Trade, Plantations, and Property: John Locke and the Economic Defense of Colonialism

Author(s): Barbara Arneil

Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 55, No. 4 (Oct., 1994), pp. 591-609
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2709924
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 Trade, Plantations, and Property:
John Locke and the Economic
Defense of Colonialism

Barbara Arneil

John Locke's Two Treatises of Government has long been recognized as

a tract which addresses the questions raised by the domestic political devel-
opments in England during the Restoration period,' but the importance of
English foreign policy, in particular the colonization of America, has been
largely overlooked. Given the quantity of books and correspondence in
Locke's possession concerned with America and its natives, the number of
specific references Locke makes to America in the Two Treatises, and
Locke's involvement, through his patron the Earl of Shaftesbury, in the
development of colonial policies throughout his life, this oversight is surpris-
ing.2 By examining the seventeenth-century political controversy surround-
ing England's colonization of America, one can discover that the debate was
fierce and that critics of colonial policy far outnumbered those who supported
it during this period. As the English government and proprietors invested

I The debate over the domestic political context is most recently explored in David
Wootton, "John Locke and Richard Ashcraft's Revolutionary Politics" and the response
by Ashcraft, "Simple Objections and Complex Reality: Theorizing Political Radicalism in
Seventeenth Century England," Political Studies, 40 (1992), 79-98; 99-115. Richard
Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics and Locke's Two Treatises of Government (Princeton,
1986); David McNally, "Locke, Levellers and Liberty: Property and Democracy in the
Thought of the First Whigs," Journal of the History of Political Thought, 10 (1989), 17-40;
G. J. Schochet, "Radical Politics and Ashcraft's Treatise on Locke," JHI, 50 (1989), 491-
510.
2 Some recent work has begun to redress this gap in Lockean scholarship. See Barbara
Arneil, "John Locke, Natural Law and Colonialism," Journal of the History of Political
Thought, 13 (1992), 587-603; Thomas Flanagan, "The Agricultural Argument and Original
Appropriation: Indian Lands and Political Philosophy," Canadian Journal of Political
Science, 22 (1989), 589-602; Herman Lebovics, "The Uses of America in Locke's Second
Treatise of Government," JHI, 47 (1986), 567-81; James Tully, "Discovering America,"
John Locke Conference (Oxford, September 1990).

591

Copyright 1994 by Journal of the History of Ideas, Inc.

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592 Barbara Arneil
increasingly large amounts of money and people into the plantations of
eastern America, the chorus against the "plantation" grew stronger.
In response economic writers, such as Thomas Mun, Josiah Child, and
Charles Davenant wrote their own treatises in defense of the English colo-
nies, concluding that the economic returns they would ultimately bestow on
the old country would far outweigh the initial costs of founding the planta-
tions. Clear parallels can be drawn between the tracts of those writers
defending England's colonial aspirations in America and the arguments
contained in the Two Treatises. Given the overwhelming opposition in
England to Shaftesbury's plans for the new world, there was a strong
motivation for all of these believers in colonization to take pen to paper.
Locke was no exception. From his economic writings to colonial correspon-
dence in his own hand to unpublished notes he drafted on the subject of trade,
Locke was a strong defender of the colonial enterprise, and the Two Treatises
is a part of that tradition. Thus, by taking seriously Locke's references to
America and its natives in the Second Treatise, it will become clear that
embedded in his theory of property and conquest is a vigorous defense of
England's colonial activities in the new world.
There is considerable evidence of the extent to which colonial policy
dominated Locke's life from 1668 to 1675. From the colonial records of
Carolina one can see that most of the letters between the Lord Proprietors and
the Council in Carolina were endorsed by Locke; some of the laws, including
the Temporary Laws of 1674, were hand written and sent by him; and
copious notes summarizing the activities were recorded in his own hand. In
addition, he wrote during this time to senior officials in the colonies of the
Bahamas and Carolina, including Joseph West, Peter Colleton, and Henry
Woodwar. Finally, he was responsible, in conjunction with Shaftesbury, for
penning the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina.3
H. R. Foxbourne describes Locke's central role in the administration of
Carolina:

His influence in [the colony's] detailed management seems to have

been almost paramount, and the zeal shown by him in endeavouring
to secure the property of the settlement was amazing. Down to the
autumn of 1672, he continues his informal, but onerous, office of
secretary to the proprietors.4

In the Council of Trade and Plantations, for which he was secretary from
1673 to 1675, the work was equally demanding. George Beer describes the
work in the following terms:

I See Shaftesbury Papers, Public Record Office, 30; Collections of the South Carolina
Historical Society (Charleston, 1897); Noel Sainsbury (ed.), Calendar of State Papers,
Colonial Series: America and West Indies, 1661-68 (London, 1880).
4 H. R. Foxbourne, The Life of John Locke (London, 1876), I, 244.

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Locke and Colonialism 593
The Council for Plantations and its enlarged successor had together a
joint life of somewhat over four years, during which short period
they greatly improved the entire system of imperial control. They
held formal meetings on an average of at least twice a week.5

Locke's involvement in the development of colonial policy occurred at a time

when the need to raise greater revenues was made acute by the economic
crises of the 1 660s. Resources needed to finance the ongoing war against the
Dutch were severely strained by the Great Plague of 1665 and the Fire of
London in 1666.6 As a result the English economy was weak, and economic
treatises were composed to solve the vexing question of how to raise rev-
enues. Colonization in America was seen by a minority as the solution to the
economic crisis and by the majority as a contributing cause. Consequently,
during the 1670s most men involved in England's political affairs roundly
denounced the newer forms of colonization, particularly plantations, as
ineffective means of producing badly needed wealth and as an even greater
drain than trade on the nation's beleaguered resources.

The Opposition to Colonialism

Sir Josiah Child, to whom Locke responded in his Some Considerations

of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest, claimed in his famous New
Discourse on Trade that those in favor of England's colonization of the new
world are, as was Child, but one in a thousand. "Where there is one man of
my mind, there may be a thousand of the contrary."7 Similarly, Thomas Mun
wrote in his England Treasure by Forraign Trade that the "first work of
specifically economic interest that Locke is known to have read"8 in support
of foreign trade and plantations, but he agreed with Child that this was a
minority view.

This Position is so contrary to the common opinion, that it will

require many and strong arguments to prove it before it can be
accepted of the Multitude, who bitterly exclaim when they see any
monies carried out of the Realm.9

Child and Mun are not simply creating this opposition as a rhetorical device,
as public documents from this period make clear. The Commissioner of

'George Beer, The Old Colonial System, 1660-1 754 (New York, 1912), I, 249.
6 As Patrick Kelley (ed.), Locke on Money (Oxford, 1991) comments, "War was by no
means the only source of economic crises in the 17th century: more frequent were natural
disasters, such as plague and harvest failure."
I Sir Josiah Child, A New Discourse on Trade (1689; London, 1804), 170.
8 Kelly, Locke on Money, I, 98.
9 Thomas Mun, England's Treasure by Forraign Trade (1664; Oxford, 1949), 14.

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594 Barbara Arneil
Customs wrote vehemently against the colonies because "the encouraging of
people to remove to the plantations, as too many go thither, [will lead] to the
unpeopling and ruin of the kingdom."10 Similarly, Britannia Languens,
presented to the Parliament of England in 1680, a copy of which is in Locke's
library, was, in the words of Sir Charles Lucas, "a very wholesale condemna-
tion of colonization."' I It stated in part:

These plantations may be considered as the true grounds and causes

of all our present mischiefs; for, had our fishers been put on no other
employment, had those millions of people which we have lost or
been prevented of by the plantations continued in England, the
government would long since have been under a necessity of easing
and regulating our trade.... [T]he plantations affording room and
hopes for men ... they have deserted the nation continually, and left
us intricated and fettered in private interest and destructive constitu-
tions of trade.12

Central to the concerns of those who opposed the plantations was not
only the drainage from England of good people but also the fear that the
colonies would become independent of the mother country and compete
against her. New England was the worst example of this problem, and its
management was denounced by both supporters and opponents of plantations
as something which was harmful to England's interests. It is significant that
these fears came to a head in 1663 over Carolina, Shaftesbury and Locke's
main colonial project. Many in England believed that this new province
would become yet another drain and competitor to English trade. Roger
Coke, grandson of Lord Justice Coke, wrote:

In this condition I leave to thee, reader, to judge, whether it will be

yet so much more pernicious to the trade of this nation to endeavour
a further discovery of new plantations; and that if the project of

10 The Commissioner of Customs, B. R. Carroll (ed.), Collections of the South

Carolina Historical Society (Charleston, 1858), II, 312.
" Sir Charles Lucas, Religion, Colonization and Trade: The Driving Forces of the Old
Empire (London, 1930), 48.
12 Britannia Languens or A Discourse of Trade Humbly Offered to the Consideration
of this Present Parliament (First Published 1680), Reissued for Richard Baldwin (London,
1689), 176. Many of those who denounced colonization were leading public figures. Sir
William Coventry wrote that the cause of England's decline was, "the long continued
directing of the Young and prolifick People to the Plantations." See Sir William Coventry,
"Essay Concerning the Decary of Rents and their Remedies," cited in Beer, The Old
Colonial System, I, 21-22. John Evelyn, diarist and official commissioner to the 1672
Council of Trade and Plantations, who swore in Locke as secretary to the Council, wrote of:
"the ruinous numbers of our Men, daily flocking to the American Plantations." John
Evelyn, Navigation and Commerce (1674), 112, cited in Beer, The Old Colonial System, I,
22, n. 2.

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Locke and Colonialism 595
peopling Carolina from the residue of the men we have left in
England, if it succeeds, will not so much more enfeeble this nation. 3

The fear that Carolina would "enfeeble" the nation was so deeply felt that,
within four days of opening up Carolina to settlement, King Charles II
published, through the "Royal Declaration and Proposals to All that Will
Plant Carolina," a second proclamation reinforcing the idea that colonies
were there only to serve the needs of England.

His Majesty and Privy Council, having maturely considered the

importance of two acts lately made for the increase of shipping and
navigation in relation to trade and revenue, and for keeping his
plantations in constant dependence, commands the utmost diligence
to be used for punctually observing the same.14

The need to defend colonialism against a general opinion which was at

best skeptical and at worst hostile fell on the bodies which administered the
policies and colonies concerned. In Carolina, as Sir Charles Lucas makes
clear, Shaftesbury and Locke took on the task of defending England's
policies in the new world: "Shaftesbury, with Locke behind him, was in
favour of plantation, of forming new colonies."15 In 1671 Shaftesbury won a
small victory over the critics when he convinced the King that plantations
must be considered as important to England's wealth as trade when forming
his new council on trade.

Shaftesbury believing that questions of overseas possessions were

inseparable from the questions of trade ... proposed their fusion in a
single and more powerful body. The King agreed to this proposal,
appointed a new Council of Trade and Plantations and made
Shaftesbury its President.16

The strength of the opposition to colonization, and Locke's involvement in

the colonial bodies, provided him with both the incentive and inclination to
defend Shaftesbury's goals for the new world.

1' Roger Coke, A Discourse of Trade in Two Parts: The Reason of the Decay of the
Strength, Wealth and Trade of England (London, 1670), 10.
" Calender of State Papers, Colonial Series: America and West Indies 1661-1668
(London, 1880), 155-56.
15 Lucas, Religion, Colonisation and Trade, 46-47.
16 Maurice Cranston, John Locke: A Biography (Oxford, 1985), 146.

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596 Barbara Arneil
Locke and Trade

Locke's interest in economic matters is reflected in his library, in which

he created a category for his eleven works on trade, several of which were
published in the late 1670s, shortly before Locke began writing the Two
Treatises. Among them were works which analyzed the "decay" of English
trade in relation to that of Holland and an account of France's "usurpation"
of English trade. Locke also had in his library a copy of the 1680 Britannia
Languens, which was the classic statement of opposition to the American
plantations."7 Beyond his library Locke kept abreast of the debate over trade
through manuscripts and works available in Shaftesbury's own library. Ac-
cording to Patrick Kelly,

As [Locke's] notebooks and correspondence show, these [books in

Locke's library] were far from constituting the sum total of his
reading in the field. Other works were available to him in Shaftes-
bury's library, and ... the Council of Trade ... had collections of
books and maps as well as important manuscript material, a matter of
some significance at a time when much economic writing circulated
in manuscript before publication in print."8

Locke not only kept abreast of the debate over plantations but on several
occasions wrote notes defending trade and colonization as the means by
which England would restore its revenues. Among Locke's papers in the
Lovelace Collection is a page of notes in preparation for an essay specifically
on trade, in which he creates several arguments in defense of the plantation.
Other works by Locke defending English colonialism include "For a
Generall Naturalization" and Some Considerations of the Consequences of
the Lowering of Interest. Both defend foreign trade as the source of
England's future wealth. From Locke's unpublished and published notes and
essays on trade and colonization it is clear that he believed that America was
the key to England's economic success, if properly managed.19 As Patrick

1' Harrison and Laslett, The Library of John Locke (Oxford, 1971) list the books
contained in Locke's library in accordance with his own cataloguing of them. Amongst the
eleven books listed by Locke under the heading of "Trade": "An Account of French
Usurption on the Trade of England" by S. Bethel (London, 1679); "The Ancient Trades
Decayed Repaired Again" (London, 1678); Britannia Languens or a Discourse of Trade
shewing the Grounds and Reasons of the Increase and Decay of Land Rents, National
Wealth and Strength, ed. W. Petyt (London, 1680).
18 Kelly, Locke on Money, 97-98.
'9 Locke, "For a General Naturalisation," and Some Considerations of the Conse-
quences of the Lowering of Interest, in Kelly, Locke on Money, 222-23. Locke, "Notes on
Trade in Sweden, Denmark and New England" (1696; Bodleian Library, MS Locke c. 30,
folio 38). "Notes for an Essay on Trade" (Bodleian Library, MS Locke c. 30, folio 18).
"Of the American Plantations" (Bodleian Library, MS Locke d. 7, 1), a document added to
the Lovelace Collection by Peter King on 18 October 1714.

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Locke and Colonialism 597
Kelly comments, "Locke argues that England has no option but to foster its
foreign trade."20
From the time of his appointment as secretary to the Lords Proprietors of
Carolina in 1668 to his final days, Locke was immersed in all of the
economic debates which revolved around the American plantations including
the essential question, posed by skeptics of settled colonies, as to the value of
having plantations at all. To understand the links between Locke's economic
writings, the Two Treatises of Government, and the debate over colonization,
it is necessary first to examine the arguments made by those economic writers
who defended England's colonial aims, including Thomas Mun, Sir Josiah
Child, and Charles Davenant, and then to demonstrate how Locke incorpo-
rated these ideas into his Two Treatises of Government.

The Economic Defense of Colonialism

Thomas Mun was one of the first defenders of England's foreign trade as
the means by which to best accrue revenue. His influence on Locke was
important:

Perhaps the most influential [works for Locke] were Mun's England
Treasure by Forreign Trade, 1664 ... [it] was the first work of
specifically economic, interest that Locke is known to have read.21

Mun begins by claiming that most Englishmen were opposed to the idea that
trade would increase revenues, particularly if money had to be expended first.
In strikingly similar language Mun and Locke conclude that trade is the
essential key to increasing the value of money. Where Mun states, "Money
begets trade and trade encreaseth money," Locke concludes: "Trade then is
necessary to the produce of Riches, and Money necessary to the carrying on
of Trade."22 Money was invested into foreign trade during the 1660s, but
concern grew as England fell behind Holland in its trade with the new world.
Such concern eventually caused the House of Commons in 1667, the House
of Lords in 1668, and the King himself in 1669 to create their own commit-
tees, to "consider of the causes and grounds of the fall of rents and decay of
trade within this kingdom."23
One of the solutions which was suggested, beginning with Mun in the
1660s but increasingly with Charles Davenant and Josiah Child in subse-
quent years, was that England must go beyond the trade favored by Holland
and invest in large scale settlement and cultivation of new lands, which
would be the foundation of greater wealth. As Mun states:

20 Kelly, Locke on Money, 70.

2 1Ibid., 98.
22 Mun, England's Treasure, 15; Locke, Some Considerations, 223-24.
23 William Letwin, Sir Josiah Child: Merchant Economist (Boston, 1959), 1-3.

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598 Barbara Arneil
The riches ... of every Kingdome, State, or Commonwealth, con-
sisteth in the possession of those things, which are needfull for a
civill life. This sufficiency is of two sorts; the one is naturall, and
proceedeth of the Territorie it selfe; the other is artificiall, and
dependeth on the industrie of the Inhabitants.24

Cultivation of new ground was the key to England's wealth. Cradocke, an

associate of Shaftesbury's in the early 1660s, comments: "Planting in ... new
Plantations throughout the whole Globe, would ... multiply Commodity and
Livelyhood, [and lead to] the imployment of innumerable poor ... and the
abundant encrease of our Shippin and Dominion on the Sea."25
The ideas first articulated by Mun were given their full expression in the
writings of Sir Josiah Child. Locke has three volumes written by Child in his
library's catalogue, and Some Considerations was written in response to
Child's Discourse on Trade. Child, in response to "some gentlemen, of no
mean capacities, [who] are of the opinion, that his majesty's plantations
abroad have very much prejudiced this kingdom by draining us of our
people," begins by claiming it is not the richness of the land but the industry
of the people which creates wealth in a nation.

First, I agree, that lands, though excellent, without hands proportion-

able, will not enrich any kingdom.... Most nations in the civilized
parts of the world are more or less rich or poor, proportionably to the
paucity or plenty of their people, and not to the sterility or fruitful-
ness of their lands.26

He then proceeds to argue, contrary to public opinion, that plantations are

profitable to England for several reasons. His first point is that the colonies
will absorb many troublesome factions, such as the unemployed or criminals,

24 Thoms Mun, "A Discourse of Trade From England unto the East Indies," in
Hakluytus Posthumous or Purchas Pilgrims Contayning a History of the World in Sea
Voyages and Lande Travells by Englishmen and Others (Glasgow, 1906), 5, 295-96.
25 T. Cradocke, Wealth Discovered: Or An Essay Upon a Late Expedient for Taking
Away All Impositions and Raising A Revenue Without Taxes (London, 1660), 22.
26 Sir Josiah Child, A New Discourse on Trade (London, 1804), 167, published
anonymously in 1689-90 and including his original essay of 1668, "Brief Observations
concerning Trade and Interest of Money," which Locke responded to with his Some
Considerations. William Letwin argues that Child composed the material for the second
discourse between 1668 and 1670 but, like Locke, held off on publication. Locke's interest
in Child's thinking makes it very likely that he was familiar with Child's views on trade and
plantations while Locke was involved in colonial work in the 1670s. Moreover, as Patrick
Kelly argues, most economic manuscripts of this period would be circulated amongst key
intellectuals for years before they were actually published (see note 17). For the discussion
of Child's composition see Letwin, Sir Josiah Child, 31-32.

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Locke and Colonialism 599
which would not be contributing to England in any case.27 He goes on to
argue that the best form of plantation is one based on agriculture rather than
on trade, mining or conquest (the methods of other countries). Thus he
attacks the Dutch for not having:

made any improvement by planting; what they do in the East Indies

being only by war, trade, and building of fortified towns and castles
upon the seacoasts, to secure the sole commerce of the places and
with the people whom they conquer, not [my emphasis] by clearing,
breaking up of ground, and planting, as the English have done.28

Equally, the "French ... have made no considerable progress in planting."

Finally with regard to Spain, he writes: "The English ... have cleared and
improved fifty plantations for one, and built as many houses for one the
Spaniards have built."29
The English were the best planters; other possible forms of labor tried by
English colonists were considered to be less beneficial to the nation's inter-
ests. Mining and grazing in particular were often discouraged by supporters
of the plantations. Not only was the former seen as a means for private rather
than national gain, but the intrinsic need to explore large areas of land in the
search for lucrative mines also ran counter to the English nation's desire to
settle people and populate small areas of land. Grazing or raising cattle was
discouraged because it tended to benefit intercolonial trade within America
rather than that between the colonies and England. While many colonizers
did attempt to explore both of these avenues for producing private wealth,
they were actively discouraged by the English proprietors and thinkers like
Child who argued that they were detrimental to the national interest. In
addition to the number of people employed in farming directly, the export of
crops to England would necessitate a great national navy and thus create
more jobs in shipping than other forms of labor. Mining simply made the
adventurers rich and did not sustain, as did the English plantations, the same
number of people on both land and sea. Child comments on all of these

27 Herman Lebovics argues that Locke concurs with Child's argument that the colonies
would be a good outlet for the poor. While Locke's writings on the poor seem to give this
claim some support, it would be misleading to think that this was a primary motivation, as
Lebovics argues, for Locke's defense of colonialism. His experience in Carolina was of an
enterprise aimed at expanding private and national profit more than as a forum for social
welfare. Lord Ashley wrote in 1671, "We find ourselves mightily mistaken in en-
deavouring to get a great number of poor people there [Carolina], it being substantial men
and their families that most make the plantation." For Lebovics's analysis see "The Uses
of America in Locke's Second Treatise of Government," JHI, 47 (1986), 567-8 1, and for a
contrary argument, Beer, The Old Colonial System, II, 183-87.
28 Josiah Child, A New Discourse, 184.
29Ibid., 185-86.

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600 Barbara Arneil
interconnected issues in his attack on Spain's obsession with mining in the
new world:

The Spaniards' intense and singular industry in their mines for gold
and silver ... doth cause them to neglect in great measure cultivating
of the earth ... which might give employment to a greater navy, as
well as sustenance to a far greater number of people by sea and land.30

Agrarian activities were thus greatly encouraged, but dating back to the
time of More, those who wished to settle many people favored crop growing
over grazing animals as an agrarian activity. More states in Utopia: "Crime,
too springs from the ... turning tillage into pasturage, for wool pays better
than corn wherefore sheep 'devour whole fields, houses and cities,' and the
peasants thus expelled must beg or steal and be hanged.""3 James Axtell
claims that this support for crop-growing was a feature of the views of both
English proprietors and the church in seventeenth-century settlement in
America.

To the preachers and politicians who supported them, industry meant

farming and farming meant tillage, not grazing ... as soon as the
missionaries were able to establish themselves among the Indians
they began to introduce the idea of English style farming ... the
official English preference for tillage showed itself every time a new
mission was founded.32

Child proceeds to argue that colonies will benefit England only if they
are kept in a dependent relationship to the mother country which involved,
historically, two important components. First, Navigation Acts were imple-
mented to insure that all goods produced in the colonies for export to Europe
would go via English ships directly to the mother country. Second, measures
were introduced to ensure that the right crops, that is, the ones useful to
England, were grown in the colonies. Specifically, England wanted com-
modities which would supplant those it now bought from southern European
countries, such as wine, dried fruits, nuts, and oil. Dependency ensured that
the profits would return to England. Moreover, Child argues, the demand
amongst plantations for basic manufactured commodities which could not be
produced in the new world necessarily created employment in England for
those involved in their production. Thus, Child states, "If we kept the trade

30Ibid., 190.
31 Thomas More, "Utopia," E. Surtz and J. H. Hexter (eds.), The Yale Edition of the
Complete Works of St. Thomas More (New Haven, 1965), IV, 94.
32 James Axtell, The Invasion Within: The Conquest of Cultures in Colonial North
America (Oxford, 1985).

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Locke and Colonialism 601
of our said plantations entirely to England ... one Englishmen [in America]...
would make employment for four men in England."33
These views are echoed by another great defender of the plantation,
Charles Davenant, who makes it clear that tilling the earth is the best form of
development. Like Child, Davenant argues that conquest is not a legitimate
form of title, and he attacks the Turks for having "more enlarg'd their
Dominions by Conquest, than by any Arts of Peace."34 According to
Davenant, the enlargement of dominions by conquest or the search for gold
undermines the health of an empire. The development and appropriation of
property should be restricted by the English government or its representatives
to that which can be cultivated.

As many Empires have been ruin'd by too much enlarging their

Dominions and by grasping at too great an Extent of Territory, so our
Interest in America may decay, by aiming at more Provinces, and a
greater Tract of Land, than we can either cultivate or defend.35

Thus he attributed many of the problems in Virginia to the large tracts of

land which were owned but not planted: "Many hundred thousand Acres are,
as they call it, taken up, but not planted ... these Practices are without doubt a
chief Cause that our Colony in Virginia has had no better success. "36
The solution for Davenant is twofold. First, "endeavour the rendring
this Territory less extensive, but better Peopled, and consequently in a readier
Condition to improve and defend it self." Second, "establish something like
an Agrarian Law ... to restrain such a fraudulent taking up of Land ... as is a
Bar to the Industry of Others."37 Davenant argues explicitly for farming over
manufacturing in the colonies because the latter would compete with English
companies exporting such products to the new world. Like Child, he believes
that one of the great advantages to the plantations was the manufacturing jobs
it created in England:

Tis true, if in New England or in other Parts there, they should

pretend to set up Manufactures, and to cloath, as well as feed their

Josiah Child, A New Discourse, 201-2.

3 Charles Davenant, "On the Plantation Trade," Discourses on the Public Revenues
and on the Trade of England, Part II, Discourse III (London, 1698), 228. While Davenant
published his work after Locke composed his Two Treatises, it is still important to compare
the two thinkers for both Locke and Davenant were composing their arguments at approxi-
mately the same time and in response to the same overwhelmingly critical view of English
colonies. Moreover, both spring from Child's original theories. Consequently, it is not
surprising that the Two Treatises are not only consistent with but of striking similarity to
Davenant's thought.
3 Davenant, "On the Plantation Trade," 233.
36 Ibid., 236-37.
37 Ibid., 237.

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602 Barbara Arneil
Neighbours, their nearness, and low Price, would give 'em such
Advantages over this Nation, as might prove of pernicious Conse-
quence; but this Fear seems very remote, because new Inhabitants,
especially in a large Extent of Country, find their Accompt better, in
Rearing Cattle, Tilling the Earth, clearing it of Woods, making
Fences, and by erecting Necessary Buildings, than in setting up of
Manufactures.38

Agriculture, that is, the clearing, tilling, and planting of the land, is not only
the English method of claiming property, but in the colonies it is the
preferred form of labor for keeping the colonies dependent on and out of
competition with the mother country, particularly in manufacturing.

The Economic Defense of Colonialism and Locke

In both his economic writings and in the Two Treatises Locke defends
the rights and economic benefits of the colonial plantation in America, a
position which is consistent with the views of Child, Davenant, and other
leading commentators on trade at the time. While Locke's support for the
colonial plantation, like these other thinkers, runs counter to the prevailing
opinion, he uses every available forum to put his case. The correlation
between his Two Treatises, his own economic writings, and the works of the
economic thinkers discussed above is remarkable.
Locke believes, as does Child, that it is industry, or in Locke's terms,
labor, rather than quantity of land or its richness which determines the value
of property. Thus Locke argues that labor not only begins the property, but
"makes the far greatest part of the value" of it, and "a fruitful Soil, apt to
produce in abundance ... for want of improving it by labour" will have no
real value.39 The labor theory of value is also articulated by Locke in his
economic writings on trade, in which he states that "In all manifactures the
greatest part of the value lies in the labour."40
Like Child and Davenant, Locke speaks almost exclusively, in the Sec-
ond Treatise, of labor in terms of crop-growing, agrarian activity rather than
mining, grazing, manufacturing, or other forms of industry which could
theoretically provide an equal claim to proprietorship through labor. Thus in
first defining the origin of property in land, Locke states:

As Much Land as a Man Tills, Plants, Improves, Cultivates, and can

use the Product of, so much is his Property. He by his Labor does, as
it were, inclose it from the Common.41

38 Ibid., 226-27.
3 Two Treatises, II, par. 42 and 41.
40 "For a General Naturalization," in Locke on Money, 488.
4' Two Treatises, II, par. 32.

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Locke and Colonialism 603
Throughout Locke's chapter on property are references to the agrarian culti-
vation of land and, more particularly, tillage rather than grazing. He speaks of
"cultivating" the earth, of the man who may "plough, sow and reap," of
"improvement, tillage or husbandry," of "tilled and reaped" land, and, of
"Pasturage, Tillage, or Planting."42 Like Davenant, who argues that settlers
who engage themselves in agriculture over manufacturing or other forms of
industry will "find their accompt better" and serve English interests more, or
Child, who claims that agriculture provides "sustenance to a far greater
number of people" than any other industry, Locke repeatedly assumes a
preference, to the near exclusion of all other forms of labor, for an exclu-
sively crop-growing farmer.
That England excels over all other countries in this type of labor, as Child
argues in reference to Spain and France, is something with which Locke
concurs. In notes written by Locke on "Trade in Sweden, Denmark and New
England" there is the following observation of Swedish plantations: "labour
1/2 value to England."43 The relationship between labor and value accrued is
central to the competition for colonial riches and is also discussed at some
length by Locke in his chapter on property. In particular Locke argues that
land in America would be one hundred times more valuable if Devonshire
farmers were to labor on it rather than leaving it to the native inhabitants:

I aske whether in the wild woods and uncultivated wast of America ...
without any improvement, tillage or husbandry, a thousand acres will
yield the needy and wretched inhabitants as many conveniences of
life as ten acres of equally fertile land doe in Devonshire where they
are well cultivated?44

Locke also concurs with Child's conclusion that a planter in America, far
from draining England of employment, creates far more jobs through demand
for the necessary manufactured tools and the development of shipping neces-
sary to transport them. When Locke discusses the value that labor brings to
land, he begins with an acre of land in America as his example. The value
derived from this labor, Locke argues, goes beyond the industry of the
farmers in America to the manufacturers of the tools, supplies, and ships
which would be needed to complete the task of harvesting "Corn" and
making bread. Locke claims that a "catalogue of things" which could only
be produced in England would be necessary, including "all the Materials
made use of in the Ship, that brought any of the Commodities made use of by
any of the Workmen, to any part of the Work." It is worth noting the striking
similarity of the materials listed in the Two Treatises to the ones given by

42 Two Treatises, II, par. 35-42.

43 "Notes on Trade in Sweden, Denmark and New England" (1696; Bodleian Library,
MS Locke c. 30, folio 38).
44 Two Treatises, II, par. 37.

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604 Barbara Arneil
Thomas Mun in his defense of England's trade through the economic benefits
of navigation. Where Mun speaks of "Timber, Planks, Boards, Pitch, Hemp,
Tar, Flax, Masts, Cordage and other Ammunitions to make those multitude
of ships," Locke lists, among other things, "Timber..., Pitch, Tar, Masts,
Ropes, and all the Materials made use of in the Ship." Locke, like Mun, is
arguing that the value of navigation and all of its needs must be accounted for
in calculating the worth of plantations and the labor which would be ex-
pended on the "Acre of Land ... in America" mentioned at the beginning of
the paragraph.45
In this important paragraph of the Second Treatise Locke articulates two
central tenets in the defense of English trade first advanced by the economic
writers cited above. The first is that most manufactured commodities used by
workmen in their labor in America would need to be shipped to them; that is,
they would be made in England, not in America. This creates employment in
the manufacturing centers in England. Second, the building and operation of
the ships themselves, in order to transport these commodities from the old
country to the new world, would further both the art of navigation and
employment in shipping back home. Both of these tenets underlie the case
that colonization in America benefits England if properly governed and
controlled. Thus the Navigation Act of 1660 has as two of its basic aims, "to
ensure the promotion of English shipping and seamanship" and "to protect
British mercantile interests."46 By shipping all of the manufacturers' com-
modities to America from England on English ships, as Locke's argument in
the Second Treatise suggests, the cultivation of the "Acre of Land ... in
America" would lead to the beneficial results listed above and used by the
defenders of English trade policy.47
Locke himself states explicitly in notes prepared in 1674 for an essay on
trade that "trade is twofold": the first aspect is "manifacture ... preparing
commodities for yr consumption" and the second "cariage i.e. navigacon
and merchantship."48 Similarly, in an unpublished paper on naturalization
Locke states that foreign "trade consists in two parts, manufacture and
navigation."49 Child and Davenant use these same two aspects of trade for
their own defenses of the English plantation in America. Indeed, among
Locke's papers in the Lovelace Collection, is an essay entitled "Of the
American Plantations," linking Child's defense to these same two tenets.

45 Mun, England's Treasure, 78; Locke, Two Treatises, II, par. 43.
46 The Cambridge History of the British Empire (Cambridge, 1929), I, 270-71.
47 Two Treatises, II, par. 43.
48 "Notes for an Essay on Trade," (1674; Bodleian Library, MS Locke c. 30, folio 18).
49 "For A General Naturalization," 488.

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Locke and Colonialism 605
Sr Josiah Child in his printed book of trade affirms that the plantation
imploy two thirds of our shipping, and did thereby, and by taking of
our manufacturers give sustenance to near two thousand persons in
England.50

The need for shipment of manufactured goods in the new world is also
something Locke was familiar with in his own colonial experience, having on
several occasions received letters asking for supplies of tools and clothing.
Joseph West, governor of Carolina and Sir Peter Colleton, in the Bahamas,
both wrote to Locke, directly, about their "Extream want of provision."5" In
May 1674 the Lord Proprietors in replying to another request from Carolina
responded, "We have sent another supply of cloathes and tools."52
Child's rejection of the Dutch or Spanish method of conquest to claim
land is also reflected in Locke's chapter on conquest, in which he is quite
categorical, in a position he himself describes as a "strange Doctrine," that
victory over another people does not imply a right over their possessions.53
The English sought title to land by peaceable rather than violent means. This
preference for appropriating land by industry rather than force is reflected in
Locke's colonial correspondence, economic writings, and chapter sixteen of
the Second Treatise. In a letter written in Locke's handwriting to the Gover-
nor of Carolina on 13 May 1671 are the following instructions:

Neither doe we thinke it advantageous for our people to live by rapin

and plunder which we doe not nor will not allow. Planting and Trade
is both our designe and your interest and if you will but therein
follow our directions we shall lay a way open to you to gett all the
Spaniards riches in that Country.54

In Some Considerations Locke writes:

There are but two ways of growing Rich, either Conquest, or Com-
merce ... no Body is vain enough to entertain a Thought of our
reaping the Profits of the World with our Swords, and making the
Spoil ... of Vanquished Nations. Commerce therefore is the only way
left to us ... for this the advantages of our Situation, as well as the
Industry and Inclination of our People ... do Naturally fit us.55

50 "Of the American Plantations" (Bodleian Library, MS Locke d. 7), 1.

51 Letter from Joseph West to Locke, 28 June 1673, E. S. De Beer (ed.), Correspon-
dence of John Locke (8 vols.; Oxford, 1976-82), I, letter no. 272; letter from Sir Peter
Colleton to Locke, 28 May 1673, Correspondence, I, letter no. 270.
52 Letter from Proprietors, May 1674, in Collections, V, 435-38.
53 Two Treatises, II, par. 180.
54 Letter from Lord Ashley (later Earl of Shaftesbury) to William Saile, 13 May 1671,
in Locke's hand, Shaftesbury Papers (Public Records Office 30, bundle 48, no. 55), 91.
55 Some Considerations, 222-23.

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606 Barbara Arneil
Locke's theory of conquest in chapter sixteen of the Second Treatise is
unequivocal: land cannot be acquired by force.

A Conqueror gets ... an absolute power over the Lives of those, who
by putting themselves in a State of War, have forfeited them; but he
has not thereby a Right and Title to their Possessions. This I doubt
not, but a first sight will seem a strange Doctrine.... The right than of
Conquest extends only to the Lives of those who joyn'd in the War,
not to their Estates.56

Locke recognized both in his colonial experience and the Two Treatises that
peaceable colonization is more of a goal than a reality and one believed in
more strongly by the proprietors in England than the settlers in the new
world. In the chapter on conquest in the Second Treatise Locke states:
"There being nothing more familiar in speaking of the Dominion of Coun-
tries, than to say ... Conquest ... convey'd a right of possession."57 Neverthe-
less Locke, in his economic writings and in chapter sixteen of the Second
Treatise, hoped to provide a new and seemingly "strange" model of coloni-
zation that better suited to the English disposition. Locke concludes in Some
Considerations "securing our Navigation and Trade [is] more the Interest of
this Kingdom than Wars or Conquest."58
It is worth noting that Locke goes on to argue in the Two Treatises that
the singular exception to conquerors gaining no right over the land of others
is when the land is lying waste: "Where there being more Land, than the
Inhabitants possess, and make us of, any one has liberty to make use of the
waste."59 Thus, it is peaceful labour on vacant land and commerce rather than
conquest which provides both a just title to the new world and a superior
method of colonization.
This peaceful laboring on the land, however, must be kept within the
limits of one's industry for the colony to survive. Davenant concludes that
the plantation should reach only as far as "we can ... cultivate," and taking
up of property should never become a "Bar to the Industry of Others."60
Locke similarly limits appropriation in the Second Treatise to that which can
be cultivated ensuring that it will not prevent access to others who are willing
to expend a similar degree of industry. "Men had a right to appropriate, by
their Labour, each one to himself, as much of the things of Nature, as he
could use: Yet this could not be much nor to the Prejudice of others, where
the same plenty was still left, to those who would use the same Industry."'6'

56 Two Treatises, II, par. 180, 182.

S7 Ibid., II, par. 180.
S8 Some Considerations, 232.
si Two Treatises, II, par. 184.
60 Davenant, "On the Plantation Trade," 233, 237.
6l Two Treatises, II, par. 37.

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Locke and Colonialism 607
Locke's concern with the taking up of too much ground, like Child's and
Davenant's, is again rooted in the experience of the colonies, in which land
was too often appropriated in vast quantities and even enclosed without
having the number of people necessary to cultivate the land therein. The
principle of limiting land to that which can be cultivated was a fundamental
premise for those overseeing the colonies. In Carolina the Lord Proprietors
sent a letter to the Council in May 1674, berating the settlers for failing to be:
"... observant of our orders ... [to] Take up noe more lands than what they
had use for ... [occupying] scattered Settlement and large Tracts of ground
taken up not like to bee planted these many years, [and] exclude others from
coming neare them."62 Finally, central to the success of the plantation,
according to Child, and the reason why the Spanish have failed is the
preservation of liberty and property through sound laws and rigorous man-
agement of settlers' land within the colonies:

Though plantations may have drained Spain of people, it does not

follow that they have or will drain England or Holland; because,
where liberty and property are not so well preserved [my emphasis]
... the profit of plantations ... will not rebound to the mother
kindgom, but to other countries ... hence it follows, plantations thus
managed prove drains of the people from their mother kingdom.63

If property was to be preserved, allocation of land must be strictly organized

around townships, as Shaftesbury concludes in a letter to Sir Joseph Yeamans
of Carolina, in September 1671: "A Towne in a healthy Place will give more
Reputation, Security and Advantage to us then ten times that number of
People scattered about the countrey."64 Locke recognized both the need for
well managed property and established laws in the Second Treatise. In a
striking passage on the expansion of a country's colonial acquisitions, Locke
concludes that lands should only be increased in proportion to the number of
men available and colonies should be founded on laws which insure the
liberty and industry of its citizens.

Numbers of men are to be preferd to largenesse of dominions, and ...

the increase of lands and the right imploying of them is the great art
of government. And that Prince ... shall be so wise and godlike as by
established laws of liberty to secure protection and incouragement to
the honest industry of Mankind.65

62 Letter from Lord Proprietors to Council at Ashley River, 18 May 1674, signatures by
Locke, Collections, V, 439-40.
63 Child, A New Discourse, 177-78.
64 Letter from Lord Ashley to Sir Jo. Yeamans, 18 September 1671, Collections, V,
343.
65 Two Treatises, II, par. 42.

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608 Barbara Arneil
For Child, Davenant, and Locke, liberty and industry, protected and pre-
served by established law, should be the foundation of both English colonial
rule and civil society.
Thus Locke believes like Mun, Child, and Davenant, that foreign trade
and settlement is the best solution to England's economic woes. However,
England would only accrue revenue from the plantations if she competed
effectively against Holland and Spain by adopting a particular mode of
colonization, as described in both the economic writings and the Second
Treatise. Like Child and Davenant, Locke assumes agrarian labor in the Two
Treatises and denounces the practice of appropriating land by conquest. He
argues, as did the colonial defenders, that appropriation must be limited to
that which one could cultivate, and that it was the government's duty to
insure the protection of liberty and property, in part by employing such lands
efficiently. Finally, Locke concludes that employment will be created in
England by colonization in both the manufacturing and navigational indus-
tries. The value in an acre of American land, therefore, when one includes all
of the industry involved, is enormous.
While Locke's arguments in the Two Treatises may reflect those made by
defenders of the English plantation, one might ask to what extent Locke
intended his chapter five, on property, and chapter sixteen, on conquest, to be
read in that way. Authorial intention is difficult to ascertain at any time but
not more so than during times of political strife and intrigue, when writers
deny authorship altogether. Such was the case with Locke's Two Treatises.
Not only did he refuise to admit authorship, he "destroyed all his workings
for the book and erased from his papers every recognisable reference to its
existence."66 The question of whether Locke intended his Two Treatises to
be a defense of the English form of colonialism can only be decided on the
basis of circumstantial evidence. First, given the overwhelming opposition to
Shaftesbury's aims, Locke had a strong incentive to incorporate a defense
into the Two Treatises. Second, the arguments in chapter five of the Second
Treatise are also found in Locke's own notes and essays on trade, in which we
know that Locke's explicit purpose was the defense of the English plantation.
Finally, Locke's adamant claim that the state of nature could still be found in
America currently, and his deliberate and repeated use of America and its
natives in his chapters on property and conquest, reflect his decision to draw
conclusions about both property in general and England's activities in the
new world in particular.67
From this link between colonialism and Locke's theory of natural rights
two broad conclusions can be drawn. First, Locke's theory of property must
be reevaluated as a response to not only the questions posed by Sir Robert

66 Ibid., Introduction by Peter Laslett, 3-6.

67 Of the twenty-two references listed by Peter Laslett to America or Indians, ten occur
in the 26 paragraphs of the chapter on property.

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Locke and Colonialism 609
Filmer and the domestic political intrigues of the day, but also to those raised
by Shaftesbury's colonial interests. Second, and more broadly, it must be
recognized that natural rights theory, particularly with regard to the origins of
private property, has specific historical roots in England's colonization of the
new world. While C. B. Macpherson and others have attempted to argue that
Locke's theory is a reflection of early capitalism's "possessive individual-
ism," the historical realities of seventeenth-century England which make
such theoretical links problematic are overcome by the very close and
tangible connection between Locke and the American plantation.68
From these early beginnings, the close historical and philosophical links
between English liberalism and the colonial enterprise can begin to be drawn.
From its inception the natural right to property is defined in such a way as to
exclude non-Europeans from being able to exercise it. In defending the
English plantation from the skeptics in England, Locke creates a right of
agrarian labor which is neculiarly English and Protestant. Unlike the Spanish
conquistador or native American hunter, the Devonshire farmer described in
the Second Treatise is the only legitimate proprietor and citizen. He is the
"industrious and rational" being to whom, Locke claims, God gave the
world. This English farmer, through the application of his reason and indus-
try, becomes in turn the only legitimate member of the newly forming civil
society. When seen in this light, the distinction between the state of nature
and civil society, and the supersession of the former by the latter takes on a
new meaning. The natural man or Indian could not, by Locke's theory, be
forced to join civil society or give up their property. Conquest gave no such
rights to the victors. Rather, Locke argued that it would only be through
industry and reason that the American Indian could be converted from natural
to civil man. Such a transformation, however, was inevitable. Thus the
transcendence of the state of nature by civil society, which is so central to the
development of liberal thought, when seen in the colonial context in which it
was created, becomes a philosophical justification for both the usurpation of
Indian land and the assimilation of "natural man" into civil society.

London Guildhall University.

68 C. B. Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (Oxford, 1962).

For critiques, see Peter Laslett, "Market Society and Political Theory Review of
Macpherson," Historical Journal, 7 (1964); Sir Isaiah Berlin, "Hobbes, Locke and
Professor Macpherson," Political Quarterly, 35 (1964), 444-68.

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