ipl-logo

Analysis Of Legal Spaces Of Empire By Lauren Benton

957 Words4 Pages

Benton, Lauren. “Legal Spaces of Empire: Piracy and the Origins of Ocean Regionalism.” Comparative Studies in Society and History vol.47 no. 4, (Oct. 2005). 700-724 Lauren Benton (a history professor at New York University) discusses the connections between the legal strategies of mariners in the late seventeenth century and the early eighteenth century, while illustrating the divisions between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans as separate legal spaces in “Legal Spaces of Empire: Piracy and the Origins of Ocean Regionalism.” Benton hopes to prove in her essay that pirates affected Atlantic legal politics and the relationship between the Mughal Empire and European nations in the early modern era. Benton’s primary sources are predominately court …show more content…

The high seas became a spate legal space by the late seventeenth- century because it was absorbed into the common law in England and the non-specialized mercantile law in the Spanish, Dutch, and French empires. Benton suggests that the legal differences between the Atlantic and Indian Ocean grew due to the flexibility of imperial legal authority. The early eighteenth century saw a surge in piracy and an increase in the prosecution of pirates. The prosecution of pirates altered the legal status of pirates; however, the definition of piracy was not solidified in international law. Benton argues that internationalism materialized due to inter-state agreements about lessening piracy and the desire to implement order in the seas. Benton writes, “The discourse of legal dualism- of lawful and lawless zones- coexisted historically both with a pervasive legal pluralism that recognized non- European law and with a spatially diffuse legal culture that engaged actors from all sides- even ruffians and rogues- and gave rise to novel institutional arrangements” (724). Maritime practices were becoming more globalized due to the relationship between England and the Mughal Empire, the actions of mariners and pirates, and mariners’ manipulation of the divisions between maritime powers. Benton’s main argument is that the circulating legal strategies of mariners and pirates in seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the differences between the laws in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean incited the globalization of legal practices as well as affecting the relationship between European nations and the Mughal

Show More
Related

Industrial Revolution DBQ Essay

1529 Words | 7 Pages

The problem that arose, was when these ships, stocked for London, departed from their foreign ports. According to the text, an “Act of Parliament passed in the seventeenth year of the reign of King George” is what stirred the commotion on the high seas. It was while sailing that trades and smuggling would occur with ships from within the East India Company, in order to transport the illegal contraband to other bidders. Similar to the Acts passed by Parliament on wool running, the East India company also sought

Read More

Analysis Of Pillaging The Empire

1953 Words | 8 Pages

Lane, Kris E. Pillaging the Empire: Piracy in the Americas 1500-1750 (M.E. Sharpe Inc., 1998). Kris E. Lane’s Pillaging the Empire: Piracy in the Americas 1500- 1750 focuses on Spain and Portugal’s encounters with pirates in the Americas during the early modern era. Lane diverges from traditional history on piracy through his attempt to place pirates in a world-historical perspective and he emphasizes how pirates were motivated by their desire for money rather than patriotic motives. Lane is a professor of Colonial Latin American History at Tulane University. The purpose of Pillaging the Empire is to provide a chronological survey of piracy in the Americas and introduce maritime predation in Spain’s colonial holdings between 1500 and1750.

Read More

Diplomacy Between Jamestown And Pamunkeys

677 Words | 3 Pages

Communications and diplomacy is essential to the success of two societies that come to interact, especially when the peoples are so different as the Pamunkeys and the English colonies of Jamestown were. When societies share knowledge, resources, and goodwill, they build not only a better present but also a stable future. However, when they try to take advantage of each other by force, they bring instability to their people and those around them. A poignant lesson of this is seen in the interactions between the English and the Pamunkey people in the early 17th century.

Read More

Defying Empire: An Analysis

604 Words | 3 Pages

The businessmen of colonial New York strove to succeed in their trade by any means possible, often resorting to violence and bribery in order to increase their profit margin. However, their methods were not limited to violence. Throughout Defying Empire the reader is often bombarded with descriptions of the mindsets of the eponymous merchants. The text goes into detail cataloging the general thought processes behind some of the most ingenious smuggling conventions of the 18th century. They utilized any tools at their disposal in order to continue their businesses including powerful connections and money.

Read More

Apush Unit 1 Research Paper

1400 Words | 6 Pages

The British men gathered full control of the trading center present in the Americas, and created the Navigation Acts to help aid them in their tactics to take control over all trade within the Americas. The Navigation Acts were passed under a mercantilist system, and was used to regulate trade in a way that only benefitted the British economy. These acts restricted trade between England and its colonies to English or colonial ships, required certain colonial goods to pass through England before export, provided subsidies for the production of certain raw goods in the colonies, and banned colonial competition in large-scale manufacturing. This lowered the competition in the trading world for the British and caused the British to have a major surge in power, that greatly attributed to the growth of their rising empire. The British’s ambitious motives in the trading world help portray a way that the British took control of an important piece in the economy of all of the other nations present in the colonies in the time period, and shows another leading factor in the growth of the British empire.

Read More

Indian Ocean Basin Dbq Essay

457 Words | 2 Pages

During the classical period, the Indian Ocean Basin was filled with diversity and assortment. The development of cross-cultural exchanges in the Basin brought new ideas, technologies, items, and different ways of thinking. During this evolving new era, multicultural exchanges of trade and religion were the most prominent in the Indian Ocean Basin. Cross-cultural exchange in the Indian Ocean Basin mainly included trade and religion. Firstly, document one and four explained the cross cultural interaction of the Indian Ocean Basin through trade.

Read More

World History Dbq Essay

1316 Words | 6 Pages

During the Age of Exploration Europeans hoped to subside the power of Islam and diminish its threat to the security of Europe by expanding and controlling global markets by reducing their market trade, although it was believed the Muslim world had entered a period of decline and turmoil with the collapse of the Abbasid Caliphate during the Era of the Mongols, on the contrary in the shadows of the Age of Exploration between the late Fifteenth and early Sixteenth century in the Middle East and South Asian subcontinent the rise of three great Muslim Empires, the Ottomans, the Safavids and the Mughals was occurring, the Ottoman empire being one of the strongest. (William J. Duiker and Jackson J. Spielvogel, World History, vol. 1,446). These

Read More

Allison Games And Migration

1569 Words | 7 Pages

In Allison Games’, Migration and the Origins of the English Atlantic World, Games creates a new understanding of the Atlantic world that shows how the impermanent migration of the English people ultimately formulated what the Atlantic world was known to be. Unlike other historians, Games creatively gathered together her book through an extensive study of the 1635 London Port register list along with other primary sources such as wills, personal letters, and business contracts from personnels on the list to add a humanistic touch in presenting the Atlantic migration history. However the selection of these sources did not come without a heavy cost. The use of these informative, yet limited, documents resulted in misleading statistics, constant

Read More

Summary Of Villains Of All Nations By Marcus Rediker

1543 Words | 7 Pages

In Marcus Rediker’s Villains of All Nations, pirates Mary Read and Anne Bonny are represented as being vulnerable, emotional, extraordinary women. Both being born illegitimate children, Rediker poses an understanding, empathetic treatment of these women, despite their representation of ‘liberty’ emanating from the brutality of piracy. The constant referral to Read and Bonny as female pirates indiscreetly implies that Rediker interprets their participation in piracy as delicate, which is unjust. Females and delicateness were a dominant association in the 18th century. Rather than referring to the two women simply as pirates, Rediker uses the phrase female pirates to imply that their participation on ship was neither masculine nor violent.

Read More

The Stono Rebellion

874 Words | 4 Pages

This led to many disputes in America, and the Americans began smuggling, and ignoring their mother country's laws. England

Read More

Speech On Lunsfords Land

432 Words | 2 Pages

I am going to tell you about Lunsfords Land. Lunsfords Land is my dream land. Everything is perfect and there are no flaws. Everybody is happy and respect each other. Everybody that comes here always says that it is the best place in the world and that more people should come.

Read More

Marcus Rediker Villains Of All Nations Summary

2213 Words | 9 Pages

Rediker, Marcus. Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age (Boston: Beacon Press, 2004). Marcus Rediker’s Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age explores the social, political, and cultural history of pirates during the Golden Age of Atlantic piracy. Rediker is a prize-winning historian and a professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. The purpose of Villains of All Nations is to provide a new outlook on the history of piracy during the Golden Age of piracy while also highlighting how pirates created an egalitarian society.

Read More

Frederick Law Olmsted And Camillo Sitte: Urban Law

1427 Words | 6 Pages

FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED AND CAMILLO SITTE: NOT AS DIFFERENT AS THEY FIRST APPEAR Harkening from different sides of the Atlantic, two influential urban planners worked to transform the blossoming urban environment of the nineteenth century, albeit with very different approaches. This essay will be looking at the ideals and some of the work of Frederick Law Olmsted and Camillo Sitte. Born within just over twenty years of one and other, Olmsted in Hartford, Connecticut, and Sitte in Vienna, both men had careers encompassing fields well beyond urban planning. Not a planner by training, Olmsted delved into the world of planning when he and Calvert Vaux won the design competition for New York’s Central Park in 1858.

Read More

Compare And Contrast The Sign Of Four And The Beach Of Falesa

1096 Words | 5 Pages

Although Doyle's The Sign of Four admires the peculiar aspects of Indian cultures, it upholds England's authority without questioning its legitimacy as reflected in Small's description of the Mutiny which unjustifiably associates India with barbarism. Stevenson's The Beach of Falesa, on the other hand, adamantly emphasizes the moral depravity of the white perpetrators. Both of these tales have undoubtedly broadened the imaginative horizons of British readers and their analyses have broadened mine so I am extremely thankful for the knowledge I acquired through this

Read More

Caribbean Pirates Research Paper

558 Words | 3 Pages

When many people reflect on their basic knowledge of Caribbean pirates, they tend to describe their observations based solely off modern pop culture’s depiction of them. Present day society depicts pirates as humorous burglars who take on quests while enjoying treasures and glory, even popular films such as ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ strive to exhibit piracy in the same manner in pop culture. Although this is a common stereotype society wishes were historically correct, unfortunately, this portrayal is far from one-hundred percent truthful. In this essay, I will argue that various modern films and forms of media that focus on the early seventeenth century, depict a humorous and historically inaccurate portrayal of pirates to modern day society.

Read More

More about Analysis Of Legal Spaces Of Empire By Lauren Benton

Related Topics

Open Document