and the real bills doctrine. He held that money creation stimulated an economy, paper money was preferable to metal, and dividend-paying shares a superior form of money. The term "millionaire" was coined for beneficiaries of Law's scheme.
St. Charles Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. At the 2020 census, its population was 52,549. The parish seat is Hahnville and the most populous community is Luling.
The French East India Company was a joint-stock company founded in France on 1 September 1664 to compete with the English and Dutch trading companies in the East Indies. Planned by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, it was chartered by King Louis XIV for the purpose of trading in the Eastern Hemisphere. It resulted from the fusion of three earlier companies, the 1660 Compagnie de Chine, the Compagnie d'Orient and Compagnie de Madagascar. The first Director General for the Company was François de la Faye, who was adjoined by two Directors belonging to the two most successful trading organizations at that time: François Caron, who had spent 30 years working for the Dutch East India Company, including more than 20 years in Japan, and Marcara Avanchintz, an Armenian trader from Isfahan, Persia.
Events from the year 1720 in Canada.
The Bubble Act 1720 was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain passed on 11 June 1720 that incorporated the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation and London Assurance Corporation, but more significantly forbade the formation of any other joint-stock companies unless approved by royal charter.
The Illinois Country — sometimes referred to as Upper Louisiana —was a vast region of New France claimed in the 1600s in what is now the Midwestern United States. While those names generally referred to the entire Upper Mississippi River watershed, French colonial settlement was concentrated along the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers in what is now the U.S. states of Illinois and Missouri, with outposts on the Wabash River in Indiana. Explored in 1673 from Green Bay to the Arkansas River by the Canadien expedition of Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette, the area was claimed by France. It was settled primarily from the Pays d'en Haut in the context of the fur trade, and in the establishment of missions from Canada by French Catholic religious orders. Over time, the fur trade took some French to the far reaches of the Rocky Mountains, especially along the branches of the broad Missouri River valley. The French name, Pays des Ilinois, means "Land of the Illinois [plural]" and is a reference to the Illinois Confederation, a group of related Algonquian native peoples.
Richard Cantillon was an Irish-French economist and author of Essai Sur La Nature Du Commerce En Général, a book considered by William Stanley Jevons to be the "cradle of political economy". Although little information exists on Cantillon's life, it is known that he became a successful banker and merchant at an early age. His success was largely derived from the political and business connections he made through his family and through an early employer, James Brydges. During the late 1710s and early 1720s, Cantillon speculated in, and later helped fund, John Law's Mississippi Company, from which he acquired great wealth. However, his success came at a cost to his debtors, who pursued him with lawsuits, criminal charges, and even murder plots until his death in 1734.
The Bank of France is the French member of the Eurosystem. It was established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1800 as a private-sector corporation with unique public status. It was granted note-issuance monopoly in Paris in 1803 and in the entire country in 1848, issuing the French franc. Charles de Gaulle's government nationalized the bank in 1945 after several governance changes in the meantime. It remained France's sole monetary authority until end-1998, when France adopted the euro as its currency.
Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, also known as Sieur de Bienville, was a French-Canadian colonial administrator in New France. Born in Montreal, he was an early governor of French Louisiana, appointed four separate times during 1701–1743. He was the younger brother of explorer Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville.
Louisiana or French Louisiana was an administrative district of New France. In 1682 the French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle erected a cross near the mouth of the Mississippi River and claimed the whole of the drainage basin of the Mississippi River in the name of King Louis XIV, naming it "Louisiana". This land area stretched from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Appalachian Mountains to the Rocky Mountains. The area was under French control from 1682 to 1762 and in part from 1801 (nominally) to 1803.
Étienne Perier or Étienne de Perier (1686–1766), also known as Perier the Elder, was a French naval officer and governor of French Louisiana from 1726 to 1733. His time as governor included some notable achievements, including the construction of the first levee along the Mississippi River in 1727. In response to the Natchez Revolt, he attempted to completely destroy the Natchez people, which increased Native American hostility toward the French in the territory. Because he failed to secure the safety of the colony, Perier was recalled as governor in March 1733. He later distinguished himself as a naval officer and privateer, including during the capture of HMS Northumberland in 1744.
The German Coast was a region of early Louisiana settlement located above New Orleans, and on the west bank of the Mississippi River. Specifically, from east to west, in St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, and St. James parishes of present-day Acadiana. It was largely settled by German immigrants and their African slaves. The four settlements of Augsburg, Hoffen, Karlstein, and Marienthal were located along this "coast".
Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz (1695?–1775) was a French ethnographer, historian, and naturalist who is best known for his Histoire de la Louisiane. It was first published in twelve installments from 1751 to 1753 in the Journal Economique, then completely in three volumes in Paris in 1758. After their victory in the Seven Years' War, the British published part of it in translation in 1763. It has never been fully translated into English.
Jean-François-Benjamin Dumont de Montigny, or Dumont de Montigny, was a French colonial officer and farmer in French Louisiana in the 18th century. He was born in Paris, France, on July 31, 1696, and died in 1760 in Pondicherry, India. His writings about French Louisiana include a two-volume history published in 1753, as well as an epic poem and a prose memoir preserved in manuscript and published long after his death.
The history of St. Louis, Missouri, from prehistory to 1762 was marked by the presence of the Moundbuilder indigenous culture, the explorations of Europeans, and the establishment of French trading posts along the Mississippi River.
Card money is a type of fiat money printed on plain cardboard or playing cards, which was used at times as currency in several colonies and countries from the 17th century to the early 19th century. Where introduced, it was often followed by high rates of inflation.
Events from the year 1719 in France
Money and Trade Considered: With a Proposal for Supplying the Nation with Money is an early economics text written by John Law of Lauriston, published in 1705. In it, he attempts to compare the prosperity of other countries with that of Scotland, and advocates a "land bank" system of paper money backed by real estate as a commodity, instead of gold or silver.
