‘An Undisputable Right … to Appropriate … the Propriety, and Dominium of this Coast’ : Natural Law and Danish Colonialism on the Eighteenth-Century Guinea Coast I
(2023) In Global Intellectual History 8(2). p.186-208- Abstract
This article investigates the uses of the discourse of the law of nature and nations on the Guinea Coast of West Africa in the mid-eighteenth century. Drawing on the archival material of the Danish West India-Guinea Company and other contemporary sources, the article shows how the law of nature and nations was a key discourse by which Europeans and Africans made claims against each other competing for trade and territories in the context of the Atlantic slave trade. It argues that it fulfilled this role for a number of reasons. It had become the chief European discourse for conceptualising rights, property, and jurisdiction, and which provided a standard putatively common to both Europe and the Guinea Coast. As such, it both validated... (More)
This article investigates the uses of the discourse of the law of nature and nations on the Guinea Coast of West Africa in the mid-eighteenth century. Drawing on the archival material of the Danish West India-Guinea Company and other contemporary sources, the article shows how the law of nature and nations was a key discourse by which Europeans and Africans made claims against each other competing for trade and territories in the context of the Atlantic slave trade. It argues that it fulfilled this role for a number of reasons. It had become the chief European discourse for conceptualising rights, property, and jurisdiction, and which provided a standard putatively common to both Europe and the Guinea Coast. As such, it both validated the established ‘customs of the coast’ and at the same time inscribed Europeans and Africans on the Guinea Coast in a larger colonial intellectual, legal, and political order. In this, Africans were routinely described as subjects of the different European nations on the coast.
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- author
- Jensen, Mads Langballe LU
- publishing date
- 2023
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- colonialism, Denmark, dominium, Guinea Coast, Law of nature and nations
- in
- Global Intellectual History
- volume
- 8
- issue
- 2
- pages
- 23 pages
- publisher
- Routledge
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85118527491
- ISSN
- 2380-1883
- DOI
- 10.1080/23801883.2021.1986924
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- no
- additional info
- Funding Information: This work is supported by Carlsbergfondet [grant number CF19-0417]. I would like to express my gratitude for the helpful comments and suggestions offered by the editor and in the peer review. I would also like thank the participants in a reading group on an earlier version of this and the accompanying article, most helpfully organised by Gunvor Simonsen, for their stimulating comments and queries, as well as Knud Haakonssen for his advice. I am particularly grateful to Jaap Geraerts for help with the Dutch language in the early stages of my research. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
- id
- 4ab8e88d-9cb8-44d2-a4ba-4b30edb1521a
- date added to LUP
- 2023-11-01 09:35:55
- date last changed
- 2023-11-02 12:33:47
@article{4ab8e88d-9cb8-44d2-a4ba-4b30edb1521a,
abstract = {{<p>This article investigates the uses of the discourse of the law of nature and nations on the Guinea Coast of West Africa in the mid-eighteenth century. Drawing on the archival material of the Danish West India-Guinea Company and other contemporary sources, the article shows how the law of nature and nations was a key discourse by which Europeans and Africans made claims against each other competing for trade and territories in the context of the Atlantic slave trade. It argues that it fulfilled this role for a number of reasons. It had become the chief European discourse for conceptualising rights, property, and jurisdiction, and which provided a standard putatively common to both Europe and the Guinea Coast. As such, it both validated the established ‘customs of the coast’ and at the same time inscribed Europeans and Africans on the Guinea Coast in a larger colonial intellectual, legal, and political order. In this, Africans were routinely described as subjects of the different European nations on the coast.</p>}},
author = {{Jensen, Mads Langballe}},
issn = {{2380-1883}},
keywords = {{colonialism; Denmark; dominium; Guinea Coast; Law of nature and nations}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{2}},
pages = {{186--208}},
publisher = {{Routledge}},
series = {{Global Intellectual History}},
title = {{‘An Undisputable Right … to Appropriate … the Propriety, and Dominium of this Coast’ : Natural Law and Danish Colonialism on the Eighteenth-Century Guinea Coast I}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23801883.2021.1986924}},
doi = {{10.1080/23801883.2021.1986924}},
volume = {{8}},
year = {{2023}},
}