State and Citizen: British America and the Early United States

Subjects by Allegiance to the King?

25 ⡰ Subjects by Allegiance to the King? Debating Status and Power for Subjects—and Slaves—through the Religious Debates of the Early British Atlantic h o l ly b r e w e r “N o sooner had the news of the changes in England [the Glorious Revolution] arrived than it was in the mouths of all the mobile that there was no King in England and so no Government here.” So Nicholas Spencer, Secretary and Councilor in Virginia, wrote to the Privy Council of the new king and queen in April of 1689. He then repeated himself: “It was feared that the difficulties of maintaining order would have remained insuperable until we received the news of the happy accession of the Prince and Princess of Orange, which has been widely and solemnly proclaimed to remove the former cause of tumult, viz., that there being no King in England, there was no Government here.”¹ Spencer’s repetitive thinking reveals a conceptual universe: the “mobile,” the common people in Virginia, thought that without a king legitimate authority was dissolved. Both legal authorities and popular perceptions agreed that the people’s status as subjects hinged on their allegiance to their king, a link that the revolution in England had broken. Without a king, they were freed of the constraints (and privileges) of government. This connection between sovereign and subject portrayed not only the raw power of the king via the institutional organization of the English empire. It also infused, culturally and ideologically, the way the English perceived their place in the empire and their debates about the just nature of power. This perception was promoted by the reigning law and teaching of the Anglican church, which conjoined church and state, as it had since 1535 under Henry VIII. Only by making sense of these arguments can we understand the debates over power and status, including that of slaves, in the early modern Atlantic world. Questions of sovereignty, in other words, enveloped everyone, from slave and subject to king, in a discourse of place and privilege.² These questions were compelling in the colonies, despite their distance Thompson & Onuf final pages.indd 25 Thompson & Onuf final pages.indd 25 1/3/13 1:38 PM 1/3/13 1:38 PM 26 Holly Brewer from England. The colonies were all technically under the control of the king, who could dictate the shape of their governments as well as most positions of power, from governor and council to proprietor, surveyor, collector of customs , militia officer, and justice of the peace. The king also controlled the convoys that carried goods back and forth to England and the navies that made trade safe and protected throughout the empire.³ The “changes in England” that Spencer referred to was the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The colonies were deeply interested in that revolution, as James II had shifted power to the Royal Governors and Appointed Councils in all his colonies. (In many cases he had wholly dissolved the elected legislatures.) With his defeat, the way was opened for rebellions in America. In most colonies, from Massachusetts to Maryland, the people overthrew James II’s royal governors and councils and/or the proprietary governments that former kings had appointed and supported. In Virginia the news of William and Mary’s accession was proclaimed far and wide, and quickly, in order to restore order; providing a new king reinstated the principles of all government. This essay focuses on how the religious debates circumscribed the legal relations between sovereign and subject and master and slave. I am particularly interested in debates about baptizing slaves in the seventeenth century; how those connected to larger issues of sovereignty, and especially, as the reader will see, with a proposal by John Locke that the children of “negroes” in Virginia be “baptized, catechized, and bred Christians.” A conceptual sphere shaped by religious tensions framed their principles of justice, much more overtly than today. Religious arguments could make the king divine—or the people; they could sanctify oaths of loyalty—or justify breaking them. They could define who was subject and who was slave; who had claims to many rights, or to little but obedience. Varying principles of sin and obligation led to different constellations of power and inclusion. The status of everyone in society, from slaves to governors—their claims to rights and privileges, the extent to which they felt bound by the laws—depended at least in part on how these ideological debates became...