Early Modern Empires Research Articles

Interweaving Ideologies of Early Modern Empires: A Morisco View

ABSTRACT This article argues that Ahmad al-Hajarî (ca. 1569–after 1640), a Morisco exile to North Africa, helped propagate and counter the imperial ideologies of the Habsburgs in the Arab-speaking world. Thanks to his intimate acquaintance with Spain in which he was raised as a Christian, and to his knowledge of Christian scripture, he could describe and explain the apocalyptic underpinnings of imperial views of the Spanish monarchy. He could also propose his own defense of the Muslim realms, especially the Ottoman Empire, to counter the Spanish and Christian pretensions to universal millenarian monarchy. He thus helped the interweaving of imperial ideologies across boundaries and extended the domain of what the late Cornell Fleischer termed a “Mediterranean Apocalypse.”

Owning Bodies, Owning Lands

Abstract This article presents a broad and comparative examination of property formation in the French and English plantation colonies of the Caribbean and the southern North American mainland. It considers the connections between claims to exclusive control over human beings and claims to portions of the earth's surface. In the two early modern empires, planters pushed consistently and successfully to remove social, legal, and ecological constraints that limited their full control over their human and terrestrial property. Moreover, they insisted on legally fusing fields and workers, assimilating slaves to the category of real estate for purposes of inheritance and legal liability for debt. By the mid-eighteenth century, the French and British colonies had developed precociously modern capitalist property forms. In the Age of Revolutions, ideologues from plantation colonies, such as Thomas Jefferson and Michel-René Hilliard d'Auberteuil, emerged as radical advocates of absolute private property rights.

Consenting to Early Modern Empires: Introduction

This text offers an introduction to the special theme section on Consenting to Early Modern Empires, guest-edited by the author. The contributors to this section seek to explain the prominent place given to consent in Spanish-American and Portuguese-Asian imperial records. This introduction points out that the politics of consent in early modern empires did not reside primarily in a struggle between freedom and unfreedom. Indigenous strategies of using consent to place checks on the Spanish and Portuguese had the effect of integrating them further into European empires.

‘Whether it pleases the locals or not’: Empire and Consent in Portuguese Asia during the Sixteenth Century

Is consent a valid or useful concept in the context of sixteenth century Portuguese Asia? Given the specific characteristics of this empire, a study of consent has the potential to shed light on its nature, the form in which it was built, and how it survived. It may likewise prove useful for clarifying the complexity of this empire’s dynamics, namely its relations with the Asian powers. In some cases, consent formed part of the guidance and orders issued from Lisbon, and to some extent it was integrated into the Portuguese Crown’s policy towards war and diplomacy. A number of interesting contrasts are revealed by an analysis of a set of regional and local differences concerning the extent to which consent formed part of the routine practices deployed in the political and diplomatic life of Portuguese Asia. Finally, a survey of a further set of examples demonstrate how the issue of consent had a limited impact on the forms in which the empire was historicized, legitimized, and framed in the historiographical discourse. This article is part of the special theme section on Consenting to Early Modern Empires, which has been guest-edited by Sonia Tycko.

Translating Native Consent in the Spanish Empire: Maya Words and Agency in Sixteenth-Century Yucatan

Building on two case studies, the article explores how the Maya caciques understood the concept of consent and made use of it in concrete political negotiations with the Spanish crown in sixteenth-century Yucatan, New Spain. It highlights that the analysis of translation practices is pivotal to unraveling the intricacies of inter-legal communication under imperial rule. Although part of the corpus analyzed in the article was originally written in the Maya Yucatec language, it can be viewed as the result of a process of translation in which two legal cultures were finding ways to be intelligible to one another. The article shows, moreover, that oral exchanges and nonverbal communication – through posture or clothing, and gift-giving – were also crucial in expressing consent in the Spanish empire. This article is part of the special theme section on Consenting to Early Modern Empires, guest-edited by Sonia Tycko.

Three Ways of Consenting in Sixteenth-Century Goa

In this essay, I explore three instances of political consent by the local elites of Goa towards Portuguese governance in the sixteenth century. I delve into how these forms of consent evolved into an increasingly subconscious and ingrained acceptance. I argue that this progression stemmed from the broader effects of the local elites' micro decisions at three pivotal junctures: the formulation of the Foral de Mexia in 1526, the enactment of the 1541 document formalizing the redirection of local temple revenues towards Christian worship, and the establishment of the Foral/Tombo in 1554, which recorded the properties and assets associated with these temples and their officials. Initially motivated by pragmatism to maintain the social order and the elites’ status, these decisions had short-term objectives. Nevertheless, their cumulative impact bound these elites to imperial authority, leading to the transformation of their identity and solidifying Portuguese dominion. This article is part of the special theme section on Consenting to Early Modern Empires, guest-edited by Sonia Tycko.

Imagining Indigenous Consent and Indigenous Right to Resist in Colonial Latin America

This text examines Portuguese and Spanish documentation to show that Iberians invoked a variety of ways by which the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas could consent to their presence and domination. According to these sources, indigenous consent could be explicit or implicit, and it could be free or coerced, with each one of these situations giving rise to a distinct assessment of indigenous right to resist. By observing developments both in the colonies and in Europe, and by surveying both legal doctrine and practice, this article asks: how did Iberians structure and use consent, and what could it do for them? Why and how did they insist on consent when there was little to no possibility to refuse? This article is part of the special theme section on Consenting to Early Modern Empires, guest-edited by Sonia Tycko.

Laurie M. Wood. Archipelago of Justice: Law in France’s Early Modern Empire.

Journal Article Laurie M. Wood. Archipelago of Justice: Law in France’s Early Modern Empire. Get access Laurie M. Wood. Archipelago of Justice: Law in France’s Early Modern Empire. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020. Pp. xiii, 264. Cloth $72.00 Ian Coller Ian Coller University of California, Irvine, US Email: icoller@uci.edu Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 128, Issue 2, June 2023, Pages 1048–1049, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhad212 Published: 22 June 2023

Negociación, lágrimas y maldiciones: La fiscalidad extraordinaria en la monarquía hispánica, 1620–1814

Negociación, lágrimas y maldiciones: La fiscalidad extraordinaria en la monarquía hispánica, 1620–1814

<i>New Qing History</i> School: The Manchu Turn in American Historiography

The article gives a detailed overview of modern trends in the American Manchu studies. Special attention is given to theNew Qing History historiographic school, which during the 1980s and 1990s criticized the Sinicization theory on entirely new levels of theorizing during the 1980s and the 1990s. Despite existing differences in views, the experts share common approaches to the Qing studies: importance of the Manchu sources, comparison of the Qing dynasty with the other Early Modern empires of Eurasia, refusal to identify the Manchu regime with China and considering China only as one of the parts of the Empire, close attention to the identities issue in the Qing empire. This article analyzes the ideas of such prominent American experts in Manchu studies as Pamela Kyle Crossley and Mark C. Elliott, as well as some concepts of their teachers and predecessors. The central position of theNew Qing Historyschool is a statement of the importance of the Manchu factor in the functioning of the Qing state. The article also gives the critical response of supporters of the Sinicization theory to the theses prevailing among the American scholars. They express doubts about the dichotomy claimed by the New Qing History scholars between Manchu and Chinese identities. In their opinion, the process of sinicization includes not only Chinese but also other minor forms of identities, so the Manchus could preserve their own identity but still think of themselves as part of the Chinese civilization. Such criticism undoubtedly has common points with the modern Chinese political concept of the «Chinese family of the united nations». The author believes both approaches should be taken into consideration when researching Manchu and Chinese sources as part of the Qing studies.

Laurie M. Wood, Archipelago of Justice: Law in France’s Early Modern Empire. An examination of France’s Atlantic and Indian Ocean empires through the stories of the little-known people who built it , New Haven/Londres, Yale University Press, 2020, 288 p.

Laurie M. Wood, Archipelago of Justice: Law in France’s Early Modern Empire. An examination of France’s Atlantic and Indian Ocean empires through the stories of the little-known people who built it , New Haven/Londres, Yale University Press, 2020, 288 p.

A Posture of Protestation: Civil Litigation and Constitutional Culture in the Reformation-Era Holy Roman Empire

Abstract What role did judicial courts play in the constitution of the early modern Holy Roman Empire? Scholars have shown that the frameworks of judicialization (which highlights the peaceful channelling mechanisms of law) and of instrumentalization (which underscores the political uses and abuses of law) are unsatisfactory for fully describing the ways in which high courts shaped and participated in the constitutional landscape of the early modern Empire. Yet historiography on the Reformation cases continues to operate within this rule-of-law/politics dichotomy. This article offers a new way of considering the constitutional significance of the Reformation cases by analysing uses of a legal instrument—the protestatio—in the context of civil litigation. While the protestation is well-known for its uses in the context of imperial diets, its uses in court—and in particular its centrality to the Protestant litigation strategy—have been ignored. This study illuminates not only a more complete account of the role of law and litigation in the history of the Reformation, but also a hitherto neglected dimension of the role of courts in constituting relations among the Empire’s rulers, centred on litigative practices and techniques—the constitutional culture of litigation. It argues that the work of litigation itself—not only in its jurisprudence or the substantive interpretations made, but also in the forms and language through which litigants were required to operate and argue—had a distinctively important role in constituting relations among the rulers of the early modern Holy Roman Empire.

Knowledge and Agency. The Case of Claes Rålamb and the Swedish Embassy to Istanbul, 1657–58

This article explores the interplay between knowledge and agency in early modern diplomacy. Focusing on the power dynamics of early modern empire through a case study of a Swedish embassy to the Ottoman Empire in 1657–58, the article shows how agency and knowledge interlinked throughout the diplomatic mission. At the centre of the study is Claes Rålamb, a Swedish nobleman who was sent to Istanbul to secure an alliance between Sweden and the Ottoman vassal state Transylvania. Rålamb’s journey to, and stay in, Istanbul was framed by global political developments, yet, it was also directly influenced by local customs and personal connections. In particular, Rålamb’s ability to act as an agent of the Swedish Empire was shaped by the difficulties of attaining reliable information. Moreover, the framework within which he was able to act changed between different stages of the journey. This makes the intersection between knowledge and agency a fruitful focal point for examining early modern empire, going beyond traditional national frameworks and categories of actors. Rålamb was sent out as an envoy of the Swedish empire, yet the meaning of that position changed constantly.

Law and Early Modern Empire: The View from Mughal India

Law and Early Modern Empire: The View from Mughal India

Archipelago of Justice: Law in France’s Early Modern Empire. By Laurie M. Wood

<i>Archipelago of Justice: Law in France’s Early Modern Empire</i>. By Laurie M. Wood

Ingenios and ingenuity: rethinking Indigenous histories of silver in the colonial Andean mining industry

ABSTRACT Silver amalgamation technologies revolutionized the production of precious metals in the colonial Andes and throughout Latin America, changing the region and the global economy in ways that are almost impossible to fully comprehend even today. We know a great deal about the productive capacity of Potosí's amalgamation refineries (ingenios), but little of other aspects of workers' experiences within those walled environments. Most archaeological studies of ingenios focus on their material cultural remains; most literary studies of ingenio analyze the term's resonance within the conventions of baroque aesthetics. By combining methods of archaeological and literary study, this article sheds light on understudied aspects of family life, clandestine silver production, and definitions of scientific knowledge in the colonial Andean silver industry. Doing so enables us to tell a richer, more complete, and more complex story of the silver that circulated as coins within the global reaches of the early modern Spanish empire.

Medical Cultures, Therapeutic Properties, and Laws in Global History

Medical Cultures, Therapeutic Properties, and Laws in Global History

Fear, justice and memory-making in early-modern empires

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Managing legal pluralism: the negotiations on the re-acquisition of crown land in the Livonian Diet (1681) as a matter of securitisation and imperial integration

The emergence of empires during the early modern period led to a shift of territorial borders and social as well as economic and political boundaries. This is also true for early modern Sweden and especially for Livonia, being one of the eastern border provinces of the Swedish empire. The plans for withdrawing alienated possessions of the Swedish Crown there, i.e. a reduktion, make this particularly clear. This article examines the discussion of the year 1681 between the Swedish Crown and the Livonian knighthood and nobility in the Livonian Diet on the retake of crown lands as an example of how early modern empires dealt with legal pluralism. Combining the concepts of securitisation and integration will show that these deliberations should be understood less as a struggle for or against re-acquisitions of crown lands than as negotiations about Swedish rule in Livonia, and its normative foundations and functions, and thus about the Swedish empire.

The Ottoman Postmaster: Contractors, Communication and Early Modern State Formation*

Abstract Prevailing historiography views the use of contractors by states as indicative of a loss or decentralization of power. This article takes the case of the Ottoman postmaster to demonstrate how contracting could in fact strengthen early modern empires and to argue that the binary spatial metaphors of ‘centralization’ and ‘decentralization’ cannot adequately explain how power worked in the early modern world (about 1500–1800). Indeed, recent scholarship has highlighted the scale and significance of military contractors in early modern European warfare. However, contractors were not confined to expanding military capacity; they were also employed to expand administrative capacity in diverse arenas. Evidence from Ottoman fiscal documents and judicial registers shows how contracted postmasters played a crucial role in strengthening the imperial bureaucracy’s supervision of a sprawling postal system. In contrast to war-making, which involved the short-term mobilization of vast resources, maintaining a large-scale infrastructure required long-term co-ordination across multiple dispersed nodes, and this entailed a different spatial configuration of power that disrupts the dichotomous paradigm of centralization and decentralization. Ultimately, a holistic appraisal of early modern state-building needs to consider not just cases of war-making or provincial administration, but also pan-imperial infrastructures like information and communication systems.