The Americas in Early Modern Political Theory: States of Nature and Aboriginality

173 Pages·2016·2.213 MB·English

by  Stephanie B. Martens (auth.)

THE AMERICAS
IN EARLY MODERN
POLITICAL THEORY
STATES OF NATURE AND
ABORIGINALITY
STEPHANIE B. MARTENS
The Americas in Early Modern Political Theory

Stephanie   B.   Martens
The Americas in
Early Modern
Political Theory
States of Nature and Aboriginality
Stephanie   B.   Martens
Laurentian University
Barrie, Ontario, Canada
ISBN 978-1-137-51998-6 ISBN 978-1-137-51999-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-51999-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016939267
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2 016
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A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank all the colleagues at the University of Alberta involved
in the completion of my doctoral thesis, which led to this book. First,
I express my sincerest gratitude to my former supervisor, Dr. Catherine
Kellogg, for her patience and understanding during my studies and her
generous advice and kind recommendations throughout my doctoral
thesis. Many thanks to the members of the committee, Dr. Robert Nichols,
Dr. Don Carmichael, and Dr. Barbara Arneil, for the attention they have
devoted to my dissertation and their generous feedback.
For this book specifi cally, I would like to acknowledge the great help
and support provided by my assistant, Carmen Grillo, a graduate stu-
dent at York University, and my colleagues on the Barrie campus of
Laurentian University. I am looking forward to continue working with
them in my future endeavors, research, and writing projects. Thank you
to my editors at Palgrave Macmillan, Elaine Fan and Brian O’Connor,
and the anonymous reviewers for their feedback and thoughtful recom-
mendations. I would also like to acknowledge the fi nancial support of
Laurentian University, through their Laurentian University Research
Fund.
Many thanks to my family, both here in Canada and, on the other
side of the Atlantic, in France; to my parents, who, while living far away,
have always been supportive and enthusiastic about my intellectual pur-
suits and proud of all my achievements, small and big, as a student, an
instructor, and a researcher; and to my husband, Bruce, for his patience,
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
support, and resilience through the writing process. My deepest gratitude
goes to my twin children, Sophia and Lucas, for the joy they bring into
my life. Their love and happiness make all the long days and nights of
work worth it.
My thanks also go to my students and teaching assistants at the
University of Alberta, the University of Ottawa, and Laurentian University
for giving me the chance to share my love of political theory.
C
ONTENTS
1 Introduction 1
Presentation of the Chapters 9
2 Discovering and Inventing a New World:
Post-Columbian Travel Literature 17
Typology of the Literature on the Americas 21
Firsthand Testimonies, Journals and Letters, Relaciones 22
Histories 24
Fiction 26
Literary Themes: Noble and Ignoble Savages 29
America as the Antipodes, Mythical and Marvelous 30
The Far Away–Long Ago Fallacy 32
Multiple Defi ciencies 35
Paradoxical America: So Natural and Yet So Unnatural… 39
America as Critique 43
3 Unsettling New World: Scholastic Approaches
to the Americas 47
On Natura Rerum and Indis: Vitoria and the 
Valladolid Controversy 50
Historical Context 51
Framing the Affair of the Indies 52
vii
viii CONTENTS
The Controversy Itself: Las Casas vs. Sepulveda 59
Signifi cance 63
Conclusion: America as “Social Imaginary” 65
4 The Invention of the Natural Man in
Political Theory: Hobbes’s Leviathan 69
The Novelty of Seventeenth-Century Social Contract Theories 71
Choice of Texts and Organization of the Chapter 76
Hobbes’s State of Nature 77
“Fact and Fiction” 77
“American Imaginaries” in Leviathan 85
5 The “Inconvenience” of America: Locke’s State of Nature 95
“American Imaginaries” in Locke 100
Far Away–Long Ago, Again… 100
The Magic Three: Agriculture, Property, Money 102
Patriarchy or No Government at All! 109
Conclusion: The Politics of Effi ciency and Convenience 112
6 Aboriginalism: Representing Indigenous Peoples
as “Un-Civil” and “Un-Civilized” 115
From Civility to Civilization 116
Political Theory and the Art of Civilization 116
From American Social Imaginaries to Aboriginalism 127
American Social Imaginaries to Aboriginality… 127
From Aboriginal Social Imaginary to Aboriginalism… 129
The Impossible Aboriginal Subject 135
Conclusion: Civilization as Government 140
7 Conclusion 141
The “Politically Incorrect” Canon of Political Philosophy 141
Aboriginality, a Blind Spot in Political Theory 144
Looking Back at Aboriginality… 148
The Figure of Man and the Figure of Natural Man 150
Looking Forward… 151
Bibliography 155
Index 165
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
The Spaniards pursued the Indians with bloodhounds, like wild beasts; they
sacked the New World like a city taken by storm, with no discernment or
compassion; but destruction must cease at last and frenzy has a limit: the
remnant of the Indian population which had escaped the massacre mixed
with its conquerors and adopted in the end their religion and their manners.
The conduct of the Americans of the United States towards the aborigi-
nes is characterized, on the other hand, by a singular attachment to the
formalities of law. Provided that the Indians retain their [savage] condition,
the Americans take no part in their affairs; they treat them as independent
[peoples] and do not possess themselves of their [lands] without a treaty of
purchase; and if an Indian nation happens to be so encroached upon as to
be unable to subsist upon their territory, they kindly take them by the hand
and transport them to a grave far from the land of their fathers.
The Spaniards were unable to exterminate the Indian race by those
unparalleled atrocities which brand them with indelible shame, nor did they
succeed even in wholly depriving it of its rights; but the Americans of the
United States have accomplished this twofold purpose with singular felicity,
tranquilly, legally, philanthropically, without shedding blood, and without
violating a single great principle of morality in the eyes of the world. It
[would] be impossible to destroy men with more respect for the laws of
humanity. [Original French: O n ne saurait détruire les hommes en respectant
mieux les lois de l'humanité .] 1
1 From the Henry Reeve Translation, 1899, revised and corrected for the online version of
Democracy in America published by ASGRP, the American Studies Programs at the University
of Virginia, June 1, 1997; words in brackets have been modifi ed to stay closer to the original
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 1
S.B. Martens, The Americas in Early Modern Political Theory,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-51999-3_1