Legitimacies, Indian Identities, and the Law
The Politics of Sex and the Creation of History in Colonial New England
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22934738 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ann Marie Plane (0000-0002-9720-9198, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1998 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 55 |
| Publication date | 1998-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Law & Social Inquiry (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0897-6546 • E-ISSN: 1747-4469 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1086/492620 |
| OpenAlex | W4235243605 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
In an early-eighteenth-century legal contest on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, an Indian leader, Jacob Seeknout, appealed a ruling that undermined his political authority. Seeknout's lawyer, Benjamin Hawes, crafted an argument that intertwined the sexual legitimacy of Seeknout's ancestors with his political legitimacy; at the same time, Hawes also linked Indians' collective chastity as a “nation” to their sovereign status. This paper examines the economic, religious, criminal, and historical contexts of this argument, exploring the history of Indians' conjugal practices and their reinvention as the criminal acts of fornication. The case illustrates some of the diverse sources of early American law, links between these legal structures and colonialism, and the importance for scholars of attending to the local level in exploring the power of colonial law to shape new racial identities.
Colonialism · Genealogy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Gender Studies · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · History · Law · Race, History, and American Society
| Citations per year | 0.05 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2004 - 2004 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |