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"MacMillan, Ken"
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Benign and Benevolent Conquest? The Ideology of Elizabethan Atlantic Expansion Revisited
This essay revisits the language of conquest in metropolitan writings advocating Elizabethan Atlantic expansion. It argues that contrary to the belligerent connotations scholars usually attach to the word conquest, in Elizabethan England it was a term used in a benign and benevolent manner that fit within humanist goals for a noble, peaceful, and long-term relationship with both the people and land of America. By the early seventeenth century, however, this idea of benign conquest was overshadowed by factors such as the example of Spanish conquest in the New World, which tainted the English benign usage, and the transition from theory in the Elizabethan age to practice under the early Stuarts, which showed that the American Natives were not willing to accept English presence on the benevolent terms anticipated by English humanists. Another factor that led to the decline in the language of benign conquest was the formulation of the \"conquest doctrine\" in the law of nations, which gave the term an exclusively belligerent connotation. Owing to these various factors, by the time the permanent English empire in America was established, the idea of benign conquest no longer had a place in domestic, colonial, or supranational discourse.
Journal Article
The Bermuda Company, the Privy Council, and the Wreck of the San Antonio, 1621–23
In September 1621, Governor Nathaniel Butler of Bermuda was woken in the middle of the night to hear a report that one hundred Spaniards had landed on the west part of the islands. Bermuda had long been at risk of attack because of its close proximity to the homebound route of the Spanish treasure fleet, so Butler understandably went on the defensive. He ordered the manning of several forts and repaired to the landing area with twenty armed men, expecting to pick up additional strength along the way. Rather than find an invading enemy, Butler and his men found a group of Portuguese and Spanish men, women, and children, whose ship—the 300-tonne, Portuguese-owned San Antonio—had been separated from the treasure fleet by a bad storm and wrecked upon the rocks ten miles west of the islands. Saving what goods they could carry, most of the castaways made their way to Mangrove Bay at the north part of Somerset Island in a small cockboat.
Journal Article
CENTERS AND PERIPHERIES IN ENGLISH MAPS OF AMERICA, 1590–1685
In the past few decades, historians have become interested in the relationship between centers and peripheries in the construction of early modern American empires. As described most notably by sociologist Edward Shils, “As we move from the center . . . in which authority is possessed . . . to the . . . periphery, over which authority is exercised, attachment to the central value system becomes attenuated.” In addition, “the further one moves territorially from the locus of authority, the less one appreciates authority.” Among the wide-ranging implications of these conclusions in a variety of academic disciplines, this theory
Book Chapter
Sovereignty “More Plainly Described”: Early English Maps of North America, 1580–1625
MacMillan comments on the early English Maps of North America from 1580-1625. By the early modern period, mapmaking was one of the specialized intellectual weapons by which power could be gained, administered, given legitimacy, and codified. Other historians have agreed that a chief purpose of early modern maps was to demonstrate boundaries, frontiers, and the eminent dominion and empire of a sovereign monarch.
Journal Article
Common and Civil Law? Taking Possession of the English Empire in America, 1575-1630
It has generally been assumed that claims to the English empire in America were most closely associated with the English laws of land possession. This notion is reinforced by the long-standing belief that England eschewed Roman civil law and its derivatives in preference for the unique, domestic, and vernacular common law. As a number of historians have recently argued, however, English contemporaries recognized that the civil law, as codified by the emperor Justinian in the sixth century, was needed in all matters dealing with foreign affairs and foreign lands, because the common law had no efficacy in these matters. An examination of the colonial charters (or letters patent) issued by the English between 1575 and 1630, reveals that, in addition to use of the common law, may be found various expressions of the civil law and its derivative, the law of nations. The employment of these legal codes helped to ensure that Englands claims to territory in North America were internationally intelligible and less subject to the type of challenges that could result from the exclusive use of the English common law.
Journal Article