The Carolinian Context of John Locke’s Theory of Slavery

• Author: Brad Hinshelwood
• Date: 01 August 2013
• DOI: 10.1177/0090591713485446
• Published date: 01 August 2013
• Subject Matter: Articles

Political Theory

41(4) 562 –590

© 2013 SAGE Publications

Reprints and permissions:

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/0090591713485446

ptx.sagepub.com

Article

The Carolinian Context

of John Locke’s Theory

of Slavery

Brad Hinshelwood1

Abstract

The debate over Locke’s theory of slavery has focused on his involvement

with the Royal African Company and other institutions of African slavery, as

well as his rhetorical use of slavery in opposing absolutism. This overlooks

Locke’s deep involvement with the Carolina colony, and in particular that

colony’s Indian slave trade, which was largely justified in just-war terms.

Evidence of Locke’s participation in the 1682 revisions to the Fundamental

Constitutions of Carolina, which removed the infamous “absolute power

and authority” clause, and his knowledge of colonial affairs, when examined

alongside textual evidence of the timing of the composition of Locke’s

theory of slavery, indicates a significant connection between the colony and

Locke’s work. In light of this evidence, this article suggests an interpretation

of Locke’s theory that stresses its character as a response to the conditions

he encountered in Carolina.

Keywords

John Locke, slavery, second treatise, fundamental constitutions of Carolina

Interpreters of John Locke’s political thought have always struggled to rec-

oncile his views on slavery with his reputation as a theorist of limited

1Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Brad Hinshelwood, Department of Government and Law School, Harvard University,

1737 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.

Email: bhinshel@fas.harvard.edu

485446PTX41410.1177/0090591713485446Political TheoryHinshelwood

research-article2013

Hinshelwood 563

liberty. Known for a stirring exposition of inviolable natural rights and the

claim that “slavery is so vile and miserable an Estate of Man, and so directly

opposite to the generous Temper and Courage of our nation” (I.1.1),1 Locke

also helped author the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, which guar-

anteed Englishmen “absolute power and authority” over African slaves in

the colony,2 and created a just-war theory of legitimate slavery in the

Second Treatise. The evidence for his involvement with the slave trade con-

stitutes “an embarrassment of riches, a tale of intimate and informed

involvement with all manner of slavery,”3 and his theoretical views—which

utilize a just-war theory that is grossly incongruous with the reality of the

slave trade as we know it—have attracted considerable interest from Locke

scholars.

Despite a variety of approaches to Locke’s thoughts on slavery, none has

managed to make sense of both the theory’s content and its connection to

Locke’s overall project.4 It would be simple to attribute the difficulties to rac-

ism5 or hypocrisy. By this account, Locke’s theory “is not an example of

bland but deliberate moral rationalization on Locke’s part but merely one of

moral evasion.”6 A stronger version of the same claim contends that Locke

“affirmed a doctrine of universal rights but failed to live up to the demands of

the doctrine in the activities of his life. His passions or self-interests came

between him and his duties in relation to slavery.”7 This line of argument,

however, requires a belief that “one should indeed set aside the notion of

slavery in Locke’s Second Treatise and may well do so without disrupting the

work’s essential features.”8 We are thus left without any fully convincing

rationale for Locke’s inclusion of a chapter on slavery.

One potential rationale is to contend that Locke’s justification of slavery

was an important part of his theory, and very much rooted in colonial inter-

ests. Martin Seliger begins from Locke’s proposition that wasteland could be

appropriated from groups that did not cultivate it, and suggests that there is

no mechanism for legitimate exchange through purchase between the

European takers and the native inhabitants. This is because the creation of

money is tied to the cultivation of land, and natives who have not cultivated

their lands do not recognize money as a valid method of exchange. Selinger

can then claim that “war between the planters and the natives was assumed as

a matter of course . . . the natives’ resistance to the conquest of their waste

territory turns them into aggressors and the Europeans into ‘just conquerors’

of the natives’ ‘waste.’”9 Moreover, Locke’s “hasty generalizations and ques-

tion-begging pronouncements about unjust war” seem to exclude the pros-

pect of slaves being taken in European wars. From these points, Seliger

concludes that “as regards slavery, he had only colonial war or slave-raiding

in mind.”10