The 1837 United States financial crisis that followed years of land and banking speculation was the Panic of 1837.
The crisis developed after a speculative boom in land, cotton, and bank lending. President Andrew Jackson’s Specie Circular required many federal land purchases to be made with gold or silver, while economic conditions in Britain reduced demand for American cotton and tightened credit.
In May 1837, New York banks suspended payments in specie. Bank failures, falling prices, unemployment, and business closures followed. The downturn lasted for years and became one of the deepest economic contractions in the young United States.
The Panic of 1837 is sometimes confused with later panics because American financial crises repeatedly involved banks, land speculation, and unstable credit. Its causes were international as well as domestic, not the result of one isolated stock exchange event.