They ‘submitted themselves with their lands to his majesty … for ever and always’: natural law and Danish colonialism on the eighteenth-century Guinea Coast II

Abstract

ABSTRACT Drawing on archival material from the Danish Guinea Company and central administration, this article discusses the uses of the discourse of the law of nature and nations in the Danish-Dutch war of 1776–1778 on the Guinea Coast and its aftermath. It shows how Danish and Dutch administrators drew on the law of nature and nations to justify their competing claims in the war, which in turn hinged on claims to territorial and sovereign rights on the coast, grounded on occupation, conquest, and subjection by treaty. It also shows how the discourse was further used to reconceptualise African political relations in the service of these claims in different ways by the Danish and the Dutch. Further, an ability to use natural jurisprudential discourse was important not just in pursuing present claims, but also in formulating evidence that could be used in later controversies. Finally, the article argues that the use of natural jurisprudential discourse on the coast encouraged European governments, especially the Danish, to pursue their territorial claims there as a basis for further colonisation.