This edition copyright © 1998 by Ashgate Publishing Limited, and 1 1

. . h f . d'. nrOduct by David Armitage. For copyrtg t o tn tvtdual articles ref •on

er to the Acknowledgements.

Published in the Variorum Expand.ing World Series by

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Theories of Empire, 1450-1800.

(An Expanding World: The European Impact on World History, 1450-1800: Vol. 20). 1. Imperia1ism- History. 1. Annitage, David. 325. 3' 2' 09

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Theories of Empire, 1450-1800/edited by David Armitage. p. cm. - (An Expanding World: The European Impact on World History, 1450-1800: Vol. 20).

lncludes one essay in Spanish. Collection of 15 essays originally published 1949-1995. lncludes bibliographica1 references. 1 . Europe-Territorial expansion. 2. lmperialism-History. 3. Europe-Colonies. 4. Europe-Foreign relations. 1. Annitage, David, 1965- . II. Series. 0210. T45 1998 327 . 4-dc21

Pnn tcd in G rea t Bnta m by Galliard (Printc r>J Ltd, G reat Yarmo uth

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Contents

Acknowledgements

General Editor's Preface

Introduction

/mperiwn Romanum: Empire and the Language of Power J.S. Richardson

2 Empire and Union: Two Concepts of the Early Modem European Political Order John Robertson

3 The Habsburg World Empire and the Revival of Ghibellinism John M. Headley

4

5

6

7

8

9

The European Debate on Universal Monarchy Franz Bosbach

Imperio Particular e Imperio Universal en las Cartas de Relaci6n de Hemân Cortés Victor Frank/

The Seizure of Overseas Territories by the European Powers John H. Elliott

. Barb . . The Language of Spanish Dispossessmg the anan. h p rty Rights of the Thomism and the Debate over t e rope American Indians Anthony Pagden .

The Ideology of English Colonization: From 1reland to Amenca Nicholas P. Canny

Sovereignty-Association, 1500-1783 - l.., .J.. WJ. Eccles

10 Frei tas Versus Grotius C.H. Alexandrowicz

. Asian Decline and the 11 Millenarianism and Emp1re: Po~~uese. 'Crise de Conscience' of the M•ssJonanes G.D. Winius

vii-ix

xi-xiii

XV-XXXIII

Il

45

81

99

139

159

179

203

239

261

vi -------CONTENTS ---------

13 /

u Plenty as Obiectives of Foreign Policy in the Power versus J •

Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centunes

Jacob Viner

New Wine in Old Skins? American Definitions of Empire and

the Emergence of a New Concept

Norbert Kilian

14 Spain and the Breakdown of the Imperial Ethos: The Problem

of Equality Ttmothy E. Anna

' f5 Aboriginal Property and Western Theory: Recovering a Middle

Ground James Tully

Index

277

307

325

345

373

Acknow ledgements

The chapters in this volume are taken from the sources Jisted bel ti h" h · h · ow, or w tc the editor and pubhs ers w~sh. to thank their authors, original publishers or other copyright holders for permtsston to use their material as follows:

Chaptcr 1: J.S. Richardson, '/mperium Romanum: Empire and the Language of Power' , Journal of ~oman Studies LX~XI (London, 1991), pp. 1-9. Copyright © 1991 by The Soctety for the Promotton of Roman Studies, London.

Chaptcr 2: John Robertson, 'Empire and Union: Two Concepts of the Early Modern European Political Order', in ed. John Robertson, A Union for Empire: Political Thought and the British Union of 1707 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 3-36. Copyright © 1995 by Cambridge University Press.

Chapter 3: John M. Headley, 'The Habsburg World Empire and the Revival of Ghibellinism', Medieval and Renaissance Studies VII (Chapet Hill, NC, 1978), pp. 93-127. Copyright© 1978 by The University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher.

Chapter 4: Franz Bosbach, 'The European Debate on Universal Monarchy', first publication. Copyright © 1998 by Franz Bosbach.

Chapter 5: Victor Frankl, 'lmperio Particular e Imperio Universal en las Cartas de Relaci6n de Hemân Cortés', Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos CLXV (Madrid, 1963), pp. 443-482. Copyright © 1963 by the Instituto de Cuttura Hispânica, Madrid.

Chapter 6: John H. Elliott, 'The Seizure of Overseas Territories by the European Powers', in ed. Hans Pohl, The European Discovery of the World and its Economie Effects on Pre-lndustrial Society, 1500-1800 (Stuttgart, 1990), PP· 43-

61. Copyright © 1990 by John H. Elliott.

Chapter 7: Anthony Pagden, 'Dispossessing the Barbarian: The Languag~ of Spanish Thomism and the Debate over the Property Rights of the A.mencan

lndians', in ed. Anthony Pagden, The lAnguages of Political Theory m b~a;t~ Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 79-98. Copyright © 1986 by Cam g University Press.

f

viii ----- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS - --- - --

Chapter S: Nicholas P. Canny, 'The Ideology of English C~lonization : From Jreland to America' , William and Mary Qrwrterly (3rd senes) XXX, no. 4 (Williamsburg. VA, 197_3), PP·. 575- 598. Copyright © . 1973 by The . O~ohundro 1 t

.t te of Early Amencan Htstory and Culture. Repnnted by permtsston of the ns tu · H'

author and The Omohundro lnstitute of Early Amencan tstory and Culture.

Chapter 9 : W.J . Eccles, ' Sovereignty-Association •. 1500- 1783', Canadian Historical Review LXV, no. 4 (North York, Ontano, 1984), pp. 475- 510. Copyright © 1984 by The University of Toronto Press lncorporated. Reprintcd by permission of The University of Toronto Press lncorporated.

Chapter 10: C.H. Alexandrowicz, 'Freitas Versus Grotius', British Yearbook of International ww XXXV (Oxford, 1960), pp. 162- 182. Published 1960 by Oxford

University Press.

Chapter 11 : G.D. Winius, 'Millenarianism and Empire: Portuguese Asian Decline and the "Crise de Conscience" of the Missionaries', ltinerario Xl (Leiden, 1987), pp. 37- 51 . Copyright © 1987 by ltinerario, c/o Rijks Universiteit Leiden.

Chapter 12: Jacob Viner, 'Power Versus Plenty as Objectives of Foreign Policy in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries ', World Politics 1 (Baltimore, MD, 1949), pp. 1-29. Copyright © 1949 by The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Chapter 13: Norbert Kilian, 'New Wine in 01d Skins? American Definitions of Empire and the Emergence of a New Concept', in ed. Erich Angennann, Marie­Luise Frings and Hermann Wellenreuther, New Wine in 0/d Skins: A Comparative View of Socio-Political Structures and Values A.ffecting the American Revolution (Stuttgart, 1976), pp. 135-152. Published by Ernst Klett Verlag, Stuttgart. Copyright © 1976 by Norbert Kilian.

Chapter 14: Timothy E. Anna, ' Spain and the Breakdown of the Imperial Ethos: The Problem of Equality', Hispanie American Historical Review LXII, no. 2 (Dur~am, NC, 1982), pp. 254-272. Copyright e 1982 by Duke University Press. Repnnted with permission.

Cha~ter 15: James Tully, 'Aboriginal Property and Western Theory: Recovering a Mtddle G~ound' , Social Philosophy and Policy XI (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 153-180. Copynght © 1994 by Cambridge University Press.

~very .effort has been made to trace ali the copyright holders but if any have een tnadvertently overlooked the publishers will be plea~ed to make the

necessary arrangement at the first opportunity.

~------ ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS -----ix

•••

David Armitage thanks those who have contributed essays 1 h' 1. Th C h o t ts volume as weil

.15 Joyce Chap tn, omas o en, Constantin Fasolt Chad L d' ' ' h R Il W od f · ' u mgton, Joan-Pau Rubiés and Jo n usse - o , or thetr help and comments.

Introduction David Annitage

·n" eXpansion of Europe has an intellectual history, just as intellectual history

carnes the traces of European expansion The early modem ov · f . . · - erseas emp~res o

Spaon. Portugal, France, Brnam and Holland bad to be justifiOO, not only to their compcutors but ais~ to themselves. and thcir effects on the metropolitan nations a~ weil as the nauve and later colonial populations had to be accounted f understood and ~xplainOO. The _territorial and economie expansion of the ear~;: modern monarchtes and repubhcs accordingly generatOO an extensiv~ corpus of argument_ and refl..:uon,_ cast wnhin familiar discourses of human nature.-political organtSaUon, salvauon htStory. economie order and international relations. t Though much of the resulting material was intentionally taetical some of it auained the abstraction of theory, and had novel applications beyond its contingent purposes; at the same time. philosophers shouldered the ideological task of justifying overseas enterprise, and political theory in particular would thereafter bear the

marks of early-modem Europe's expanding world. From early-modem theories of empire. ali roads 100 to Rome, and from

Rome to Troy.2

Ali of the European empires- including those east of the Urals,

and in the successor states of European colonies in the Americas - IookOO back to classical Rome as an inspiration and an aspiration. The Roman Empire bad grown from a seulement su~sedly founded by Trojan fugitives into a regional power in northem Italy and from thence to mistress of, if not the known world (since parts of Asia, Africa, Britain and Jreland remainOO heyond its control, though not its ken), then of the whole world worth knowing. At its greatest exten~ the Roman Empire encompassed the ldediterranean oilwumene definOO by Greek geographers as the extent of the terrestrial universe and was in thal sense the first universal empire' Yet, as 1. S. Richardson shows (see chapter 1 below), it

was only in the lime of Julius Caesar and Augustus thal the tenn ;mperiwn carne to carry a territorial dimension' /mperiwn was origin~ly the au~ority given to

t Th< ""' ..,..og.poiot for _.,.,.œog th~ bodY of ""'"""' ~ ""' An-Y ......... Lonh of Ali 1he Worid' /<kologiLr of Enq>i" U. SpaU.. BriJain and Fron« c. 1500 ~ c. f8(){) (NON H•>Cn. !995). wlrich supened<S the earl~r cl.,;, suuiY by Richord """""'' fmP'" (Dmbndge. 1961).

'On Troy see Morie T"""'· The Lort Der«nJmo' of h<"'' The Hapsb•"' ond '"' My1hoc

/mage of '"' EmP"'" (New H•>Cn, (993). togdhef with the ompoO'"' "'"w by R. J. W. Evons. "The Sun Also Seu' The Ne• York R<'kw of Books. 17 Febro"' !994. oP· 25-27

'On Rom"' .;,n«ptions of impe d""' sec ,Jso Andr<W lioOoto, ·Wh" Wos the .. lmperi~m Romonum .. 7' , Gnece ond Roone. XXVIII ( 1981 ), oP· 5)-67. ide'.' .. lnop<"""' """""'"':" Pol""'

and Adm

. . . (Lo d !993)• and PA srunt 'lAUS Jmptrll . IR hts Romon /m{JtriOI Themts

mutratron n on. . · · •

(Oxford. 1990), pp. 288-323.

xvi - ---- - - INTRODUCTION --------

a magistrale to act on behalf of Rome and its citizens in peace and at home (domi) or abroad (militiœ). As Rome grew it came to war, whether . h b ' mean autho . m t e a stract, detached from any particular holder· the fo 1 h nty b d b · · · . ' rmer Y ard-and-[ oun ary etween tmpenum domt and tmperium militiœ gradu· 11 d .. ast

R d · d d · a Y tssolved· a d orne an Ils epen enctes were considered to form a single ·r, h ' n

0 Th bel · · um t e Imper· , ~ pomanwn. e atedness of thts temtorial application should ' . tum · ·1 · f h constram any asstmt atton o t e Roman Empire to the later Euro . easy th I· . . . pean emptres, not least be .

e vemacu ar cognates of tmpenum retained its connotations of political ca~se long after the term had again been extended spatially a h authonty expanded world. cross t e oceans of an

Despite the barbarian invasions, the sack of Rome . 410 of the Western Empire in 476 CE the .d f h R m CE, and the end

d . • t ea o t e oman Empir; d"d .

an the Impenal title passed from the C r . e t not dte, Salian Franks and the Hohenstaufens on toa~~~rt:n~-~hrough the Ottonian and the Austrian Habsburgs.4 However th E ,P ms_ Habsburgs and thence to implied universal authority it bro~gh~ w~r~or ~-~latm to the Empire, and the Byzantine Emperors claimed th at the Eas~em ttEm t . not go unchallenged. 5 The Rome as at various times did th . p, pt re was the true successor to deceased Romane Empire sitting e apac;', ... no other, than the Ghost of the Hobbes • contemptuous w~rds 6 Thcrod~~e- upon the grave thereof'' in Thomas "' · e tvtston of the Emp· · · vvestem parts, and the disputes bet h tre mto tts Eastern and increasingly obvious that if c . ween t e Papacy and the Emperor made it

· ompettng powers could J • h ' untversalism with equal right th . . c atm t e Roman mantle of

. • particularism. The collision betwe'e en _unltversa_hsm had been overcome by aspirations to hegemonv, would n P~tcu ar clatms to authority and universalist the tate eighteenth ce~ry and remldam at the heart of theories of e~pi;-un til ft d 1" • wou not be fully re 1 ed . 0 e era tst theories in the Earl A . so v unttl the development

_Particularist daims to supre~e :~~~~ Republic. Emptre added two funher dimens· f y and a confederal conception of the sove · · tons o the Roman · h · . retgnty, and tmperium as rule . '" entance - imperium as of t~perial provinces into barbariano~~~ ~ulttpl~ dominions. The transformation Emptre had shown that the unitary R g oms tn the latter days of the Western

oman Empire h. h ' w tc extended citizenship

4 Roben Folz, The Concept of Em . . Cemury, trans. Sheila Ann 0 ilvi pire m Western Europe from t . Empire under the Hohenstaufe~· _e (London, 1969); Marc Bloch 'Th he Fift~ to the Fourteenth (London, 1967), pp. 1-43. . m his Land and Work in Mediev~/ E:roEmplre and the ldea of

s On later theories of the E . pe, trans. J.E. Anderson So · mplre and thei

vemgnty: A History of the Public . r transformation sec H (Chicago, 1973}, Karl Otmar F "he Law Literature in the H 1 anns Gross, Empire and Constantin Fasolt, The Shado:elif ~von Aretin, Das A/te Reich ~~;::man Empire, 1599-1804 "Discursus Novus de lmperato oRt e Emperor: A Study and T~ la l806 (Stuttgan, 1993) and

6Th ~ ornano-Germ . .. ans twn of H ornas Hobbes. Leviathan (1651) amco (fonhcoming). ermann Conring 's

• cd. Richard Tuck (C . ambndge, 1991), p. 480.

INTRODUCTION ------ xvii

10 ali of its c~nqhuerehd pke_opldes, had become an imperial federation. a 'Roman Empire, of wh tc ot er tng om~ are dependencies' • as Isidore of Seville had defined it in the seventh cen~ury. The twelfth-century recovery of Roman law strengthened _both_ these legactes, as sorne jurists stressed the fact thal the Digest (XIV. 2. 9) tdenttfied the Emperor (and, by extension, his successors, whether Imperial or Pa~al) _as the Jo~~ of ~Il _the world (dominus mundi), while others accepted the dtverstty of pohttes wtthtn Europe and argued that each ruler had the authority of an emperor within his own kingdom (rex in regno suo est

imperator). 8

The Empire was by then but one among many imperia, and the traditions of Rome could be appropriated to defend particular sovereignty as readily as to claim universal authority, within Europe and in its overseas dependencies. The European overseas empires depended upon the constitutional structures of their parent states for their own definition, and imperial disputes often reproduced metropolitan con tests. The realisation that earl y-modem Europe was a,, 'Europe of composite monarchies' has clarified the nature of the connection between carly­modern state-building and contemporary overseas expansion.9 The classic nineteenth-century mode! of the nation-state as the necessary unit of political history obscured the fact thal 'Europe, the initiator of one of the world's major processes of conques!, colonization and cultural transformation, was also the product of one' after the fall of the Roman Empire,10 and thal the European monarchies were created from diverse territories and peoples, brought together by dynastie inheritance, conquest or political union. Early-modem Europe encompassed a variety of political fonns, with a multiplicity of political theories to explain them. The period between Charles V's accession to the Holy Roman Empire and the Union between England and Scotland (1519-1707) was pivotai in European political theory, as John Robertson argues (see chapter 2 below~ . 1 1

ln the context of constitutional innovation within Europe and extemal expans1on beyond Europe, theorists like Hugo Grotius, Juan de Sol6rzano, Th~mas Ho~bes and James Harrington formulated novel theories of conquest, mterventton.

7 Isidore of Seville Etymologiœ (c. 622-33), IX. 3. 2, cit. Folz, Concept of Empi":• P·_ 7

· 8 ' · dea f So ·gnty' Engluh Hutoncal

Walter Ullmann 'lbe Development of the Medieval 1 o verel • Review LXIV (1949), ~p. 1-33; Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Mockm Political Thought,

2 vols. (Cambridge, 1978), 1, 'The Renaissance' . . • CXXXVII (1992}, pp. 9 J. H. Elliott, 'A Europe of Composite Monarchies • :as' & :si:"'

0 the State in Earl)'

48-71; Mark Greengrass, ed., Conquest and Coalescence. The S P g if Modem Europe (London, 1991). . . and Cultural Change. 950--

10 Robert 8art1ett, The Making of Europe: Conquest. Colomz.auon

/350 (London, 1993), p. 314. 8 ·rain of 1707 in its European 11 See also John Robertson, 'Union, State and Empire: Th_e . "ji /689 10 /815 (London.

Setting' . in Lawrence Stone, ed., An Imperial State at War: Brrtalll rom

1994), pp. 224-57.

·' . . ,

X\'111 INTRODUCTION

soYereignty and international relation with their eyes upon activity weil as on domestic political developments. '2 overseas as

The union of diverse territories was the norm within E . 1 . . d . urope and th

theoreuca ts ue ratse by compostte monarchy and con"ed . · ' e . . •' eratton pro ·d precedents for deahng wtth overseas dominion . Empire co Id be h . Vt ed f

. 1 . S , . u t e equtvaJ o un10n. at east tn olorzano s conception of the s . · h ' ent

1 . h' . h . pants Monarch ,

re attons tp wtt tt provinces abroad. It could also be a f . Y s J VI d l' · · f · · orm of umon as · ames an s vtston o Bntam as a united monarchy of E 1 d ' tn

in which neither kingdom would be subordinate 10 th th ng an ~nd Scotland . e o er as a umtary . wuh~ut dependent provinces. 13 However, union could also be th . e_mptre empt_re. a when the United Provinces confederated defens· ~ .ctlt~m_at~ve to Spant h Monarchy. 'J or the Swiss Cantons founded th . . Ir tve y agamst the Holy Roman Empire. Sol6rzano was a belated a ol . et~ a .•ance to counter the Spani h Monarchy settled into irretrievable d Pl . o~ts; or tmperial unity as the ubjects shared his dream of a British e . ~c me, ew of James VI and I's

insisted on Grotius' arguments in favou mp;reh o_ equal_s; and the Dutch ruthlessly United Provinces master of new non t r ~ t . e,tr em~tre of the seas to make the f

. . • · emtona spectes of · Th . . 0 these pohtlcal forms and of the r . al emptre. e dtverstty reminder that there w~s no . 1 pEo lite theories which underlay them is a

. smg e uropean the f · ' common tdeological project of 'im rial . ' . ory o emptre and hence no

The headship of the Hot R pe tsm ~n post-Reformation Europe. . y oman Emptre re . ed h

attnbute of secular kingship · 1 . mam t e most prestigious Imperial dignity descended up~~ ~~r ~ st~e~nth-cent~ry Europe.15 When the Europe's most extensive body of ar es m 1519, tt was united de facto to

. overseas posse · emptre the world had ever k sstons to create the most far-tlung had never burst the bounds :~:~; ~~~ter even than the Roman Empire, which the Atlantic.'6 Charles's tw 1 ars of Hercules to extend westward into

o rea ms nevertheless remained legally distinct. The

12o n whom sec also H dl Grotius and hue . e ey Bull, Benedict Kin sb World 0 d .,. matlonal Relations (Oxford 1990)· J g ury and Adam Roberts, cds. Hugo

,., er: , he J t'ifi • • ames Muldoo T,h . ' Sol6rzan . us 1 •cat1on for Conquest in th n, e Amertcas in tire Spanish XXIV (I~St)oel M2akolm, 'Hobbes, Sandys, and ~hSeVv~nt~e~th Cenrury (Philadelphia, 1994) (on

·pp. 97-321 · o ·d e lrgm1a Company' .,., H . 1 of Emp1re' The H' . · av1 Armitage, 'The Cr . • lfle tstorical Jouma

13 C ' rstorrca/ Journal XXXV 0992

) omwclhan Protectorate and the Languages 1542- 170;.mp;re ~avid Armitage, 'Making the E' pp. 531-55 (on Harrington).

· rast "' Pre CL mp1re Briti h· s . lntellectual Origins of th:e~ . V (May 1997) pp. 34-{;3; ide~ · , cotland ·~ the_ ~!lantic Wo~ld, Thought and the

8 ..

1 ~nen Venture' , in John R be • The Scott1sh Vtslon of Emp1rc:

14 ruts 1 Umon .r 17 O rtson ed A U · Compare Marti o, 07 (Cambridge 1995) ' ·• mon for Empire: Political (Cambridge 1992) Bn van Gelderen The D t • . '/ • pp. 97-118.

' ; en· · ' ' 0 Ille a Th 1 Representation of the N jamWin Schmidt, 'Innocence Aboug Il of the Dutclr Revoit 1555-1590

IS c ew orld road· Th 0 '

1 . ompare Gaston Zelle ,' c. 1570-1670' (Ph 0 dis · _c utch Imagination and the

mpenl~le en France· Revue Hr: ~s Rois de France. Can. d'dsertatron, Harvard University, 1 994). Ramô ' 1stor1qu CLX 1 ats à I'Em · . E . . n Menendcz Pid

1 El e XIJJ (1934) p

27 Pire. ssar sur l'Idéologie

a • /dea Imperial de C , p. 3-31 1' 497-543. arlos V (Bue A' nos Ires, 1941 ); Franccs A.

INTRODUcriON ------ xix

· istence of the Holy Roman Empire- debarred the Spanish Monarch f ~x . h E . d . y rom becoming the Spams mptre an • desptte the messianic expectations aroused b the discove~ of Ame~ca, ~ven thos~ who h~led Charles's universal monarchy di~ not necessanly take tt to mclude hts lands m the New World. Chief among the Habsburg imperial panegyrists was Charles's own Chancellor, Mercurino Gattinara, who expected his master to revive Dante's vision in the Monarchia of a pan­European (and by that definition. universal) empire centred upon Italy. 'the garden of the Empire' .17 As John Headley argues (see chapter 3 below). Gattinara's neo­Ghibelline. apocalyptic and Erasmian vision of empire 'remain[ed] firmly focused on Europe, and appears quite unaffected by the American experience and Castile's presence in the New World' .18 Gattinara's contemporary, the Navarrese jurist Michael de Ulcurrunus, shared this indifference to the New World and concentrated, tike Gattinara. on the threats to Christendom, from Lutheranism and the Turk, rather than on Spain's new opportunities in the Americas.19 Similarly, the messianic hopes pinned on the retum from the dead of the Portuguese King Sebastian irnagined an empire in the Iberian peninsula and North Africa and deliberately overlooked Portugal's dominions in South America and Asia in favour of reviving the heroic greatness tost at the battle of EJ-Ksar-el-Kebir in 1578.20 Even the first generations of Protestant theorists - including Luther and Calvin - remained indifferen to the native peoples of the New World as they worked out their novel theories of

salvation history and cburch govemment.21

. . The union of the Spanish Monarchy and the Holy Roman Emptre m the f H b b · sai dti..:PI•

person of Charles V nevertheless raised the spectdr~ 0 ad ha ts uderg ufnS•:~~Jle ..,_ M. monarchy in Europe, fuelled by the bullion of the In tes an t e ra o ·

· · • · TL- 1 ·al Thtme in tht' Sixteenth Yates 'Charles V and the !dea of the Empne' , rn her Mtrœa. ne mpen Cenr~ry (London, 1975), pp. 1-28; Earl Rosenthal. 'Plus Ultra, Non Plus Ultra, andthe CoXIuXmXnl~ D

. 1

.r h w. b rg and Courtauld Institutes evrce of the Emperor Charles V' , Jo11ma o, 1 e ar u

(1971 }, pp. 204-28. . . C 1 T Davis, Dante 17 Dante, Monan:hifl (c. 1320), ed. Prue Shaw (Cambodge, 1995), har es ·

and the /dea of Rome (Oxford, 1957). h 1 · 1 Configurations of 18 See also John M. Headley, 'Gatti_nara, Erasmus and

1 e =::aidtm. 'Rhetoric and

Humanrsm', An:hiv für Reformationsgeschtchte L~XI 0 980>: pp. f G ttinara' , in Maljorie Reality: Mcssianic, Humanist, and Civilian Themes 10 the l~penal Ethods

0

19928) PP 241-70.

R . · · Per1od (Oxfor • • · eeves, ed., Prophetie Rome tn the Htgh RtrUJ_ISSanct . . . Mundf': An Earl y Sixteenth-Century

19 Diana Perry "'Catlwlicum Opus Jmpenale RtgllrttniS • 1981) PP 227-52. Restatement of Empire' History of Political Thought 11 ( ' .11 • d ""rois Rois (Paris, 1992):

20 ' , . La Gl · use Balai t es " Lucette Valensi, Fables de la Mematre: one . , in Jean Aubin, ed., /..t' Dicouvtrte,

compare Luis Filipe F.R. Thomaz, 'L:Idée lmperial_e Man~m;7• et 28 Mai !988 (Paris, 1990). PP· Le Portugal et L'Europe: Actes du Colloque Pans, lts ' 35-103. Non-Christian Religions and

21 and the Refonners on · · George Huntston Williams, 'Erasmus Id E. Seigel, eds., Action and ConvJCIIOII

~alus Extra Ecclesiam', in Theodore K. Rabb and J;;oHarbison (Princeton, 1969), PP· 319-

70·

m Ear/y Modem Europe: Essays in Mtmory of E. ·

xx ------- INTRODUCTION ---------

The language of universal monarchy _provid_ed its oppo~e~ts _ wit~ ~ ~ounter-theory of the Empire. not as the apocalypttc veh1cle of Chnsttamty. JOmmg the whole world under 'one hepherd with one flock' in a reign of perpetuai peace, but rather as European hegemony for the Habsburgs. Franz Bosbach shows that this conception of universal monarchy drew upon cartier theories of the succession to the Roman Empire, the universal imperium of the Emperor, and the evangelicat destiny of the Empire (see chapter 4 below). However, after the elevation of Charles V it became a means of understanding international politics as the competition between Habsburg and Bourbon aspirations to political hegemony through to the age of Louis XIV (and indeed beyond);22 it would also later provide a language to criticise the putative monopolies threatened by France, Holland or En gland over international trade. 23 Apprehensions that one European power was aiming at universal monarcfiy could be used to inspire others to ally against the potential aggressor, so that what began as an analytical theory of empire ultimately became a justification for defensive aggression within Europe.24 This transformation of the language of universal monarchy indicates a major stage in the passage from a providentialist theory"of empire, whose roots lay in the Christianisation of the Roman Empire under Constantine25 to the ·~conomic interpretation of hegemony that underpins modern theories of imperialism. However, though universal monarchy proved to be a useful tool for understanding European politics, its horizons barely encompassed the Americas or Asia, except insofar as the profits of the Indics were held to have strengthened the European states in their contests for hegemony.

The major exception to the Eurocentricity of universal monarchist discourse was the imperial vision of Hemân Cortés, as eccentric as it was original. Cortés promised Charles V that he could 'ser monarca del mundo' and recreate the Empire as a truly universal monarchy, spanning the European continent, traversing the Atlantic, and stretching from New Spain over the Pacifie decades before Philip

~2 See ~Iso Franz Bosbach, Mo~~archia U11iversa/is: Ein politischer uitbegrijf der frühen Ne~z~ll (Go_tungen, 1986): Rodolfo De Mattei. 'Il Mito della Monarchia Universale nel Pensiero Pohuco ltahano del Seicento', Rivista di Studi Politici fnternaûonali XXXII (1965) pp. 531- 50; John Roberts ·u · 1 M ' . . on, mversa onarchy and the Liberties of Europe: David Hume's Critique of an Enghsh Whtg Doctrine' · N. h 1 Ph" · · Ea 1 M d . . • 10 •c 0 as tlhpson and Quentin Skinner, eds., Political Discouru '"

r y o em Bntam (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 349-73. 23 On the econom· red fi · · · c A p· P 1~ e •muon of umversal monarchy in the age of mercantilism, see Steven

· · meus. rotes1a1111sm and Patriot · . /th l . . 1650-1688 (Cambridge l9%)· idem , ISm. _0 og•es and the Malcing of English Foreign Poire)\ ed ~ u111·0 11

fi "'- : ' ' The Enghsh Debate over Universal Monarchy' in Robertson. .. , l 4 or unplrr!, pp. 37-62. •

Compare E. V. Gulick Euro e 's Cio · 1 Sheehan The Ba'-- ,, n ' ~ sslcal Balanct of Powu (New York 1955)· Michae · KUJCe o, rower· Hrsto and T~ • •

25 On which see for exam~le AveZ C ory (~~do~, 1996). . Developmellt of Christiall v · ameron, ChriSIIamty and~~ Rhetoric of Emptre: The Commo11w~alth: CoiiSeque~~ees :;c;;:::,; ~Berkeley, 1991 ) and Garth Fowden. Empire 10

~ISm m Late Âlltiquity (Princeton, 1993).

--------------INTRODUCTION------------xxi

Il would acquire ~ Hispano-Portuguese empire on which the sun never set.26 Cortés achieved h1~ premat~re ~d nove~ theory of empire by drawing on the

rticularist conceptton enshnned m the Stete Partidas, the thirteenth-<:entury legal ~~de of Alfonso x_. which he applied to the dominions of the Mexica 'emperor' Moctezuma, as Vtctor Frank! shows (see chapter 5 below)_27 In his Second Relation from Mexico ( 1519), Cortés promised Charles V that he 'might cali !him)self emperor of this kingdom with no Jess glory than that of Germany which. by the Grace of God, Y our Majesty already possesses' .28 This implied the existence of multiple empires for Charles's glory, one acquired by election from the German princes, the other by donation from his new vassal, Moctezuma. or by his faithful servant_ Cortés's con~u~st: Conq~est implied t~e def~t _of a _worthy enemy; donation imphed a secular JUndJcal basts for Charles s domtmons m New s ain distinct from the papal grant of new territories in the Antilles and Tierra F;rme• to the Castilian crown in 1493. Like Gattinara ~ac~ ~n Europe, ~ortés imagined a neo-Ghibelline empire for Charles V, though _hts vtston was predtcat~ on a new empire in the Americas, beyond the authonty of the Papacy, whtle Gattinara's remained bounded by the Mediterranean. . . .

Ali of the European powers faced Cortés's dilemma of legtttmatmg a novel ·1 traditional Almost ali

Position with intellectual resources that were necessan Y · h . • 1 · d claimed that t etr of them adopted sorne form of Cortés s so utton, an . th

. . · fact precedented. Desptte e unparalleled assertions of domtmon were, tn • . d ed. 1

. d h l vity of classtcal an rn teva continuity of the Western Emptre an t e onge ·t ·es from 1 E seizure of overseas tem on .. languages of empire , ' the large-sca e . uropean and distinctive phase in the , the sixteenth century on_wards con~tttuted a, ne~J H Elli~tt's essay emphasises continent's relationship wtth the outsJdCI wo~Id • as ~ed~nts for Christian relations (see chapter 6 below). There were theorettcal P E in the thirteenth century, with infidels, dating back to the Mongol ~~t to dit~:~nderlying the papal bu lis and these were kept current in the canomsttc tra d . and the Azores, and the of donation of 1493.29 The settlements 00 Ma etra ffered some practical conquest of the Canaries in the fifteenth century,

0

1565-1590: Structures and . . Asian Presence. 26 See also John M. Headl~y, :spatn s. LXXV (1995). pp. 623-46-. he Royal

Aspirations' • Hispanie American HIStoncal Rev~ew f H mân Cortb'. TTUIISacnons of t menos 27 Compare J.H. Elliott, 'The Mental World o tho: Pagden. "'Con ti~lo Y co~o~:uest of

Historical Society XVII (1967), pp. 41-58. and ~ ·est~d posee": Rethinktng th:,. lnttlltctuol m~rito que el de Alemania, que Vuestra _sacra aJ in /berian and /bero-Am~nc •• . , . . . if Emp•n · Essays JYJ~lttco , tn his The Uncertamlles o · v edn .• )llew Haven. H1story (Aidershot, 1994), ch. XUI. . and trans-Anthony Pagdell (re .

28 Hemân Cortés, utters from Menco. ed. Non-Christian World. 1986), p. 48. d

1 els· The Church cuuJtlle

29 James Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers. an nfid · 1250-1550 (Philadelphia, 1979).

1. ,r ... ,

'.

XXII INTRODUCTION --------

Precedents,JO though these did not combine territorial conques! with econo . be h . . f 1 m•c

enterprise in the manner that would c aractenst1c o ater European seizu of overseas territories. Competition for land and trade among the Europe re powers, and the shattering of Christendom by the Reformation, necessitated an more demanding justification for conques! than the supposedly universal author't

3

of the Church by which the world had been carved into Spanish and Portugue' y spheres of influence in the 1490s. Accordingly, the righi of exclusive possessi~e came to override the earlier claims of first discovery, so that states needed bot~ to ~tt le. 'plant' or colonise overseas territ ory and, crucially, to provide ideoiogical justifications for their settlements against the daims both of the native peoples and those of their European competitors.31

The papal attribution of sovereignty (imperium) in the Americas did not carry with it a right of property (dominium), and therein lay a challenge for the Catholic powers, as Anthony Pagden shows (see chapter 7 below). The newly-discovered lands could not be appropriated on the grounds thal they were unoccupied, since they patently had a resident population; arguments for the next three hundred years therefore tumed as much upon justifications for dispossessing the native peoples as they did upon asserting positive rights of ownership against other European states.32 The Spanish Dominicans were the first to construct such arguments, though in the process of justifying the Castilian crown 's particular dominio~ in the Americas, they undermined the daims of both the Papacy and the ~mptre to uni~~rsal jurisdiction. Instead, as Francisco de Vitoria argued, the Spantsh could leglltmately claim the rights of travel, commerce and preaching the gos~l to the 'barbarians', with only the last enforceable by anns if denied.JJ Ev~n thts left the Castilian crown with no righi of dominium in the New World, a nght that could only be restored to the Spanish by a theorist Iike Juan Gines

30 Felipe Femmdez-Armest Th c Russell 'J tl . d

1 0 °' t Q/UJry Islands Aftu tht! Conqui!St (Oxford, 1982); Peter

• n uencJa e escubrim' 1 d C . Derecho d 1 H b •en ° e ananas sobre el Debate Medieval Acerca de los s e om re Pagano y de 1 E ad p . dt HistofÜJ CQ/UJria XXXVI ( os st os aganos: La Documenlaci6n Portuguesa', RevlSta

31 1978), pp. 9-32. L.C. Green and Olive p o· k T,L

1989)· Patricia Seed C . · •c ason, ne Law of Nations and the New World (Edmonton. • · e~momes of Pos · · E • 92

1650 (Cambridge 1995). 1 h T 1

. sesston "' urope s Conquest of the New World, 14 -· · o n · uncek 'En l' h Cl · · · Le al and Constitutional Thou ht' Ph . ' .g 15 .rum~ 10 North America: A Study m ~

Territorial Claims in Northg A ( : 0 · d•ssertauon, Umversuy of Chicago 1970)· idem 'Enghsh menca under El' belh ' ' · VIl (1975). pp. 7-22; Kent MeNe"! C •za and lhe Early Stuarts', Terrae lncogmtte

3~ Generally, see J.H. ~~rryo"';;n Law_Aborigillal 1itle (Oxford, 1989). (Cambndge, 1940); Silvio Za al :.,L e S~afllsh Theory of Empire in the Sixteenth Cenrury C" 1 1953 v a, 1 ~ Po/meal Ph ·1 ·co 1 y, ); Lewis Hanke Tf- " . 1 osophy of the Conquest of America (Mexl 1965) ' ne -'Pafllsh Struggl fi j, · . n

· . t! or USflct! m tht! Conquest of America (BosiO ' 33 F .

rancJsco de Vitoria 'On h . Lawrance ed "' ' 1 e Amencan Jnd· • mY

' 5·• Ylforia: Politica/ w · · Jans ( 1539), in Anthony Pagden and Jere ntmgs (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 231-92.

-------------INTRODUCTION------------xxiii

de Sepulveda, who argued t~at civil peoples should exercise dominium as weil . perium 0 ver the barbanans.

as un d b 'd' . ,, The Spanish e ate over tspossessmg the barbarian' had the signal effect of diverting the_ argument ove~ ~roperty ~o natural law, and hence 10 the objectively iden~tfiable ~h~ractensttcs of nall:e peoples.34 If th~ criteria for the ability 10 exerc1se do'!'~mum were such tnuts as type o~ soctal organisation,

arriage customs, rehgwus observance and, at base, rat10nality, ethnographie mbservation became the necessary foundation for political claims. This ;thnographic tum was not unique to the Spanish. Nicholas Canny argues that the English began their anthropological engagement with the Gaelic inhabitants f Ireland in the 1560s, just as the Spanish debate was dying down after the

~eath of Bartolomé de las Casas, the man who had done most to keep it alive (see chapter 8 below).35 The English in Ireland followed a theoretical path ·milar to that traversed by the Spanish between 1493 and 1551, except thal

:~eir trajectory had begun with the Anglo-Norman invasions of the t~elfth century. The papal bull Laudabiliter ( 1155) had empowered Henry li to mvade Ireland 36 which was thereafter held by right of conquest, as Edmund Spenser remark~d in 1596: 'ali is the conqueror's, as 1\Jlly to Bru~us ~ai th' .3' After the English Reformation had made any claim from papal donation moperable, He~ry VIII was proclaimed 'King of Ireland' by the Irish Parliament, there~y addmg a second crown to the imperial crown of England. When the Enghsh uln~ehr

· · 1 · dependent ns Elizabeth 1 wanted to reassert control over the mcreasm_g Y '".

. .1 . quence tf not m substance, to lordships they executed a move strnt ar m conse • h 'N • · r Many of t ese ew that made by the Spanish Dominicans a generatto~ ear ter. barb . derived

d f an tmage of the anan English' came to Ireland already possesse 0 d A t and as a result from reading Spanish ethnographers such as José e . ~01 .s ad, because pagan

. . . h · sed as unctvt tse · brutahsed a nattve populauon t ey recogm E

1. h s the bearers of a

. . barb · and the ng ts a These tratts marked the Insh as art~s . Id . t"fy dispossession in civilising mission to them. ~at catego~satton co~ ~us~ish cultural mission lreland as readily as it could m_ New Sp~n, tho~~ e e be~ween conquerors and would encompass such expedtents as mterma g

. ~" Jndian and the Origins of 1 u . The Amertc .... 34 Anlhony Pagden, The Fa/1 of Natura ,.an.

Comparative Ethnology (2nd edn., Cambridge, 1986>· European Expansion'. in T. ~mond . . 3S Compare D.B. QuiM, 'lreland and Sixteenth ee;'~j2; Nicholas P. Canny, The El•ztJbtthan

W1lhams, ed., Historica/ StuJies 1 (London, 1958>· ~~76 (Hassocks. 1976). f the Conquest of /re/and: A Pattern Establishtd. 1565- . Laudobiliter and the Co~uest ~

36 James Muldoon 'Spiritual Conquests Compared- eds 1,. Jure Veritas: Stud•es 111 anon A · · ' BI he E Cody. ·· mencas' , m Steven B. Bowman 31\d . a~_~c . · 1 . 174-86. wick (Oxford. Law in Memory of Schnfer Williams (Cmcmnau. 199 )i!~ (1596), ed. R.L. Ren

37 Edmund Spenser, A ~ew of the P~sent Statt of 1970), p. 9.

xxiv TNTRODUCTION -------~

conquered that would rarely be countenanced in subsequent British col . enterprises.38 Later, the English in Ireland would rely increasingly on ~ntal

f d . . 19 egal

rather than cultural arguments or onmuum.-The New English settlers in Ireland were concemed to prove that . . . nattve

rights of soveretg~ty had . passed to the Enghsh Crown by right of conquest or by an act of the lnsh Parhament. There was therefore no question that the G . 1.

· d h Id d · · h · h 1 · ae tc Insh ha once e ommiUm; t e argument m t e ate stxteenth century w who held it then, and where imperium lay. By contrast, the Spanish had tak as for granted that the Mexica and the Inka had possessed imperium; their argumeen was instead ov~r rights of d?minium. s.imilarly, the French and the Dutcn~ generally recogmsed the soveretgnty of nattve peoples as, on occasion, would the Engli ~ in .North America.40 Such recognitions of sovereignty are not only of theoreucal Importance, as W. 1. Eccles shows (see chapter 9 below), because the transfer of sovereignty from first nations to Euro-American settlers made betwee the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries underJjes the sovereign claims of curren~ successor states such as Canada.4 •

. . The French in the 1520s were the first European nation to challenge the papal d1v1S1on of the world between the Portuguese and the Spanish, as Francis 1 had demanded to see the provision in Adam's will that had bequeathed half the world to ~pai~.42 The Jack. of papal donation apart, the French initially proceeded in the1r clam~s to sov.eret~ty along tines laid down by the Spaniards, by making Jand­grants wh1ch camed wtth them a duty to evangelise the lndians. However since French activities in North America tended to concentrate Jess on c~lonial seulement t.han on concentrated missions and dispersed economie activities such as fur-trappt~g, the~ became more dependent on co-operative relations with native peoples, and mcreasmgly respectful of their sovereign daims. 1be French were more keen to enter into treaty-relations with the First Nations than most other European powers.' and they f~und more willing partners in the diplomatically-sophisticated Iroquots confederatton. Dominion over lndian lands which had been negotiated by the French passed to the British under the terms of the Treaty of Paris ( 1763)

38 J.H. Elliott. Britain and s · · A . 39 Hans Pawr h s· J hn pam m mmca: Colonists and Colonized (Reading, 1994).

ISC • •r o Davlts and tL C . , . (Cambridge, 1985). 'IC onques/ of lrtland: A Study in ugal lmpena um

40 Dorothy V. Jones, License for E . . . . . 1990). mp•re. Colonwlum by Treaty in Early America (Chtcago.

41 c ompare Roben A. Williams Jr T. . .

Ducourses of Conques/ (N v rk ' ·· 'lu! Ammcan lndwn in Western Legal Thought: The 42 On ew •O , 1990).

the French experience see . French Canada in the Seventeenth Centuals? S~g~und Diamond, 'An Experiment in Feudalism: pp. 3-34; Brian S1attery, 'French C1aim .ry. Wtllwm and Mary Quarter/y 3rd ser., XVJII (1961). XLIV (1978), pp. 139-69· 01' p ~ m Nonh America, 1500-59' Canadian Historical RevieW French Colonialism in ~~·Am~:;c . (DE.d•ckason, TM Myth of the S~vage and the Beginnings of

as monton, 1984).

INTRODUCfiON ------ xxv

h nee was transmitted to their successor govemments in the Canad· nd t e . F' . , . tan

3 ·on Thts has meant that trst Nattons clatms to property in their lands federau · . . vereignty over them aga10st the Canadtan govemment must be adjudicated andso dl El od . ding to both fact an aw. ar y-rn em theones of both dominium and accor .11 . . 'bu . .

1111 are therefore stt at 1ssue 10 contemporary tn nais in Canada, as they

rmperu . · 1·0 the United States, Austraha and New Zealand.

rematn . By and large, the~e was o~e procedure for A~n~a, another fo~ India (alia

. !tdia alia Amencana ratw est), as the Dutch JUnst Hugo Grotms observed erum ' · . . . . . .

1609 43 The legal positiOn 10 the East Ind1es was rad1cally dtfferent from that

~n h w· est Indies since India had been known to (and had traded with) the 10 t e .

and had been parti y conquered by Alexander, so that n_21 clatms of fWt Romans · and Ind · had 1 al · ould be made The peoples of the subcontment onesta eg dtscovery c · .

d. · as ancient in many cases as those of the European nattons, and were

tra ttiOOS . · · al J 44

d al and Sovereign partners in treaty-makmg under mtematton aw.

~as~ . f . The rocess by which these peoples were excluded fro~ the famtly o natto~s ( thep late eighteenth century is beyond the scope of thts volume, though t.hetr 10 • · h t European dealmgs earlier inclusion should caution agamst any assumptton t a d'

U · 'th'n a homogeneous tscourse with Asian peop1es were conducted, at a tlmes, Wl 1 f th East of 'Orientalism' .) Grotius deoied Portuguese so~erei~nty over any ::f~r f:Wom Indies by according the local rulers fu)l soveretgn ;g~~!; ~: ::hts to travel and of the seas (ma_re .liberum) ~n the Vitorian ~0';; ~ing this last claim, Grotius trade were adm1sstble ac~ordmg t.o natura1 la e. that freedom of navigation was a was also probably drawmg on hts knowl~g h hout the East Indies, as principle of Indian law and a pracuce \~0~f ) Grotius's arguments for Alexandrowicz plausibly suggests (see c~apter d f owthe''freedom of the seas

1

• • •

the'l sovereignty of the East Indian'' pnnces an . or f empire since the Spanish . · d' te over theones o M provoked the most w1de-rangmg lspu . h 1 drew responses to are r a dtspute t a // s

debates of over ha1f a century ear t~r: od An Abridgement of A ea-Liberum from jurists in Scotland {Wt1ham Welw ~ (c 1618]), Portugal (Jus~o Laws ( 1613]), En gland (John Selden,. Mare. ~=um Asiarico [ 1625]) and Spam Seraphim de Freitas, De Justo lmperw Lustt

9]) 45 The origins and aftennath of

(Juan de Sol6rzano, De lndiarum Jure [162 · 8 Ir. of lnttmatioMI Affairs

. . , The Jndion Ytar oo 43 C.H. A1exandrowicz, 'GrotiUS and lnd•a ' . of the Low of

Ill (1954), pp. 357-67. . . A Introduction to the Hutory 44 See more generally C.H. A1exandrow•c:· C nturies) (Oxford. 1967>· . Bijdragt rot dt

Nations in tlu East Jndies (/6th, /7th and 181 Sen el Muller. Mort ClausutnEt··~ (Amsterdam. 45 · d' t see amu · nb .. ~

For other treatments of th•s 15Pu e der/and in de ~vtnllt 911). ch. 9; w.s.M. G~schiedtnis du Rivaliteit van Engtland e~ Nt { the Sea (EdtnbUrgh. ~ Grotius Socitry Xl 1872); Thomas Wemyss Fulton, TM Sovertrg~o um', rronsactioiiS of

1c bridge. 1993), PP· Knight, 'Seraphin de freitas: Critic of Mart G;verrunent. 1572-165/ ( am (1926), pp. 1-9; Richard lùclt, Philosophy and 169-79, 212-14.

XXVI INTRODUCTION - - ------

the debate between Grotius and his critics suggest the need to follow tw relatively undeveloped avenues for research: into other Dutch imperial ideologies~ and into non-European contributions to western theories of empire.47

Claims to dommion over land and sea provided the ideological foundation for the early-modem European overseas empires, though on that basis were erect~ competing millenarian and mercantilist theories of imperial destiny and P~se. The Spanish, Portuguese, French and English had ali grounded their clairns to expansion on the duty to evangelise, through the papal bulls and royal charters, so that each of the sixteenth-century empires could claim to have a religious mission. It was not inevitable that such evangelical purpose should be translated into a miUenarian conception of imperial destiny, though the biblical typology of the Four Empires prophesied in the Book of Daniel certainly gave sanction to the identification of any one of these empires as the vehicle for the millennium.48 The history of specifically Protestant theories of empire - in England, Scotland, the United Provinces, France and Sweden - remains largely unwritten, though scattered treatments exist that would allow a comparative study to be undertaken.49

Both Protestant and Catholic Refonnations cast the territorial and economie rivalry between Catholic and Protestant powers in tenns of the apocalyptic battles

46

See C.R. Boxer, The Dutch Seabom e Empire 1600-1800 (London, 1965), chs. 4, 8; P.J. Drooglever, 'The Nerherlands Colonial Empire: Hislorical Ourline and Sorne Legal Aspecls' , in H.F. van Panhuys, ed .. lntemauona/ LAw in the Netherlands 1 (1978), pp. 103- 65. 47

For one slrikmg example of lhe lauer see Richard H. Grove, Grun lmperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600-1860 (Cambridge, 1995); on a more conlroversial case see Donald A. Grinde, Jr., and Bruce E. Johansen, E.xemplar of Ubtm y: Nalive America and the Evo/ulion of Democracy (Los Angeles, 1991) and 'Forum: The "IroquOis Influence" Thesis- Con and Pro' , William and Mary Quarter/y , 3rd ser., Lill (1996), pp. 587-636.

48

Werner Goez. Translatio lmperii (Tübingen, 1958); Adriano Prosperi, 'New Heaven and ~ew Eanh: Prophccy ~ Propa~anda al the lime of the Discovery and Conques! of the Americas', ~h:ee~es, cd., P~phetlc Rome m the High Renaissance Period, pp. 279-303; John Leddy Phelan,

M•llenmal Kmgdom of the Franciscans in the New World (2nd edn., Berkeley, 1970); J.A. MDc J?ng, As the Waters Cover the Sea: Mil/ennia/ Expectations in the Rise of Anglo-American

ISSI~~s 1640-1810 (Kampen, 1970).

Mas 1F9o8r5)example, D~v•d S. Lovejoy, Re/igious Enthusiasm in the New World (Cambridge. s., • ch. 1; Av1hu Zakai L'-·1 --' K ' d . . · M. · . ' ""'

1 e a,.., tng om: HIS/ory and Apoca/vpse tn the Puntan rgrauon to Amenca (Camb ·d 1992

. J . •

Origms of Anglo-British lm ~ ge, . . ), Roger A. Mason, 'The Scouish Reformation and rhe and the Un1·0 ,ç 1603 pe al•sm • •n Mason, ed., Scots and Britons: Scollish Political Thought 11 0

1 (Cambndge 1994) · d Empire: The Sconish p l' . . '. . . • pp. 161- 86; Anhur Williamson, 'Scots, lnd1ans an 46-83; Simon Schama

0r~c~~ CJvJhzatron, 1519-1609', Past and Present CL (Feb. 1996), PP· GoUlen Age (london '1987) h arrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the

· c 2· Frank Le · • · ~~ la Contro~erse Colonial~ ' en ·F: ' stnngant, Ù Huguenot et le Sauvage: L'Amenq~e 1990); Michael Robens, The. Swedi:n~e, a~ Temps ~s Guerres de Religion ( 1555-1589) (Pans.

'herman, Ros~·Cross Over th 8 1 . mpenal Expenence 1560-1718 (Cambridge, 1979); Susanna e a trc (fonhcoming).

INTRODUCTION ------ xxvii

. h' tory. The lberian empires carried with them the memory of the of salvauon f

1

~ peninsula as an enterprise which had combined the imperative reconques~ 0 t~: true religion, the necessity of treating alien ~oples as v~sals, of advancmg d the economie benefits of plunder. Behmd that parttcular

converts, an · f h sade d slaves or . also lay the Cathohc European legacy o t e cru s an . 1 expenence . . d b . . al .

histonca support for conquest legtumate y sptntu necessuy. • long-tenn . h the Papacy s . ld explain failure as readtly as success, and thoug Apocalyptic htst~ry cofu t' re especially in Spain and Portugal, celebrated · theones o emp • h millenanan . th ntury in the seventeenth century they seem to ave

· · the stxteen ce • · • 'Il t expanston ~~ the rce tion of decline. 50 George WmJUs essay t ustra ~s been more mdeb~ed to '7-t' pl and economie competition cou Id be cast m the way in whtch ge~-po J tca . . 'es in the Portuguese Padroado of the

. thts case as rmsstOnan . . . millenarian tenns, m d ta d the successful incursions into thetr temt~nes East Indies struggled to un ers n 11 below).st The reactions of Ardizone Spmola by the heretical Dutch (see chapter . 1 of the ways in which one form and Femao de Queyroz offer a t~;ng ::::at~on of the East lndian spice-trade of European activity - the strugg e ~ th battle for conversion of the infidel

Could be theorised in tenns of anot er - e Du•~" competition in the East - · od of Portu_guese- ~~ . before the Last Days. The epts e h' l'Oil"es of them~ perceptiOns ~ng Indies also indicates the need for more JS tered each other in the expandmg

. bec se they encoun the European emptres, au onial 'Other' . · world al most as often as the! met the~~~ or theory by which contem.porane~

If millenarianism provtded one J and competitive, enterpnse: th~ understood Euro~an expansio~ ~:a:~~';"a's a body o.f su~sedly !d~~~fi~s~ mercantilism provtded another. ~ . of modem htstonans, an 'th ho

· · the mventton Adam Smt • w and coherent doctnne ts t'l system' came from . (1776) 52 . . f the ' mercan t e 1 h ·' Natwns . systematic exposttton o . . . k IV of The Wea t o,

sought to undennine its pnnctples 10 Boo

. < . til t l Am bi ente l 'd d MtsluiiiCa On

. . Co/6n y su Mtnta ' a , y and Oiscovery: ~o Sec especially A1am Mllhou, Pa l' ne Moffit Walts. PropheCH. t rica/ Review XC · · - "ali d l'd 1983); u 1 .... •merican JS 0 Francu canwa Espanol ( "' a 0 1 • . f the 1ndJes • "

bu • "Enterpnse o . . the Spiritual Origins of Co1um 5 5 . . W rld' spec•al ISSUe, BraZJhan o . and the (1985), pp. 73-102. . ' anism in the Luso- ire: The Cross

~~ Compare 'Messianism and M•llen~ CR Boxer. 'Failh and Em~ ogniuu VIII (1976). Luso-Brazilian Review XXVlll, no .. 1 (

1991El: h;~nth Centuries'· TtrrtUinO~BalùJilOre. 1978).

C · F1fteenth- 1g · t-440- 1s t..ondon, rown in Portuguese Ex.panston, lb rian ExpatiSIOII, tilism (2 vo ·•

pp. 73-89; idem, The Church Militant and i~ly Eli f . Hecks~·(t:,:. 1965); D.C. Col~;':j ~2 From a vast historiography see espec and ColonltS -·•iJisrrJ: The Shap ~

. Pol' · 1 EconomY Merc .. N The Passions 1955); Donald Winch, C~~tcal lltca 1969); Lan Magnusso~rt 0 . Hirschmlll• 7). Terence

ed., Revisions in Mercanllltsm (Londc:;'. and more generall~. A~urnph (Princeton. 19:rord 19

88); an Economie Language (London, 199 ) ' 'talism btfon lU /662- 1776 (0 '

· · 1 A nu for Cap• . · 1 EcOIJOf'IY· and the llllerests: Pollllca rgume net of Poli/ICO b 'd"", 1990). H dam S 'th · The Emerge · · (Cam n o-utchinson, Before A '"' · . . 0

Modern PoltiiCS John Dunn, ed., The Economie Limtts 1

xxviii -------- - INTRODUCTION --------

Smith's target was the British Atlantic empire,53 though the_ tenn later ~ound as h currency as a description of the theory and practlce of non-tmperial

~~~opean states. such as cameralist Pru~s ia, and hence had no ~ecessary connection with European overseas expanston. However, the emphasts on the division of world trade which is central to most definitions of mercantilism has made it a peculiarly useful tool for understanding the economie competition between the early-modern empires, not !east because it was in the context of that competition that the foundations of mercantilism as a doctrine were laid. As Viner's classic discussion showed, mercantilism linked what might be called the interior and the exterior of state policy. and combined a thcory of state power with recommendations about how it was to be achieved: primarily by comering a larger share of the supposedly inflexible sum of international commerce, thereby making plenty the parent of power (see chapter 12 below). Mercantilist theory was therefore a peculiarly appropriate descriptive theory of imperial antagonism, though whether it provided the theoretical impetus behind such antagonism is more debatable. Henceforward, European expansion would be understood primarily in economie terms, as theories of imperium gave way to recognisably modem doctrines of imperialism.54

The colonial independence movements in the Americas in the late eighteenth and e~l~ nineteenth centuries made possible those modem theories of imperialism by bnngmg t~ ~ end the classic early-modern empires of Britain and Spain. The first . decolomsat10n mov~ments in the western hemisphere helped to redefine emptre not sole!~ negattv~ly,_ by _allowing commerce rather than conquest to bec~me the dommatmg pnnctple m the remaining European empires, but also ~~st~vely, as ~~w political forms arose on the ruins of old imperial structures.55 . . o~rt ~than s~ow~ (see chapter 13 below), in the two decades after 1776, mstttut10nal mnovat10n 10 the A · .

br new mencan repubhc generated new federalist, rAepl u •cdan, Hprovi_dential and progressive theories to stabilise and analyse what

exan er amtlton proudly c Il d ' . . a e an emptre m many respects the most

SJ E.A. Benians. 'Adam Smith's p . f pp. 249-83; C.R. Fay. 'Adam sm·th A IOject 0 Empire' , Cambridge Historical Journall (1925), Quanuly Journal of Economies

1

XLVI':~~j and the Doctrinal Defeat of the Mercantilist System', Pohcy: The Amencan Colonies' in hrs AS

3- 34>. PP-. 304--)6; Andrew S. Skinner, 'Mercantilisl

(Oxfo~~· 1979), pp. 184--207. • )'stem of Socral Science: Papus Relating to Adom Smith Agarn from a h .

1 . r uge hlerature see ~ ;;:::: um. trans. P.S. Falla (Chicago, 1980

or example, Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Theories of 55 of Ernprre: Theories of lmper:~a· 1. fi) and Bernard Semmel, The Libual Ideal and tht

On the B · · h um rom Adam s · h (Cambn"d 1 nus Empire see David Ann·ta mrt to Lenin (Baltimore, 1993).

ge, 999)· Er 1 ge The Id 1 · ·rt NarioR-1 Id . • tga H. Gould T,L. n . ' eo ogrcal Origins of the British Empr

·- entr~ 1714-J] • "• rersrstenct ,ç E . d Raj (Tht N ' . 83 (Chape( Hill ~ rth . 0

J mprre: British Political Culture an tw Cambndge History of /IIJia. Il~-

4co) mmg); !Jlomas R. Metcalf, Ideologies of tht

· (Cambndge, 1994).

INTRODUCTION ------ xxix

. h world' _56 It would be interesting because doubly remarkable: t ·ng 10 t e b. · 1 f interes 1

• E ·re for Liberty', corn mmg two va ues - reedom and extent -an mpt d be · "bi d · first, as bl" an tradition bad hel to mcompatt e, an second as a pohty

which the re~u d 1

~these United States' into a single federal structure after 1787.S'7 which combtn~ historians have, like the Founding Fathers, wished rather to

h Amencan · · be h A · R bi. '[houg rather than the contmutty tween t e mencan epu tc · e the rupture & d 1 · · "f · emphasts . . h Empire that empire had been ,e era m practtce, 1 not m

h First Bntts • · 58 and t e b vided the structure for the newly umted states.

nd there Y pro · h · f · theory. a . . between metropolitan and colomal t eones o emptre

The colhsto~ . B .t.sh America 59 As Timothy E. Anna suggests, the . · d ebelhon m n 1 • . . · bo

prectpttate . r . d e movements arose from stmtlar dtsagreements a ut Latin Amencan mdepen e_nch . and led in their tum to the redefinition of

f the Spants emptre, . the purposes

0 . h nd republicanism (see chapter 14 below). Spantsh-

theories of emptre, monarc yh a_ "dentity through history, reaching back to the American criollos define~ t et~ .1

c and the native nobility for their identity. Spanish conquests for thetr legtttma y t ther than members of a federation

. . d bec me separate sta es ra . The Spantsh kmg oms ad distinct viceroyalties integrated into the Spamsh because they had bee_n rule as . e had conspicuously not been treated as Monarchy, not colome~ of Spam. ~ty and the declaration by the Cortes of the equals by the metropohtan governme ' . . f both hemispheres form a

h S nish dommtons o . 'indisputab\e concept that t e pa . 1

f .1

• came too tate to restram . 1 t' n and a smg e amt y . . h single monarchy, a smg e na 10 • d l"ke the colonists of Bntts

the rebellions of criollos already p_osse~s.e • :e~:re they revolted.60 8oth the America, of their own independent tdenttttes

Th Ftderalist Paptrs (1788). ed. Isaac 56 James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay. t

Kramnick (Harmondsworth, 1987), p. 87 · 1

nd tht ldta of Rtpublican Govt~:~ 57 Sec also Gerald Stourzh, Alexander Haml ton a and ht Probltms of Frudom (Co ora .

(Stanford, 1970); J.G.A. Pocock, The P~litics of Exttnt Re ~blicanism', in Gisela Bock. Qu~~~~ Springs, 1988); Judith Shklar, 'Montesqut~u and the New ublfcanism (Cambridge, 1991 >·. PP· in an Skinner and Maurizio Viroli. eds., Mach1avelll an~ Re~odtm World: Tht Law of Natrons 79; Peter S. Onuf and Nicholas Onuf, Federal Unron, . t Exttndtd Age of Revolutions 1776-1814 (Madison, 1993). .

1. na/ Dtvtlopmtnl rn til · J. ''The

58 • . d C 1 r· Constrtu IO 1986)· ,...,m. Jack P. Greene, Periphmes an tn e · 7_

1788 (Athens. Ga.. •

Politits of tht British Empirt and the United States. _l60_ VI (1985). pp. 4-ll. Cambridge. Imperial Roots of American Federalism' • ~h~s Conslll~:rican RtvoiJAliorr <r:e~· ~iscourst and 59

Bernard Bailyn, The 1deological OngiiiS of 1~b ty. ]66(}-1832: Polmc:ff rent accounts Mas_s., 1992) _and J.C.D. Clark, Th~ LangJUJgt ;~bri~;e: !993) offer shatPIY e . Social Dynanucs in the Anglo·Amencan World ( . . . Suulits rn

f h . · . / 1 aginaJlOII. 0 t at collision and its nature. . . lism and rht Polrtrca mw Haven. 1990). chs. 60

See also Anthony Pagden, SpaniSh 1mptna Th 1513-1830 (Ne . _J ritt Uberal E p, /"( al tory. pPrnots onu uropean and Spanish·American Social and 0 1 re . h Monarchy. Crtolt .. s: RtfltctioiiS on 4 ; David Brading The First America: The Spanu /magined C(JIIIIIUIII'": Pioneers' . Statr, 1492-1867 (èambridge, 1991); Benedict Anders;~ J991}. ch. 4, ·creoe lhe Origin and Spread of Nationalism (rev. edn .• Lon '

xxx INTRODUCTION ---------

British King-in-Parliament and the Spanish Monarchy had hoped that declarations of equality. the tics that bound coloni sts to metropolitans, and the economie benefits of mercantilism would be sufficient to hold their Atlantic empires together. However, each foundered on what Anna calls 'the inherent ideological contradiction of empire·, th at the modem empires did not distribute the benefits of citizenship equally as Rome had. and thal proclamations of good will from the metropolis rang hollow in the Americas. when North American colonies were treated like viceroyalties and Spanish-American viceroyalties were treated like colonies.61

The imperial roots of the American federation and the viceregal infrastructure of the Latin American republics are reminders that the theoretical legacy of the carly-modem empires still shapes contemporary political concems. Yet, as Richard Thck and James Thlly (among others) have stressed, political theory also carries freight from the period of European expansion of which contemporary theorists need to be aware.

62 Almost ali of the major carly-modem political theorists had

sorne stake in the ideological justification of European rights to property, dominion or freedom of trade in the wider world: for example, Grotius argued on behaJf of the Dutch East India Company; Hobbes held shares in the Virginia Company; and Locke co-wrote the Fundamental Constitutions for his patron, Shaftesbury's Carolina plantation, owned shares in the Royal African Company, and elaborated an agriculturalist theory of property that would be used to justify European d.ispossession of native lands weil into the eighteenth century.63 Tully argues that, smce a central problem for western politicaJ theory between Grotius and Kant was pre~isely the ideologicaJ justification of European property, the underlying assumpt1ons of European traditions of political thought - whether liberal, communitarian or nationalist - can hardly provide impartial adjudication in contemporary land-disputes between First Nations and the govemments of the European empires' successor-states (see chapter 15 below). The imperial origins of contemporary theories of property, rights, liberty and sovereignty must be

61 Compare J.H. Elliot, 'Empire and State in British and Spanish America' in Serge Gruzinsi

and Nathan Wachtel, eds .. u Nouvt!au Monlh-Mandt!S No~tvt!aux: L 'ExpirienCt! •Amiricaine (Paris, 1996). pp. 365-82.

62 Richard Tuck, Sorry Comjortt!rs: Politica/ Theory and the International Ortler from Grotius

to Kant (Oxford fonhcomi ) · id ' R' . • ng • em, •ghts and Plurahsm' in James Thlly ed Philoso'PhY in an Age of Plura/i · Th Ph'[ ' ' .,

70· James TIl ;m. e ' .oso~hy of Charles Taylor in Question (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 159-• 63 0 ulocy, trangt! Mul~rplrcrty: Constitutionalism in an Age of Diversity (Cambridge, 1995).

n ke see espec1ally James Thil 'R d ' · · and Aboriginal La d R ' h • . . y, e 1scovenng Amenca: The Two Trt!atises (Cambridge 1~3) •g t~j/n hJs An Approach to Political Philosophy: Locke in Conlt!xts English Col~nia/is;,. ~6xford-?~W~nd Barbara Ameil, John Locke and America: The Defence of Original Appropriation· lnd· · ~d compare ~ornas Flanagan, 'The Agricultural Argument and Scit!nct! XXII (1989), ~p. 5~~2. s and PohtJcal Philosophy'. Canadian Journal of Political

INTRODUCTION ------- xxxi

d 'scovered before the inequities of European expansion be successfully overcome, 1

hile the history of lhat expansion cannot justly be written without discriminating ;e particularity of each nation's imperial i~eology while also ~~knowledging t~e -European contribution to the formatiOn of western pohllcal theory. Th1s

no~ me attempts to map sorne of the ways in which the expanding world affected vho u litical imaginations of European theorists. However, it also shows that there t e po . . . h' f h . · , h work still to be donc to prov1de a full y comparative 1story o t eones ts mue . . . 1 h · ·. 1 of empire from imperium to 1mpenahsm, and thereby to revea t e 1mpena features on the face of modem political theory.

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INTRODUcnON ------- xxxiii

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