Reid, D;
(2021)
Dispossession and legal mentalité in nineteenth-century South Africa: Grotian and Lockean theories of property acquisition in the annexations of British Kaffraria and Natalia.
Settler Colonial Studies
, 11
(1)
pp. 69-85.
10.1080/2201473X.2020.1829423.
Preview |
Text
Reid_accepted version.pdf - Accepted Version Download (165kB) | Preview |
Abstract
British and Afrikaner governments used different types of legal arguments to legitimize their acquisition of African land in the early nineteenth century. Using Pierre Legrand’s concept of legal mentalité, I explore the legal mythologies that conditioned Britons’ and Afrikaners’ methods of land acquisition. I adopt two instances of land acquisition to use as case studies: the British annexation of Kaffraria in 1835 and the Afrikaner annexation of Natalia in 1839. I show that the annexation of British Kaffraria was conditioned by a legal mythology influenced by Lockean ideas of property theory, in which property could be legally obtained through a framework of improvement. Meanwhile, I show that the annexation of the Republic of Natalia was conditioned by a legal mythology influenced by Grotian ideas of property theory, in which property could be legally obtained through a framework of conquest.
Type: | Article |
---|---|
Title: | Dispossession and legal mentalité in nineteenth-century South Africa: Grotian and Lockean theories of property acquisition in the annexations of British Kaffraria and Natalia |
Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
DOI: | 10.1080/2201473X.2020.1829423 |
Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2201473X.2020.1829423 |
Language: | English |
Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
Keywords: | Legal mentalité, dispossession, South Africa, British Kaffraria, Republic of Natalia, property rights |
UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of History |
URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10129720 |




Archive Staff Only
![]() |
View Item |