On Mobile Legal Spaces and Maritime Empires: The Pillage of the East Indiaman Osterley (1779)

This article uses a legal case from the French Indian Ocean empire during the American Revolutionary War (ca. 1778–1780) to explore the operation of mobile legal spaces: that is, law-filled spaces that moved (such as ships) or which were highly shaped by movement in and out of them (ports). These ty...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inItinerario Vol. 42; no. 2; pp. 183 - 201
Main Author Perl-Rosenthal, Nathan
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.08.2018
Subjects
Empires
Knowledge
Mobility
Ports
Scholarships & fellowships
Ships
France
Mauritius
Cape of Good Hope
French empire
maritime law
Mauritius
legal spaces
Legal pluralism
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Summary:This article uses a legal case from the French Indian Ocean empire during the American Revolutionary War (ca. 1778–1780) to explore the operation of mobile legal spaces: that is, law-filled spaces that moved (such as ships) or which were highly shaped by movement in and out of them (ports). These types of spaces, characteristic of early modern seaborne European empires, created distinctive problems and opportunities for those navigating imperial rule, both rulers and ruled. In particular, the essay argues that the mobility of legal spaces added significant spatial and temporal dimensions to the well-known legal diversity and pluralism of the early modern world. In mobile spaces, legal regimes might overlap or conflict temporarily, be relevant for only a fixed period of time, or come into force when a ship reached a particular location. Recognising the ubiquity of these mobile legal spaces and the powerful effects that they had can change how we understand the functioning of law in colonial empires.
ISSN:0165-1153
2041-2827
DOI:10.1017/S0165115318000268