Hybrid Constitutions

In "Hybrid Constitutions", Vicki Hsueh challenges the idea that early-modern colonial constitutions were part of a uniform process of modernization, conquest, and assimilation. Through detailed analyses of the founding of several seventeenth-century English proprietary colonies in North America, she reveals how diverse constitutional thought and practice were at the time, and how colonial ambitions were advanced through cruelty toward and accommodation of indigenous peoples. Proprietary colonies were governed by an individual (or small group of individuals) granted colonial charters by the Crown. These proprietors had quasi-sovereign status over their colonies; they were able to draw on and transform English legal and political instruments as they developed constitutions. Hsueh demonstrates that the proprietors cobbled together constitutions based on the terms of their charters and the needs of their settlements. The 'hybrid constitutions' they created were often altered based on interactions among the English settlers, other European settlers, and indigenous people. Hsueh traces the historical development and theoretical implications of proprietary constitutionalism by examining the founding of the colonies of Maryland, Carolina, and Pennsylvania. She provides close readings of colonial proclamations, executive orders, and assembly statutes, as well as the charter granting Cecilius Calvert the colony of Maryland in 1632; the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, adopted in 1669; and, the treaties brokered by William Penn and various Lenni Lenape and Susquehannock tribes during the 1680s and 1690s. These founding documents were shaped by ambition, contingency, and limited resources; they reflected an ambiguous and unwieldy colonialism rather than a purposeful, uniform march to modernity. Hsueh concludes by reflecting on hybridity as a rubric for analyzing the historical origins of colonialism and reconsidering contemporary indigenous claims in former settler colonies such as Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.

ISBN 082234632X   Pages 216 ISBN13 9780822346326 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 295 Publisher Duke University Press   Published in North Carolina Imprint Duke University Press   Height (mm) 231 Format Paperback   Width (mm) 155 Publication date 01 Mar 2010   Spine width (mm) 13 DEWEY 342.73029   Academic level Tertiary education, Professional / Scholarly DEWEY edition DC22

1		Hybrid constitutionalisms : unsettling the empire of uniformity		1
2		"Not repugnant or contrary" : law, discretion, and colonial founding in Maryland		25
3		Giving orders : theory and practice in the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina		55
4		Under negotiation : treaty power and hybrid constitutionalism in Pennsylvania		83
5		Negotiating culture : plurality and power in hybrid constitutionalism		113
		Notes		135
		Bibliography		163
		Index		183

"In Hybrid Constitutions, Vicki Hsueh challenges the prevailing tendency in political theory to find in early-modern European colonialism the origins of modern liberalism's exclusions and tendency toward uniformity. Through her detailed analyses of charters, constitutions, and treaties, she shows that colonial encountersoincluding encounters and negotiations among Europeans themselves, as well as between Europeans and Native Americansowere much more complex, contingent, and contested than broad-brush accounts would imply. This subtle and impressive book will be important for colonial historians and political theorists alike" oDavid Armitage, author of The Declaration of Independence: A Global History

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