Lords of All the World Ideologies of Empire in Spain Britain & France C 1500 C 1800

Slavery appears as a figurative construct during the English revolution of the mid-seventeenth century, and again in the American and French revolutions, when radicals represent their treatment as a form of political slavery. What, if anything, does figurative, political slavery have to do with transatlantic slavery? In Arbitrary Rule, Mary Nyquist explores connections between political and chattel slavery by excavating the tradition of Western political thought that justifies actively opposing tyranny. She argues that as powerful rhetorical and conceptual constructs, Greco-Roman political liberty and slavery reemerge at the time of early modern Eurocolonial expansion; they help to create racialized andldquo;freeandrdquo; national identities and their andldquo;unfreeandrdquo; counterparts in non-European nations represented as inhabiting an earlier, privative age.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;Arbitrary Rule is the first book to tackle political slaveryandrsquo;s discursive complexity, engaging Eurocolonialism, political philosophy, and literary studies, areas of study too often kept apart. Nyquist proceeds through analyses not only of texts that are canonical in political thoughtandmdash;by Aristotle, Cicero, Hobbes, and Lockeandmdash;but also of literary works by Euripides, Buchanan, Vondel, Montaigne, and Milton, together with a variety of colonialist and political writings, with special emphasis on tracts written during the English revolution. She illustrates how andldquo;antityranny discourse,andrdquo; which originated in democratic Athens, was adopted by republican Rome, and revived in early modern Western Europe, provided members of a andldquo;freeandrdquo; community with a means of protesting a threatened reduction of privileges or of consolidating a collective, political identity. Its semantic complexity, however, also enabled it to legitimize racialized enslavement and imperial expansion.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;

Throughout, Nyquist demonstrates how principles relating to political slavery and tyranny are bound up with a Roman jurisprudential doctrine that sanctions the power of life and death held by the slaveholder over slaves and, by extension, the state, its representatives, or its laws over its citizenry.

and#8220;Nyquistand#8217;s book is impressively researched, persuasively argued, and clearly written. Anyone who is concerned with freedom, tyranny, and servitude in the modern or ancient world would do well to read Arbitrary Rule. For classicists, Nyquist records the influence and development of antiquityand#8217;s fundamental beliefs on these matters. For those interested in contemporary politics, Nyquist has clarified the origins of many of the political ideas that have shaped our modern world. Most significantly, Nyquist clarifies with great care and subtlety the intricacies of sixteenth and seventeenth century political thought with regard to freedom, servitude, and antityrannicism.and#8221;

andldquo;Arbitrary Rule is a remarkable book. It displays an impressive command of early modern literature and political thought, and throughout operates at a very high level of engagement and originality. It abounds in new perceptions and genuinely transforms the landscape of the period. I have no doubt that it will become a central focus of discussion for many years to come.andrdquo;

and#8220;Nyquistand#8217;s Arbitrary Rule: Slavery, Tyranny, and the Power of Life and Death begins ambitiously with a broad survey of classical debates and culminates in careful close readings of Hobbes and Locke. . . . The groundwork that Nyquist provides in her earlier chapters (many of which glance forward to Hobbes or Milton) will be important and fascinating to a wide variety of readers of literature, history, philosophy, and the arts.and#8221;

andldquo;This daring interdisciplinary study effectively blends literary interpretation with historical and philosophical analysis. Through laying bare the nuances of antityrannical ideology, both ancient and modern, Arbitrary Rule arrestingly reveals the interconnections between liberalism, transatlantic slavery, and discourses on political servitude. Mary Nyquistandrsquo;s imagination and sparkling intelligence shine through on every page.andrdquo;

andldquo;Mary Nyquistandrsquo;s elegant study, Arbitrary Rule, joins distinguished works by Page duBois, Orlando Patterson, and Susan Buck-Morss in situating the roots of political philosophical freedom in tyranny and slavery. Her precise readings of Aristotle, Cicero, Hobbes, and Locke, elaborate ancient, early modern, and Enlightenment defenses of slavery that have too long remained unrecognized.andrdquo;

andldquo;Mary Nyquist has achieved a famous first: a mature, dispassionate examination of the discourse of andlsquo;antityrannicismandrsquo; as exemplified in writings of both a theoretical and a literary nature ranging from Aristotle through Cicero, Buchanan, and Montaigne, to Milton, Hobbes, and Locke. Through her highly intelligent readings of authors with their own very different, indeed sometimes radically opposed, agendas, she shows brilliantly how the antityrannicism discourse could be deployed to sharpen the audienceandrsquo;s perception of the threat posed by tyranny to the privileges and dignity of a free community. As she rightly emphasizes, the interpretative challenges posed by andlsquo;slaveryandrsquo; used as a figure for distinctively political oppression have rarely been critically facedandmdash;she not only faces up to them but faces them down.andrdquo;

"In the rank of those literary studies that aspire to be taken seriously by intellectual historians of political theory, this book is easily one of the most brilliant and transformative volumes that I have encountered in years. . . . In a wide-ranging but intensely focused and powerfully cumulative study, Nyquist uncovers both the utter unpredictability of the interrelations between political and legal slavery but also their tenacious and intense discursive interlockings in the theories of sovereignty and in arguments against tyranny from Aristotle to Locke."

This book, the first to compare theories of empire as they emerged in, and helped to define, the great colonial powers-Spain, Britain, and France-describes the different ways and arguments these countries used to legitimate the seizure and subjugation of aboriginal lands and peoples.Learned, wide-ranging and important. . . . Pagdens willingness to examine the three empires in tandem is as rewarding as it is innovative.-Linda Colley, London Review of BooksAn impressive book, erudite and lively. . . .The book succeeds as an exercise in drawing together the interpretive treatises of three empires over three centuries and showing, often subtly but at times explicitly, their similarity.-William D. Phillips, Jr., American Historical ReviewThis volume . . . provides an excellent commentary on the imperial ideologies of three major European powers during the early modern era. . . . This is a book to which scholars will return time and again. I certainly found it intellectually stimulating.-Chandra R. de Silva, Sixteenth Century JournalAnthony Pagden is Harry C. Black professor of history at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. He is also the author of European Encounters with the New World: From Renaissance to Romanticism and Spanish Imperialism and the Political Imagination, both published by Yale University Press.

The rise and fall of modern colonial empires have had a lasting impact on the development of European political theory and notions of national identity. This book is the first to compare theories of empire as they emerged in, and helped to define, the great colonial powers Spain, Britain, and France.
Anthony Pagden describes how the rulers of the three countries adopted the claim of the Roman Emperor Antoninus to be "Lord of all the World." Examining the arguments used to legitimate the seizure of aboriginal lands and subjugation of aboriginal peoples, he shows that each country came to develop identities--and the political languages in which to express them--that were sometimes radically different. Until the early eighteenth century, Spanish theories of empire stressed the importance of evangelization and military glory. These arguments were challenged by the French and British, however, who increasingly justified empire building by invoking the profit to be gained from trade and agriculture. By the late eighteenth century, the major thinkers in all three countries, and increasingly in the colonies themselves, came to think of their empires as disastrous experiments in human expansion, costly, over-extended, and based on demoralizing forms of brutality and servitude. Pagden concludes by looking at the ways in which this hostility to empire was transformed into a cosmopolitan ideal that sought to replace all world empires by federations of equal and independent states.

Mary Nyquist is professor of English and comparative literature at the University of Toronto.

List of Illustrations

Citations

Introduction

Chapter 1. Ancient Greek and Roman Slaveries

and#160; and#160;Political Slavery and Barbarism

and#160;and#160; Tyranny, Slavery, and the Despotand#275;s

and#160;and#160; The Tyrant as Conqueror and Antityranny

and#160;and#160; Tyranny, Despotical Rule, and Natural Slavery in Aristotleand#8217;s Politics

and#160;and#160; Roman Antityranny

and#160;and#160; Appropriation and Disavowal of Slavery

Chapter 2. Sixteenth-Century French and English Resistance Theory

and#160; and#160;Servility and Tyranny in Montaigne and La Boand#233;tie, Goodman and Ponet

and#160;and#160; Spanish Tyranny, English Resistance

and#160;and#160; Collective Enslavement and Freedom in Vindiciae

and#160;and#160; Slavery in Smithand#8217;s De Republica Anglorum and Bodinand#8217;s Rand#233;publique

and#160;and#160; Resistance

Chapter 3. Human Sacrifice, Barbarism, and Buchananand#8217;s Jephtha

and#160; and#160;Barbarism, Sacrifice, and Civic Virtue

and#160; and#160;Calvin, Cicero, and Wrongful Vows

and#160; and#160;Does Jephtha Hold the Sword?

and#160; and#160;Blood(less) Sacrifice

Chapter 4. Antityranny, Slavery, and Revolution

and#160; and#160;Genesis, Dominion, and Natural Slavery

and#160;and#160; Servility, Tyranny, and Asiatic Monarchy in 1 Samuel 8

and#160;and#160; Genesis, Dominion, and Servitude in and#8220;Paradise Lostand#8221;

and#160;and#160; Ears Bored with an Awl in Revolutionary England

and#160;and#160; Revolution and Liberty Cap

Chapter 5. Freeborn Sons or Slaves?

and#160; and#160;Debating Analogically

and#160;and#160; Freeborn Citizens and Contract

and#160; and#160;Fathers and Resistance

and#160; and#160;Antislavery and Bodinand#8217;s Preemption of Antityranny

and#160;and#160; Parkerand#8217;s Antityranny and Antislavery

Chapter 6. The Power of Life and Death

and#160; and#160;Brutus and His Sons: Lawful Punishment or Paternal Power?

and#160; and#160;Debating the Familial Origins of the Power of Life and Death

and#160; and#160;Debating Divine Sanction for the Power and Life and Death

and#160;and#160; Power, No-Power, and the English Revolution

and#160;and#160; Etymology as Ideology: Servire from Servare, or Enslaving as Saving

Chapter 7. Nakedness, History, and Bare Life

and#160; and#160;Nakedness

and#160; and#160;Nationalization of Natural Slavery and Original Sin

and#160; and#160;De Bryand#8217;s Europeanized Adam and Eve

and#160;and#160; Privative Comparison in Paradise Lostand#160;

Chapter 8. Hobbesand#8217;s State of Nature and and#8220;Hardand#8221; Privativism

and#160; and#160;The Golden-Edenic Privative Age

and#160; and#160;Ciceroand#8217;s Savage Age

and#160;and#160; Savagery and the Euro-Colonial Privative Ageand#160;

and#160;and#160;and#160;Ancestral Liberties, Inherited Freedom

and#160;and#160; Hobbesand#8217;s State of Nature and Libertas

and#160;and#160; Frontispieces

Chapter 9. Hobbes, Slavery, and Despotical Rule

and#160; and#160;Liberty, Slavery, and Tyranny Discomfited

and#160;and#160; Preservation of Life, Civility, and Servitude

and#160;and#160; Hobbesand#8217;s Female-Free Family

and#160;and#160; Servants and Slaves

Chapter 10. Lockeand#8217;s and#8220;On Slavery,and#8221; Despotical Power, and Tyranny

and#160; and#160;Antityranny, Not Antidespotism

and#160; and#160;Hobbes, Locke, and the Power of Life and Death

and#160; and#160;Reading and#8220;Of Slaveryand#8221;

and#160; and#160;Reading Locke Rewriting Power/No-Power

and#160;and#160; Hebrew and Chattel Slavery

and#160;and#160; Slaves and Tyrantsand#160;

and#160;

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index