Friendship, Imperial Violence and the Law of Nations

The Case of Late-Eighteenth Century British Oceania

Bibliographic Data

ID11944536
AuthorsAlecia Simmonds (0000-0002-8204-2321, Universidad de Manizales, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume42
Issue4
Pages645-666
Publication date2014-08-08
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0308-6534 • E-ISSN: 1743-9329
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03086534.2014.941165
OpenAlexW1972359209
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited26

This article examines the interrelationship of friendship and violence in European juristic traditions and in British scientific voyaging in Oceania. Drawing upon Roman texts and natural law treatises, it shows how friendship, meaning hospitality and trade, appeared as a right asserted by imperial nations, often with the backing of force. Moving from jurisprudence to imperial practice, this article examines the coercive elements of cross-cultural friendship in eighteenth-century British expansion into Oceania. It suggests that it was in the breach more than the observance that discourses of friendship came to the fore, specifically in resistance to first contact and in accusations of theft. Seen to be motivated by either violent or avaricious passions, theft and native resistance tore the bonds of human sociability asunder. I argue that the significance of friendship was twofold. First, in a context of inter-imperial rivalry, friendship signified native consent in claims of possession over land and thus ensured conformity to legal norms. Second, it promised a system of order governed by norms of affective restraint that could sublimate the passions of natives, voyagers and nations

Archaeology · Art · Context (archaeology · Friendship · Jurisprudence · Literature · Passions · Political science · Possession (linguistics · Rivalry · Social science · Sociology · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity

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