Settler Colonial Statistics by Thomas Dikant
Jefferson, Biopolitics, and Notes on the State of Virginia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8048768 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Thomas Dikant (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 54 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 69-96 |
| Publication date | 2019-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Early American literature (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0012-8163 • E-ISSN: 1534-147X |
| Publisher | University of North Carolina Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/eal.2019.0006 |
| OpenAlex | W2913363483 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 11 |
This article argues that Thomas Jeffersons Notes on the State of Virginia should be understood as a work of statistics, part of the paradigm shift from a classical model of sovereignty to a modern biopolitics. In the eighteenth century, statistical writings were descriptions of states and colonies that used numerical data to analyze and forecast economic and demographic developments. In Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson considers both the maintenance of a "healthy" ratio between settlers and territory and the ensuring of a demographic majority of the white settler population to be vital to the well-being and long-term survival of Virginia. Reading Notes as statistics allows it to become legible as a program for a settler colonial biopolitics, including Jefferson's proposal for a biospatial exchange of populations and the absorption of indigenous and mixed-race persons into the dominant settler collective
Biopower · American Environmental and Regional History · American History and Culture · Colonialism, slavery, and trade
The geographic revolution in early America
Declaring Independence
The Emergence of Probability
Jefferson and the Indians
Society Must Be Defended’
From Georgic Poetry to Statistics and Graphs
The Colonial Afterlife of Political Arithmetic
Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native
Population and Political Ethics
The Present State of Virginia
Settler Colonialism
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,25 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2022 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |