Faculty Research Fellow
Brian Gettler specializes in the history of colonialism, the state, and capitalism in Canada as well as the fraught relationship between the national histories of Quebec and Canada and those of Indigenous nations. He has published numerous articles and book chapters in both French and English as well as his 2020 book, Colonialism’s Currency: Money, State, and First Nations in Canada, 1820-1950. Gettler is a member of the Montreal History Group and Associate Editor of the Canadian Historical Review.
Fellowship Research Project: Fiduciary Empire: The Origins of the Indian Fund in Canada, 1796-1897
This project explores the origins and early development of the Indian Fund in Canada, a system under which the imperial and later federal Crown sold First Nations’ lands, generating proceeds to be held in trust. The project focuses on officials’ multi-dimensional use of the Indian Fund as a means of paying for the state’s project of Indigenous “civilization” and assimilation; as a source of investment capital for settler institutions like municipalities, courts, and universities and infrastructure such as canals, ports, and roads; and as a means of shoring up public credit during the recurring financial crises of the mid-nineteenth century.