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Legitimacies, Indian Identities, and the Law: The Politics of Sex and the Creation of History in Colonial New England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Ann Marie Plane
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Abstract

In an early-eighteenth-century legal contest on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, an Indian leader, Jacob Seeknout, appealed a ruling that undermined his political authority. Seeknout's lawyer, Benjamin Hawes, crafted an argument that intertwined the sexual legitimacy of Seeknout's ancestors with his political legitimacy; at the same time, Hawes also linked Indians' collective chastity as a “nation” to their sovereign status. This paper examines the economic, religious, criminal, and historical contexts of this argument, exploring the history of Indians' conjugal practices and their reinvention as the criminal acts of fornication. The case illustrates some of the diverse sources of early American law, links between these legal structures and colonialism, and the importance for scholars of attending to the local level in exploring the power of colonial law to shape new racial identities.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , Winter 1998 , pp. 55 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 1998 

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