Mississippi Company controversies
Controversies tied to this brand in public sources. A listing is not a finding of fault.
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1720
The Mississippi Bubble
The company's share price collapsed after an extraordinary speculative rise. The crisis was amplified by the company's control of banking and public-finance functions, the expansion of paper money, inflation, and the difficulty of converting paper claims into reliable value. The collapse damaged investors and discredited Law's System. The company's shares rose to extraordinary levels amid expanding paper-money issuance, state privileges, and speculative demand. When confidence failed, prices collapsed, inflation intensified, Law lost his offices, and the company entered receivership.
1720
Forced colonial migration and slavery
The company's Louisiana program involved the transportation of enslaved Africans and, for a period, the deportation of prisoners from France. Complaints about prisoner deportations led the government to prohibit that practice in 1720, although another shipment occurred in 1721.