Table Of ContentLegal Pluralism and Empires, 1500–1850
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Legal Pluralism and Empires, 1500–1850
Edited by Lauren Benton and Richard J. Ross
a
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
www.nyupress.org
© 2013 by New York University
All rights reserved
References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing.
Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that
may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Legal pluralism and empires, 1500-1850 / edited by Lauren Benton and Richard J. Ross.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8147-7116-7 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-8147-0836-1 (paperback : alk. paper)
1. Colonies—Law and legislation—Congresses. 2. Legal polycentricity—Congresses. I.
Benton, Lauren A., editor of compilation. II. Ross, Richard Jeffrey, editor of compilation.
K3375.A6L44 2013
342’.04130903—dc23
2013001060
New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, a
nd their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.
We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials
to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books.
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To our parents:
Charlotte Benton and (in memoriam) George Benton
and
Leonard Ross and Lorraine Ross
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
1 Empires and Legal Pluralism: Jurisdiction, Sovereignty,
and Political Imagination in the Early Modern World 1
Lauren Benton and Richard J. Ross
Part I: Composite Polities across Empires
2 “Bundles of Hyphens”: Corporations as Legal Communities
in the Early Modern British Empire 21
Philip J. Stern
3 Litigating Empire: The Role of French Courts in Establishing
Colonial Sovereignties 49
Helen Dewar
Part II: Political and Religious Imagination
4 Aspects of Legal Pluralism in the Ottoman Empire 83
Karen Barkey
5 Reconstructing Early Modern Notions of Legal Pluralism 109
Richard J. Ross and Philip J. Stern
6 Between Justice and Economics: “Indians” and Reformism in
Eighteenth-Century Spanish Imperial Thought 143
Brian P. Owensby
Part III: Constructing Imperial Jurisdiction
7 Magistrates in Empire: Convicts, Slaves, and the Remaking
of the Plural Legal Order in the British Empire 173
Lauren Benton and Lisa Ford
8 “Seeking the Water of Baptism”: Fugitive Slaves and Imperial
Jurisdiction in the Early Modern Caribbean 199
Linda M. Rupert
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viii << Contents
9 “A Pretty Gov[ernment]!”: The “Confederation of United Tribes”
and Britain’s Quest for Imperial Order in the New Zealand
Islands during the 1830s 233
P. G. McHugh
Part IV: Concluding Perspectives
10 Laws’ Histories: Pluralisms, Pluralities, Diversity 261
Paul D. Halliday
11 Rules of Law, Politics of Empire 279
Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper
About the Contributors 295
Index 299
Acknowledgments
This volume developed out of a 2010 conference on “New Perspectives on
Legal Pluralism” organized by Lauren Benton and Richard Ross through
the Symposium on Comparative Early Modern Legal History. Richard Ross
oversees the Symposium, which gathers each year under the auspices of the
Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library in Chicago to dis-
cuss the comparative legal history of the Atlantic world in the period c. 1492
to 1815. Proliferating scholarship on the layered, jurisdictionally complex,
and multicentric nature of law in overseas empires suggested the value of
a conference assessing legal pluralism in colonial settings. The rich papers
presented at the “New Perspectives on Legal Pluralism” symposium, together
with the valuable conversation they inspired among participants, prompted
the organizers to think of assembling a volume on the subject.
The editors wished to produce a volume that studied the provenance,
meaning, and implications of legal pluralism across a wide range of early
modern empires, in settings as far apart as Peru and New Zealand, and in
every century between 1500 and the middle of the nineteenth century. To
that end, we drew from contributions by participants in the symposium
and also invited other scholars to write for the volume. Karen Barkey, Linda
Rupert, Philip Stern, and P. G. McHugh presented papers at the symposium
that subsequently became chapters in this volume. Lauren Benton, Helen
Dewar, Lisa Ford, Brian Owensby, and Richard Ross contributed chapters
written especially for the volume. We were lucky to recruit Jane Burbank,
Frederick Cooper, and Paul Halliday to write chapters presenting concluding
perspectives.
The editors wish to thank the authors for their essays. All undertook revi-
sions with dedication, care, and good humor. Several anonymous commen-
tators for New York University Press suggested ways to improve the fram-
ing of the volume. Deborah Gershenowitz, the history and law editor at the
press, expertly guided the book through the publication process. The Uni-
versity of Illinois College of Law provided funding for the conference out of
which this volume emerged. Funds for promoting the study of legal history
at New York University contributed to covering the costs of preparing the
manuscript for publication. The Center for Renaissance Studies at the New-
berry Library offered an ideal site for the proceedings.
>> ix
