Chapter 10 From Natural Equality to Frankpledge

The State of Nature, Ancient Constitutionalism, and the Rupture of the Social Contract in Eighteenth-Century Antislavery Writings

In: The State of Nature: Histories of an Idea
Author:
Sarah Winter
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Abstract

Antislavery writers Anthony Benezet, Granville Sharp, Thomas Clarkson, Quobna Cugoano, and Olaudah Equiano employ theories of the state of nature to demonstrate how slavery ruptures the social contract in both African polities and the British colonies, thus undermining the legitimacy of the British imperial constitution. Describing African societies as civilized and self-governing, Benezet’s approach launches abolitionism’s appeals to humanitarian sentiments. Clarkson theorizes how enslavement situates Africans in a state of nature where they are ‘perfectly free and equal’ in relation to Europeans who attack them. Sharp offers legalistic reasons for abolition based in biblical sources, common law, ancient constitutionalism, and radical democratic thought. His proposed constitution for a ‘free settlement’ of emancipated Blacks at Sierra Leone reconstructs their rights through equal property shares and the Anglo-Saxon frankpledge, a system of collective government and self-defence. Former slaves Cugoano and Equiano describe their experiences of kidnapping from Africa, evoking a state of nature represented by the innocence of childhood – shattered when slave merchants raided their families’ homes. These alternative state of nature approaches to abolitionism envision the regeneration of Britons’ moral sentiments through collective political action and forge representative notions of ‘human rights’ as legal rights distinct from natural law. Equiano’s and Cugoano’s texts demonstrate a more sceptical, antiracist strand of reasoning that questions whether the economic interests underpinning Atlantic slavery are amenable to political or moral reform.

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