International law burst on the scene as a new field in the late nineteenth century. Where did it ... more International law burst on the scene as a new field in the late nineteenth century. Where did it come from? Rage for Order finds the origins of international law in empires—especially in the British Empire’s sprawling efforts to refashion the imperial constitution and use it to order the world in the early part of that century.
Lauren Benton and Lisa Ford uncover the lost history of Britain’s global empire of law in colonial conflicts and bureaucratic dispatches rather than legal treatises and case law. Tracing constitutional politics around the world, Rage for Order shows that attempts to refashion the British imperial constitution touched on all the controversial issues of the day, from slavery to revolution. Scandals in turbulent colonies targeted petty despots and augmented the power of the Crown to intervene in the administration of justice. Campaigns to police piracy and slave trading linked British interests to the stability of politically fragmented regions. Dull bureaucrats dominated legal reform, but they did not act in isolation. Indigenous peoples, slaves, convicts, merchants, and sailors all scrambled to play a part in reordering the empire and the world beyond it. Yet, through it all, legal reform focused on promoting order, not advancing human rights or charting liberalism.
Rage for Order maps a formative phase in world history when imperial, not international, law anchored visions of global order. This sweeping story changes the way we think about the legacy of the British Empire and the meaning of international law today.
In 'Settler Sovereignty', Lisa Ford argues that modern settler sovereignty emerged when settlers ... more In 'Settler Sovereignty', Lisa Ford argues that modern settler sovereignty emerged when settlers in North America and Australia defined indigenous theft and violence as crime.
This occurred, not at the moment of settlement or federation, but in the second quarter of the nineteenth century when notions of statehood, sovereignty, empire, and civilization were in rapid, global flux. Ford traces the emergence of modern settler sovereignty in everyday contests between settlers and indigenous people in early national Georgia and the colony of New South Wales. In both places before 1820, most settlers and indigenous people understood their conflicts as war, resolved disputes with diplomacy, and relied on shared notions like reciprocity and retaliation to address frontier theft and violence. This legal pluralism, however, was under stress as new, global statecraft linked sovereignty to the exercise of perfect territorial jurisdiction. In Georgia, New South Wales, and elsewhere, settler sovereignty emerged when, at the same time in history, settlers rejected legal pluralism and moved to control or remove indigenous peoples.
Between Indigenous and Settler Governance addresses the history, current development and future o... more Between Indigenous and Settler Governance addresses the history, current development and future of Indigenous self-governance in four settler-colonial nations: Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. Bringing together emerging scholars and leaders in the field of indigenous law and legal history, this collection offers a long-term view of the legal, political and administrative relationships between Indigenous collectivities and nation-states. Placing historical contingency and complexity at the center of analysis, the papers collected here examine in detail the process by which settler states both dissolved indigenous jurisdictions and left spaces – often unwittingly – for indigenous survival and corporate recovery. They emphasise the promise and the limits of modern opportunities for indigenous self-governance; whilst showing how all the players in modern settler colonialism build on a shared and multifaceted past. Indigenous tradition is not the only source of the principles and practices of indigenous self-determination; the essays in this book explore some ways that the legal, philosophical and economic structures of settler colonial liberalism have shaped opportunities for indigenous autonomy. Between Indigenous and Settler Governance will interest all those concerned with Indigenous peoples in settler-colonial nations.
The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 2020
This paper places a well-known controversy about the jurisdiction of nineteenth-century magistrat... more This paper places a well-known controversy about the jurisdiction of nineteenth-century magistrates in its imperial context. In particular it shows how and why conversations about convict management and the jurisdiction of magistrates in New South Wales were interwoven with contemporary conversations about the law and government of slavery. In 1833 in the aftermath of the Castle Forbes Revolt, convicts, administrators and magistrates in New South Wales borrowed the language of disorder and good governance from debates about the amelioration of slavery because those languages made sense of an experience that was both deeply local and shared. Convicts were not slaves; but masters, magistrates, convicts and slaves all experienced substantial shifts in the relations among empire, colonial states and local institutions of governance that redefined their privileges and obligations in the first decades of the nineteenth century. The contest between magistrate-masters and convicts in the af...
The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 2017
Narratives of the history of international law in the early and middle decades of the nineteenth ... more Narratives of the history of international law in the early and middle decades of the nineteenth century have emphasised the role of global humanitarian movements in establishing international norms and institutions. The abolition of the slave trade and the amelioration of slavery feature prominently in this account as reform movements that supposedly laid the groundwork for human rights law. Using controversy about the constitution of the island of Trinidad and the excesses of its first governor, Thomas Picton, as a case study, we argue instead that attempts to reform slavery formed part of a wider British effort to construct a coherent imperial legal system, a project that corresponded to a different, and at the time more powerful vision of global order. As experiment and anti-model, Trinidad's troubles provided critics with an advertisement for the necessity of robust imperial legal power in new and old colonies. Such a call for imperial oversight of colonial legal orders formed the basis of an empire-wide push to reorder the British world.
's jointly-written book is slim in size-197 pages of text, 74 of notes-but expansive in scope and... more 's jointly-written book is slim in size-197 pages of text, 74 of notes-but expansive in scope and interpretative ambition. It is a dense, complex piece of history, frequently operating on several levels at once. It asks us to rethink the study of international legal history in fundamental ways, not least by redrawing the boundaries between imperial, international, and global legal regimes. The authors pursue these arguments through an exploration of a series of overlapping projects of legal reform which took place within the British empire, and on its peripheries, in the first half of the 19th century. The book's methodological claims are compelling; its contentions about the British imperial constitution are powerful, but not wholly persuasive. Approached, however, as a book about a set of themes-rather than as an authoritative treatment of specific problems-Rage for Order represents an immensely significant intervention in a wide range of debates.
Heroes, Villains, and Wicked Priests: Authority and Story in the Histories of Simon Schama. by LI... more Heroes, Villains, and Wicked Priests: Authority and Story in the Histories of Simon Schama. by LISA FORD Simon Schama is perhaps the most widely read historian of the decade. While the historical merit of his work is beyond doubt, the most inter.
Narratives of the history of international law in the early and middle decades of the nineteenth ... more Narratives of the history of international law in the early and middle decades of the nineteenth century have emphasized the role of global humanitarian movements in establishing international norms and institutions. The abolition of the slave trade, and the amelioration of slavery feature prominently in this account as reform movements that supposedly laid the groundwork for human rights law. Using controversy about the constitution of the island of Trinidad and about the excesses of its first Governor Thomas Picton as a case study, we argue instead that attempts to reform slavery formed part of a wider British effort to construct a coherent imperial legal system, a project that corresponded to a different, and at the time more powerful vision of global order. As experiment and antimodel, Trinidad's troubles provided critics with an advertisement for the necessity of robust imperial legal power in new and old colonies. Such call for imperial oversight of colonial legal orders formed the basis of an empirewide push to reorder the British world.
On 9 September 1955, Jack Chambers, co-owner of Eva Downs Station in the Northern Territory, had ... more On 9 September 1955, Jack Chambers, co-owner of Eva Downs Station in the Northern Territory, had an argument with his Aboriginal cook, Dolly Ross. That morning, Ross had refused to prepare breakfast for her fellow Aboriginal pastoral workers because she said she was ill. Chambers claimed that Dolly was malingering because she had quarrelled with her husband. After the argument, Dolly, her husband Jim and a minor named Munro left the station. Chambers claimed that he had ordered them off the property. The Ross family testified that they had left in protest when Chambers threatened to 'liven up' Dolly if she did not do her work. Later that morning, Jack Chambers, Colin Chambers, manager Jack Britt, and stockmen George Booth and Francis Booth rode out from the station either to muster cattle or to pursue the Ross family. Either motive was possible: there were cattle to be mustered and all hands were needed on deck.
This article investigates how imperial legal reforms and convict activism combined to challenge t... more This article investigates how imperial legal reforms and convict activism combined to challenge the expanding system of internal ‘removal’ and ‘transportation’ in New South Wales during the 1820s. In particular, it explores how prisoners at the Port Macquarie penal settlement disputed the legal foundations of sentencing by colonial magistrates, contributing to the closure of the settlement and a flurry of ameliorative legislation. This article also examines the limits of imperial legal reform in a distant colony. Remediation of the convict relocation system was impeded by bureaucratic intransigence and by the new emphasis on convict subordination in the aftermath of the 1819–21 Royal Commission of Inquiry into the state of the colony of New South Wales.
This is the first product of an ongoing collaboration exploring the legal transformation of the B... more This is the first product of an ongoing collaboration exploring the legal transformation of the British Empire in the early nineteenth century. Stay tuned!
International law burst on the scene as a new field in the late nineteenth century. Where did it ... more International law burst on the scene as a new field in the late nineteenth century. Where did it come from? Rage for Order finds the origins of international law in empires—especially in the British Empire’s sprawling efforts to refashion the imperial constitution and use it to order the world in the early part of that century.
Lauren Benton and Lisa Ford uncover the lost history of Britain’s global empire of law in colonial conflicts and bureaucratic dispatches rather than legal treatises and case law. Tracing constitutional politics around the world, Rage for Order shows that attempts to refashion the British imperial constitution touched on all the controversial issues of the day, from slavery to revolution. Scandals in turbulent colonies targeted petty despots and augmented the power of the Crown to intervene in the administration of justice. Campaigns to police piracy and slave trading linked British interests to the stability of politically fragmented regions. Dull bureaucrats dominated legal reform, but they did not act in isolation. Indigenous peoples, slaves, convicts, merchants, and sailors all scrambled to play a part in reordering the empire and the world beyond it. Yet, through it all, legal reform focused on promoting order, not advancing human rights or charting liberalism.
Rage for Order maps a formative phase in world history when imperial, not international, law anchored visions of global order. This sweeping story changes the way we think about the legacy of the British Empire and the meaning of international law today.
In 'Settler Sovereignty', Lisa Ford argues that modern settler sovereignty emerged when settlers ... more In 'Settler Sovereignty', Lisa Ford argues that modern settler sovereignty emerged when settlers in North America and Australia defined indigenous theft and violence as crime.
This occurred, not at the moment of settlement or federation, but in the second quarter of the nineteenth century when notions of statehood, sovereignty, empire, and civilization were in rapid, global flux. Ford traces the emergence of modern settler sovereignty in everyday contests between settlers and indigenous people in early national Georgia and the colony of New South Wales. In both places before 1820, most settlers and indigenous people understood their conflicts as war, resolved disputes with diplomacy, and relied on shared notions like reciprocity and retaliation to address frontier theft and violence. This legal pluralism, however, was under stress as new, global statecraft linked sovereignty to the exercise of perfect territorial jurisdiction. In Georgia, New South Wales, and elsewhere, settler sovereignty emerged when, at the same time in history, settlers rejected legal pluralism and moved to control or remove indigenous peoples.
Between Indigenous and Settler Governance addresses the history, current development and future o... more Between Indigenous and Settler Governance addresses the history, current development and future of Indigenous self-governance in four settler-colonial nations: Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. Bringing together emerging scholars and leaders in the field of indigenous law and legal history, this collection offers a long-term view of the legal, political and administrative relationships between Indigenous collectivities and nation-states. Placing historical contingency and complexity at the center of analysis, the papers collected here examine in detail the process by which settler states both dissolved indigenous jurisdictions and left spaces – often unwittingly – for indigenous survival and corporate recovery. They emphasise the promise and the limits of modern opportunities for indigenous self-governance; whilst showing how all the players in modern settler colonialism build on a shared and multifaceted past. Indigenous tradition is not the only source of the principles and practices of indigenous self-determination; the essays in this book explore some ways that the legal, philosophical and economic structures of settler colonial liberalism have shaped opportunities for indigenous autonomy. Between Indigenous and Settler Governance will interest all those concerned with Indigenous peoples in settler-colonial nations.
The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 2020
This paper places a well-known controversy about the jurisdiction of nineteenth-century magistrat... more This paper places a well-known controversy about the jurisdiction of nineteenth-century magistrates in its imperial context. In particular it shows how and why conversations about convict management and the jurisdiction of magistrates in New South Wales were interwoven with contemporary conversations about the law and government of slavery. In 1833 in the aftermath of the Castle Forbes Revolt, convicts, administrators and magistrates in New South Wales borrowed the language of disorder and good governance from debates about the amelioration of slavery because those languages made sense of an experience that was both deeply local and shared. Convicts were not slaves; but masters, magistrates, convicts and slaves all experienced substantial shifts in the relations among empire, colonial states and local institutions of governance that redefined their privileges and obligations in the first decades of the nineteenth century. The contest between magistrate-masters and convicts in the af...
The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 2017
Narratives of the history of international law in the early and middle decades of the nineteenth ... more Narratives of the history of international law in the early and middle decades of the nineteenth century have emphasised the role of global humanitarian movements in establishing international norms and institutions. The abolition of the slave trade and the amelioration of slavery feature prominently in this account as reform movements that supposedly laid the groundwork for human rights law. Using controversy about the constitution of the island of Trinidad and the excesses of its first governor, Thomas Picton, as a case study, we argue instead that attempts to reform slavery formed part of a wider British effort to construct a coherent imperial legal system, a project that corresponded to a different, and at the time more powerful vision of global order. As experiment and anti-model, Trinidad's troubles provided critics with an advertisement for the necessity of robust imperial legal power in new and old colonies. Such a call for imperial oversight of colonial legal orders formed the basis of an empire-wide push to reorder the British world.
's jointly-written book is slim in size-197 pages of text, 74 of notes-but expansive in scope and... more 's jointly-written book is slim in size-197 pages of text, 74 of notes-but expansive in scope and interpretative ambition. It is a dense, complex piece of history, frequently operating on several levels at once. It asks us to rethink the study of international legal history in fundamental ways, not least by redrawing the boundaries between imperial, international, and global legal regimes. The authors pursue these arguments through an exploration of a series of overlapping projects of legal reform which took place within the British empire, and on its peripheries, in the first half of the 19th century. The book's methodological claims are compelling; its contentions about the British imperial constitution are powerful, but not wholly persuasive. Approached, however, as a book about a set of themes-rather than as an authoritative treatment of specific problems-Rage for Order represents an immensely significant intervention in a wide range of debates.
Heroes, Villains, and Wicked Priests: Authority and Story in the Histories of Simon Schama. by LI... more Heroes, Villains, and Wicked Priests: Authority and Story in the Histories of Simon Schama. by LISA FORD Simon Schama is perhaps the most widely read historian of the decade. While the historical merit of his work is beyond doubt, the most inter.
Narratives of the history of international law in the early and middle decades of the nineteenth ... more Narratives of the history of international law in the early and middle decades of the nineteenth century have emphasized the role of global humanitarian movements in establishing international norms and institutions. The abolition of the slave trade, and the amelioration of slavery feature prominently in this account as reform movements that supposedly laid the groundwork for human rights law. Using controversy about the constitution of the island of Trinidad and about the excesses of its first Governor Thomas Picton as a case study, we argue instead that attempts to reform slavery formed part of a wider British effort to construct a coherent imperial legal system, a project that corresponded to a different, and at the time more powerful vision of global order. As experiment and antimodel, Trinidad's troubles provided critics with an advertisement for the necessity of robust imperial legal power in new and old colonies. Such call for imperial oversight of colonial legal orders formed the basis of an empirewide push to reorder the British world.
On 9 September 1955, Jack Chambers, co-owner of Eva Downs Station in the Northern Territory, had ... more On 9 September 1955, Jack Chambers, co-owner of Eva Downs Station in the Northern Territory, had an argument with his Aboriginal cook, Dolly Ross. That morning, Ross had refused to prepare breakfast for her fellow Aboriginal pastoral workers because she said she was ill. Chambers claimed that Dolly was malingering because she had quarrelled with her husband. After the argument, Dolly, her husband Jim and a minor named Munro left the station. Chambers claimed that he had ordered them off the property. The Ross family testified that they had left in protest when Chambers threatened to 'liven up' Dolly if she did not do her work. Later that morning, Jack Chambers, Colin Chambers, manager Jack Britt, and stockmen George Booth and Francis Booth rode out from the station either to muster cattle or to pursue the Ross family. Either motive was possible: there were cattle to be mustered and all hands were needed on deck.
This article investigates how imperial legal reforms and convict activism combined to challenge t... more This article investigates how imperial legal reforms and convict activism combined to challenge the expanding system of internal ‘removal’ and ‘transportation’ in New South Wales during the 1820s. In particular, it explores how prisoners at the Port Macquarie penal settlement disputed the legal foundations of sentencing by colonial magistrates, contributing to the closure of the settlement and a flurry of ameliorative legislation. This article also examines the limits of imperial legal reform in a distant colony. Remediation of the convict relocation system was impeded by bureaucratic intransigence and by the new emphasis on convict subordination in the aftermath of the 1819–21 Royal Commission of Inquiry into the state of the colony of New South Wales.
This is the first product of an ongoing collaboration exploring the legal transformation of the B... more This is the first product of an ongoing collaboration exploring the legal transformation of the British Empire in the early nineteenth century. Stay tuned!
This chapter explores some ways in which the legal relationship between indigenous people and the... more This chapter explores some ways in which the legal relationship between indigenous people and the crown smoothed and was transformed by the shift to settler self-government.
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Books by Lisa Ford
Lauren Benton and Lisa Ford uncover the lost history of Britain’s global empire of law in colonial conflicts and bureaucratic dispatches rather than legal treatises and case law. Tracing constitutional politics around the world, Rage for Order shows that attempts to refashion the British imperial constitution touched on all the controversial issues of the day, from slavery to revolution. Scandals in turbulent colonies targeted petty despots and augmented the power of the Crown to intervene in the administration of justice. Campaigns to police piracy and slave trading linked British interests to the stability of politically fragmented regions. Dull bureaucrats dominated legal reform, but they did not act in isolation. Indigenous peoples, slaves, convicts, merchants, and sailors all scrambled to play a part in reordering the empire and the world beyond it. Yet, through it all, legal reform focused on promoting order, not advancing human rights or charting liberalism.
Rage for Order maps a formative phase in world history when imperial, not international, law anchored visions of global order. This sweeping story changes the way we think about the legacy of the British Empire and the meaning of international law today.
This occurred, not at the moment of settlement or federation, but in the second quarter of the nineteenth century when notions of statehood, sovereignty, empire, and civilization were in rapid, global flux. Ford traces the emergence of modern settler sovereignty in everyday contests between settlers and indigenous people in early national Georgia and the colony of New South Wales. In both places before 1820, most settlers and indigenous people understood their conflicts as war, resolved disputes with diplomacy, and relied on shared notions like reciprocity and retaliation to address frontier theft and violence. This legal pluralism, however, was under stress as new, global statecraft linked sovereignty to the exercise of perfect territorial jurisdiction. In Georgia, New South Wales, and elsewhere, settler sovereignty emerged when, at the same time in history, settlers rejected legal pluralism and moved to control or remove indigenous peoples.
Papers by Lisa Ford
Lauren Benton and Lisa Ford uncover the lost history of Britain’s global empire of law in colonial conflicts and bureaucratic dispatches rather than legal treatises and case law. Tracing constitutional politics around the world, Rage for Order shows that attempts to refashion the British imperial constitution touched on all the controversial issues of the day, from slavery to revolution. Scandals in turbulent colonies targeted petty despots and augmented the power of the Crown to intervene in the administration of justice. Campaigns to police piracy and slave trading linked British interests to the stability of politically fragmented regions. Dull bureaucrats dominated legal reform, but they did not act in isolation. Indigenous peoples, slaves, convicts, merchants, and sailors all scrambled to play a part in reordering the empire and the world beyond it. Yet, through it all, legal reform focused on promoting order, not advancing human rights or charting liberalism.
Rage for Order maps a formative phase in world history when imperial, not international, law anchored visions of global order. This sweeping story changes the way we think about the legacy of the British Empire and the meaning of international law today.
This occurred, not at the moment of settlement or federation, but in the second quarter of the nineteenth century when notions of statehood, sovereignty, empire, and civilization were in rapid, global flux. Ford traces the emergence of modern settler sovereignty in everyday contests between settlers and indigenous people in early national Georgia and the colony of New South Wales. In both places before 1820, most settlers and indigenous people understood their conflicts as war, resolved disputes with diplomacy, and relied on shared notions like reciprocity and retaliation to address frontier theft and violence. This legal pluralism, however, was under stress as new, global statecraft linked sovereignty to the exercise of perfect territorial jurisdiction. In Georgia, New South Wales, and elsewhere, settler sovereignty emerged when, at the same time in history, settlers rejected legal pluralism and moved to control or remove indigenous peoples.