Customer Reviews

Ceremonies of Possession in Europe's Conquest of the New World, 1492-1640

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This was a very well researched and scholarly book. (Perhaps a thesis) A bit of an effort but an interesting review of the different European powers and their takeover of the new world. I had never thought about the English love of fences, the French love of acceptance, the Spanish love of ritual and the Portugeuse love of the technology of exploration in ways that reflected how they staked out their claims. It was a new level of perspective.

Author Patricia Seed takes a unique approach to describing the 16th-17th C imperialism by the five major European powers in the New World (English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Dutch). Rather than rehash the conquests of these powers, Seed discusses HOW these groups 'took possession' of the Americas. Each country saw their ritual or ceremony as the only valid way to establish control of an area. The English built a fence or planted a hedge on their 'plantations' to show ownership; the Spanish read a declaration of war (The Requirement), based on the Islamic principal of jihad (dervied from the Muslim occupation of Medieval Spain); the French relied on "conquest by love", a ceremony designed to show Native compliance with French rule; the Portuguese and Dutch used mathematical calculations and cartography to show how their "discoveries" of unknown areas established dominion.

Seed presents extensive documentation of her ideas; at times, one could argue, a little too much repetition of similar information to prove her point. Rather than a chronological narrative, the chapters don't seem to follow a straight line; for example, the first chapter deals with the English (rather late arrivals to the Americas, as opposed to the Spanish and Portuguese). Perhaps not a big deal, but the transitions from country to country were sometimes choppy. This is a good book for those already familiar with the basics of the European exploration and conquest of the Americas, and Seed makes some excellent connections between the Roman/Medieval world and the early modern world, specifically the ethnocentrism of each country and its 'right' to dominate others.