Petitioning in the Atlantic World, C. 1500–1840 : Empires, Revolutions and Social Movements

This book deals with one of the most pervasive ways by which people have addressed authority throughout history: petitioning. Based on a Congress held at the Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa (Petitions in the Age of the Atlantic Revolutions), in February of 2019, the book explores traditional practices and institutions, as well as the transformation of petitions as vehicles of popular politics. The ability or the right to petition was also a crucial element for the development and operation of early modern empires, playing a major role on the negotiated patterns of the Atlantic World. This book shows how petitions were used in Europe, America and Africa, by the governors and the governed, by the rich and the poor, by the colonists and the colonised and by the liberal and the reactionary groups. Broken down into three thematic parts, encompassing both in chronological and geographical scope, the book deepens our understanding of petitioning and its relation with ideas of consent and subjecthood, nationality and citizenship, political participation and democracy. This book provides a rare comparative platform for the study of a subject that has been receiving growing interest. Contents Notes on Contributors List of Figures 1 Introduction: Atlantic Petitionary Traditions and Developments Notes Part I Petitionary Practices and Brokers in the Early Modern Atlantic World 2 Some Reflections on Voice and Authority in the Construction and Operation of Long-Distance Empires and Their Successor States in the Americas Exit, Voice, and Loyalty Authority and Opinion: A Symbiotic Relationship Petitions, Authority, and the Public in Medieval England Transplantations: Consent and Authority Within and Over America Notes 3 Petitions in the Dutch Atlantic and the ‘Absence’ of a Dutch West India Interest, c. 1600–1800 Collecting Signatures Petitioning Across the Atlantic Conclusion Notes 4 Petitions to the Courts of Appeal in Portuguese America and the Protection of Rights (c. 1750–1808) What Court Are We Talking About? What Petitions Were These? Final Considerations Notes 5 Petitions to Correct Revolutionary Rumours: The City Council of Santafé Bogotá and Madrid’s Agentes de Indias, c. 1780–1795 “From the depths of the Empire, they write to the King”6 When Writing from Afar Is Not Enough: The Agentes de Indias and Santafé’s Rendering of the pasquines Conspiracy Concluding Remarks: Madrid, the Agentes, and Spanish-American Petitioning Notes Part II Petitioning and Colonialism 6 Indigenous Petitioning in the Early Modern British and Spanish New World Native Petitioning in the Pre-Conquest New World The Viceregal and Colonial Contexts of Indigenous Petitioning Frontier and Urban Petitioning, Social Transformation, and Self-Fashioning The Indigenous Shapes of European Colonial Legal Orders Shaping Indigenous Status Through Petitioning Intermediaries, Translators, and Intellectuals Petitioning During the Age of Revolutions and Liberal Era Parting Reflections on the History of Indigenous Petitioning Image Section Notes 7 Debitage of the Shatter Zone: Indoctrination, Asylum, and the Law of Towns in the Provinces of Florida Notes 8 “We Are All French”: Race, Religion, and Citizenship in Petitions from Senegal, 1760s–1840s The French Empire and Senegal in an Age of Revolutions Claiming and Defining Frenchness in Late Eighteenth-Century Senegal To Be Both French and Muslim Conclusion Notes Part III Revolutionary Ruptures and the Path to Mass Petitioning 9 Petitioning as Constitution-Making: Revolutionary Massachusetts and the American Confederation Notes 10 Action at a Distance: Petitions and Political Representation in Revolutionary France Introduction Defining Representation Writing and the New Regime Defining Petitions and Petitioners Drowning in (Paper)work Conclusion Notes 11 Petitioning by Riot in Spain and the Origins of Modern Mass Petitioning Petitions by Other Means Resignation, Clogged Channels and Forceful Petitioning Revolution and the Language of Rights Pronunciamientos The Just Limits of Petitioning Transnational Resonances Conclusion Notes 12 The Petitionary Wave of the First Portuguese Liberal Revolution (1820–1823) Introduction Petitions and the Sudden Parliamentarisation of Portuguese Politics Playing with Public Opinion Petitions, Organisation, and Mass Mobilisation Adopting the New Language of Rights Final Remarks Notes Index This book deals with one of the most pervasive ways by which people have addressed authority throughout history: petitioning. The book explores traditional practices and institutions, as well as the transformation of petitions as vehicles of popular politics. The ability or the right to petition was also a crucial element for the development and operation of early modern empires, playing a major role on the negotiated patterns of the Atlantic World. This book shows how petitions were used in Europe, America and Africa, by the governors and the governed, by the rich and the poor, by the colonists and the colonised and by the liberal and the reactionary groups. Broken down into three thematic parts, encompassing both in chronological and geographical scope, the book deepens our understanding of petitioning and its relation with ideas of consent and subjecthood, nationality and citizenship, political participation and democracy. This book provides a rare comparative platform for the study of a subject that has been receiving growing interest. Miguel Dantas da Cruz is an assistant researcher at Instituto de Ciencias Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal