John Locke and the American Indian
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'All the World was America' John Locke and the American Indian Submitted by Morag Barbara Arneil BA. MSc. In fulfilment of the requirement for the degree Doctor of Philosphy University College London 1992 Abstract This thesis examines the role played by America and its native inhabitants in John Locke's Two Treatises of Government. It begins by examining the large collection of travel books written by explorers to the new world in Locke's library. Locke uses the information from these sources selectively, employing those facts which support his view of natural man and ignoring those which do not. His reasons for using the Indians in his Two Treatises goes beyond simply providing empirical evidence. Locke, steeped in the colonial zeal of his patron, the Earl of Shaftesbury, is, particularly In the chapters on property and conquest, arguing In favour of the rights of English colonists. While it has been recognized that Locke's political philosophy reflects the domestic political needs of Shaftesbury, very little has been written in previous scholarship about the Earl's colonial aims. Locke, as secretary to both the Lords Proprietors of Carolina and the Council of Trade and Plantations, was Immersed in the colonial questions of his day. Following in the steps of Hugo Grotius, whose notions of property and war were shaped by his employment In the East Indies Company, Locke uses natural law to defend England's colonization of America. His chapters on property and conquest delineate a very English form of settlement. By beginning property In a very specific form of labour, namely agrarian settlement, and denying the right to take over land by virtue of conquest, Locke creates the means by which England can defend its claims in America with regard to both other European powers and the native Indians. The strength of this argument Is demonstrated by the extent to which it was used by ministers, politicians and judges in the early years of the American republic. In particular, Thomas Jefferson's powerful attempts to transform large groups of nomadic Indians into settled farmers can be traced back to Locke's ideas of the natural state and civil society. -2- Table of Contents Introduction 5 I A Review of the Literature 7 II John Locke and the American Indian: A Synopsis 18 Chapter 1 Locke's Travel Books 32 I The Travel Books: Locke's Historical Evidence 37 II Natural Man: Ignoble vs. Noble Savage 44 III The Travel Books: Locke's Omissions 52 IV Conclusion 70 Chapter 2 Colonialism and Natural Law 82 I Colonialism and Natural Law: Hugo Grotius 83 II Colonialism and Natural Law: Samuel Pufendorf 99 III Colonialism and Natural Law: John Locke 110 IV Conclusion 114 Chapter 3 English Colonialism 122 I English Colonialism: Trade vs. Settlement 122 II An Evolving Definition of Property 130 III Colonialism: Implications for the Indians 137 IV The Recognition of Indian Land Rights 147 V Conclusion 156 Chapter 4 Colonialism - Economic and Ethical Debates - 168 I English Colonialism: The Economic Debate 171 II Josiah Child and Charles Davenant 182 III Locke's Economic Views 189 IV The Ethical Debate: English vs. Indian Land Rights 199 V Conclusion 218 Chapter 5 Carolina - A Colonial Blueprint 233 Chapter 6 Colonialism - Locke's Theory of Property 261 I Property: Preliminary Remarks 262 II The Indian's Deer: Property in the Earth's Products 267 III Property in Land: Cultivation and Enclosure 270 IV Property: The Role of Trade and Commerce 276 V Vacuum Domicillium: Wasteland 280 VI Conquest and Property 282 VII 'The Industrious and Rational' 285 VIII Property and Injury 291 Ix Communal Property: England vs. America 294 x Property and Civil Society 299 XI Conclusion 310 Chapter 7 Locke, Jefferson and the American Indian 324 I The Preachers 329 II The Judiciary 338 III The Farmers 354 IV Thomas Jefferson 357 V Judge Marshall, Locke and Jefferson 369 VI Conclusion 373 Conclusion 391 -3- Acknowledgements There are a number of individuals and organizations which have helped to keep body and soul together throughout the course of this thesis. My first debt of gratitude is to my supervisor, Prof. Fred Rosen whose guidance has made this thesis better than it would otherwise have been. To the British Council, who provided me with a Foreign Commonwealth Scholarship for the first two years of my studies. To Michael Burke, Janet Coleman, Jimmy Burns, and the rest of the Seminar in the History of Political Ideas at the Institute of Historical Research, who have shown me that, within those walls, quiet but profound scholarship sill exists. For the scones at Lanergill, the bathtub in Dumbarton, the sunroom at Clydeshore and the parties at Leicester Avenue, I would like to thank my family in Scotland for their support. To my parents and family in Canada, who have sustained me throughout all of my intellectual journeys, I owe the greatest debt of gratitude. Finally, my thanks to Graeme, for giving me egg sandwiches, a table of contents and the remains of the day. -4- Introduction 'Thus in the beginning all the World was America.1 America, as it appears in these famous words from the Two Treatises of Government, is John Locke's political Genesis. For Locke, America is the beginning of civilization, to the extent that it reveals civil society's natural origins. But Locke's vision of the new world is a 'beginning' for the old world, in a different, although equally profound, sense. Steeped in the colonial zeal of his patron, the Earl of Shaftesbury, John Locke saw America as the second Garden of Eden; a new beginning for England should she manage to defend her claims In the American continent against those of the Indians and other European powers. America, like the world described in the original Genesis, is England's second chance at paradise, providing the colonial masters of the old world, with a land full of all the promise known in that first Idyllic state. America thus represents for Locke and his readers a two-sided Genesis, a place to find both the origins of their past and the promise of their future. It is the role of America and Its native inhabitants In Locke's political theory which has been previously overlooked in scholarship on the Two Treatises. Given the number of specific references In this work to America, and Locke's lifelong Involvement In the colonization of the new world, it Is Indeed surprising that so little has been written on the subject. The oversight is Important for without considering Locke's use of -5- directly, by accepting Locke's examples of natural men as written, and examining the role played by America in the Two Treatises. I - A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE The reasons for ignoring the American dimension of Locke's work is twofold. Firstly, European scholars have concentrated on Europeans, that is men in civil society. They have, therefore, expressed little interest in what Locke said about natural man, beyond what he revealed about their own, civil society. The failure to consider the role of American Indians in Locke's thought also rests on the belief that Locke, himself, had no real reason to include them in his treatise beyond a superficial need to provide some empirical evidence for his abstract notion of a natural state. But Locke deliberately included America and its inhabitants in his treatise for very specific reasons originating in the colonial debates within which he, and his patron Shaftesbury, were enmeshed throughout the latter half of the 17th century. While much has been written during the last thirty years on the specific political events of the 17th century which shaped Locke's purposes in writing the Two Treatises, most scholars have limited themselves to the domestic policies of the day and have failed to consider the importance of foreign and, more specifically, -7- colonial concerns to the political ideas of Locke and his patron. In 1957, Maurice Cranston published the now classic biography, John Locke, which provided, through letters and other documentation, clear new evidence of Locke's activities, the politics which surrounded him, and the context of his compositions over the course of his life. In particular, .Cranston destroys the attempts of Victorian biographers to make Locke a political innocent in all of Shaftesbury's intrigue, demonstrating that Locke was completely involved in many of the Earl's varied, and occasionally subversive, political interests.4 This domestic political context, within which the Two Treatises were first composed, was given full consideration in 1960, when Peter Laslett published, based on the documents in the Lovelace Collection, his edition of the Two Treatises of Government.5 His analysis suggests that the Two Treatises were originally written as one piece between the years 1679 and 1680, ten years prior to the traditional date of composition, at the same time that Locke's clde friend, James Tyrell wrote and published, Patriarcha non Monarcha. 6 Moreover, Locke wrote in response to Sir Robert Filmer, who was at the height of his fame in these years, and not in response to Thomas Hobbes, as had been traditionally thought. Central to the composition of the Two -8- Treatises, according to Laslett, was Locke's relationship to the Earl of Shaftesbury and the political intrigues of the day. The dating of its composition necessarily altered the domestic political event to which it was thought to be responding. As Laslett himself says, 'The Two Treatises is an Exclusion tract not a Revolution pamphlet.' 7 Given the date of publication, Laslett argues, it was the attempt by Shaftesbury to exclude the Catholic James from the throne which provided the political inspiration, for Locke's political thesis, not the Glorious Revolution of 1688, as had been traditionally assumed.