An apologist for English colonialism? The use of America in Hobbes’s writings

ABSTRACT This paper challenges the colonial reading of Thomas Hobbes’s use of America. Firstly, by analysing all the references and allusions to America in Hobbes’s writings, I claim that Hobbes simply uses America to support his central theory of the state of nature, showing the fundamental significance of a large and lasting society to our being and well-being. Secondly, I argue that Hobbes’s use of America does not serve a second purpose that is similar to Locke’s justification of English land appropriation. Even extending such a Lockean colonial theme from Hobbes’s theory would fail due to Hobbes’s unique property theory. Lastly, with a more nuanced contextual analysis of Hobbes’s involvement in the Virginia Company and relevant textual analysis, I propose that Hobbes is not only not a supporter of English colonialism, but rather an opponent of the Virginia Company, imperial expansion, and colonial conquest. I am not denying the fact that later thinkers like Locke develop Hobbes’s notion of the American state of nature to justify European colonization in America. However, the received history should not be confused with Hobbes’s own writing purpose. Nor should we ignore Hobbes’s opposition to imperial expansion.


Introduction
The most recent two decades have witnessed a growing enthusiasm for interpreting Hobbes as an apologist for English colonialism.Largely, it is Hobbes's accounts of the American state of nature that have won him this disgraceful title. 1 According to Hobbes, the 'savage people in most places of America' exemplify the state of nature, as they 'have no government at all' and 'live at this day in the brutish manner'. 2 In the context of early English colonial expansion, Hobbes's portrayal of America has been interpreted as serving the purpose of justifying English colonialism.Robert Nichols suggests that Hobbes's use of America was intended to deny 'the Amerindians in practical terms a right of sovereignty'. 3John Moffitt and Sebastian Santiago accuse Hobbes of consigning 'the Native Americans en masse to the lowest ranks of subhumanity'. 4Pat Moloney argues that Hobbes's construction of the American state of nature was to exclude the New World 'from the family nations'. 5Sandro Chignola denounces Hobbes for 'freeing up space to legitimize the English interests in overseas lands' and 'making such a freed space available to new possibilities' of legal raiding and looting. 6Srinivas Aravamudan criticizes Hobbes's writings for 'look [ing] forward to an imperial future'. 7obbes is thus accused of being a defender of European colonialism and imperialism, following in the footsteps of Grotius and paving the way for Locke.Richard Tuck holds that Hobbes adopted and deepened the Grotian account of 'the American Indian as users rather than owners of their land', endorsing 'the More-Gentili-Grotius theory of colonization'. 8Aravamudan identifies Hobbes's construction of American anarchy as 'analogical to and prefigurative of the bad faith that motivated Locke's mobilization of the trope of "America"'. 9owever, both Noel Malcolm and Patricia Springborg suggest that Hobbes consistently opposes imperial expansion and conquest in his works. 10Concentrating on Hobbes's political economy of peace, Springborg points out that it 'is remarkably backward-looking in terms of its emphasis on the health of the body politic, homeostasis and the politics of balance, forbidding "vain-glorious wars", overly-powerful subjects, towns of "immoderate greatness", and foreign adventurism leading to grandiose enlargements of dominion, empire and war'. 11hat is Hobbes's authentic face in the story of European imperial colonialism?Is he an apologist or an opponent?Does Hobbes use the notion of the American state of nature to justify English colonization of America?In this paper, I challenge the colonial interpretation of Hobbes's use of America to advance the anti-imperial and anti-colonial reading of Hobbes.This paper has three aims: (1) to clarify that Hobbes only uses America to support his state of nature theory; (2) to disprove the idea that Hobbes's use of America has a second purpose akin to Locke's defence of English land appropriation; and (3) to claim that Hobbes is not only not Locke or Grotius in the colonial story, but instead is an opponent of the Virginia Company, colonial plantations and imperial expansion.

The use of America in Hobbes' writings
A colonial reading often stresses that the frontispiece of De Cive exposes Hobbes's concealed intention to justify European colonization of America.Current studies suggest that the image of Libertas on the frontispiece of De Cive is inspired by and alludes to America. 12The lower section of the frontispiece is divided into two contrasting parts.The left is the civilized, prosperous, and peaceful Imperivm, referring to European civil life; while the right is the savage, brutish, and bloody Libertas, referring to American anarchy.Inspired by that study, Aravamudan maintains that Hobbes presents 'European sovereignty, "Imperivm", as a combination of conquest and contract, demanding sovereign subjection but enforcing an imperial peace'.At the same time, with a deliberate construction of the American state of nature, Hobbes makes Americans in 'a properly political moment, when individuals band together to offer their obedience to a sovereign who will protect them from insecurity in exchange for the comforts of government.By thus superimposing a myth regarding the birth of politics on the general background of the European conquest of America, Hobbes simultaneously denies America's political past even as he implies American consent to colonization'. 13imilarly, Moloney holds that 'Hobbes constructed the sovereignty acknowledged among European states on the supposition of the absence of sovereignty in the New World'.And 'by constructing savages as absolutely free individuals in the state of nature, he precluded their recognition as free sovereign states'. 14Chignola also maintains that 'freeing up space to legitimize the English interests in overseas lands … is undoubtedly the primary meaning of the opposition between "Imperium" and "Libertas" in the frontispiece'. 15evertheless, Springborg in a more nuanced reading refuses this line of interpretation.She argues that 'Hobbes's texts do not support such a view, and certainly not Moloney's postcolonial conclusion'. 16In fact, the colonial reading omits some important facts.It ignores the majority of Hobbes's references to the Amerindians, only choosing to concentrate on some of them, especially the frontispiece of De Cive, which is an allusion to Americans.Moreover, even when analysing some of them, the analysis divorces these references or allusions from Hobbes's integral political theory, with the consequence of distorting Hobbes's real purpose.
In all of Hobbes's works, Hobbes makes surprisingly few references to Amerindians.Evidence shows that he was very familiar with America.Hobbes was involved in the affairs of the Virginia Company from 1622 to 1624 (see Section 4).However, he neither mentions the experience nor shows a particular interest in American affairs in his works.It puzzles Malcolm very much, who compares 'the problem of the American Indian in Hobbes's works' to 'the problem of the dog that did not bark in the night', asking: 'Why did Hobbes make so little use of his special knowledge?'According to Malcolm, there are only four references to Amerindians: The Elements of Law, I.13.3;De Cive, I.13; Leviathan XIII; and Leviathan XLVI. 17In a recent survey, Ioannis Evrigenis adds four ignored references in Leviathan XXX, Leviathan XLVI, De Corpore I.i.7, and Answer to the Preface to Gondibert; and two allusions in The Elements of Law I.xiv.12,Leviathan XII. 18In addition, if we accept the widely spread statement that the famous frontispiece of De Cive is inspired by America, we could also add this allusion to the list.
However, even taking into account all the references and illusions, they are still very scarce, dispersed, and short.Not to mention that some of them are so trivial that even Malcolm, one of the best Hobbes experts, has omitted them.This suggests that if Hobbes had an interest in America itself then his interest was very limited compared to Locke's.
More importantly, the references to Amerindians are not used to justify colonialism or imperialism.We could roughly divide these references and allusions into two groups.The first group comprises the three famous references to Amerindians as the empirical instance of the state of nature in The Elements of Law I.xiv:12, De Cive I.13, and Leviathan XIII.And the remaining eight references and allusions comprise the second group, which presents a pre-civil, savage, and poor American natural condition.The two groups have slightly different emphases, but both are used to back up Hobbes's central idea: without a large and lasting society under a sufficient common power, there is no possibility of being and well-being.

America as an example of the pre-political state of nature
In terms of the first group, Amerindians consistently appeared as an empirical example to confirm Hobbes's theory of the state of nature.In The Elements of Law, Hobbes makes it clear that the state of nature is 'both by the experience of savage nations that live at this day, and by the histories of our ancestors, the old inhabitants of Germany and other now civil countries, where we find the people few and short lived, and without the ornaments and comforts of life, which by peace and society are usually invented and procured'. 19'The savage nations that live at this day', if not mistaken, refers to 'the inhabitants of divers places in America' mentioned in Chapter 13. 20 In De Cive, Hobbes directly claims that '[t]he present century presents an example of this [the state of nature] in the Americans'. 21In Leviathan, the American instance was most famously expounded: It may peradventure be thought, there was never such a time, nor condition of warre as this; and I believe it was never generally so, over all the world: but there are many places, where they live so now.For the savage people in many places, where they live so now.For the savage people in many places of America, except the government of small Families, the concord whereof dependeth on natural lust, have no government at all; and live at this day in the brutish manner, as I said before. 22rigenis feels it 'elusive and self-contradictory' that Hobbes 'presented the state of nature as an "Inference, made from the Passions," but also suggested that it could be confirmed by the reader's experience, and likened it to the conditions one would encounter amid civil war, or in the America of his day'. 23However, Hobbes's accounts may be not so paradoxical as Evrigenis supposes.In Hobbes's civil and moral philosophy, Hobbes emphasizes on both the methods of Reason and Experience. 24In addition to using reasoning to come to the scientific conclusion, Hobbes also uses experience to confirm and support his theory, and persuades his reader, who mainly lives upon experience instead of reasoning. 25When elaborating the state of nature, Hobbes himself also employs the two approaches.
On the one hand, Hobbes presents the state of nature as a thought experiment by right reasoning.Many Hobbes specialists, like Gabriella Slomp, Malcolm, and Marcus Adams, have warned that we should not mistake Hobbes's state of nature as a historical event of specific time or space.Its essence is a thought experiment. 26The pure state of nature is a logical consequence of removing the common power and deconstructing the commonwealth into its basic elementsindividuals.It aims to infer what human nature is like and what manner of life will be without common power.With that, we could know how to reconstruct a commonwealth properly. 27Individuals in the pure state of nature are deprived of their social relations and obligations, coming into an absolute atomic, free, and equal status, 'as if they had just emerged from the earth like mushrooms and grown up without any obligation to each other'. 28Hobbes infers that without 'a common Power to keep them all in awe', the passions of competition, diffidence, and glory lead these equal and free individuals to a perpetual war of everyone against everyone. 29Such a perpetual war is not a historical moment that has ever exist in the world, but the logical result of Hobbes's thought experiment.As Shelton Wolin writes, it stands 'outside history'. 30So, Hobbes asserts that 'there had never been any time wherein particular men were in a condition of war one against another'. 31n the other hand, Hobbes claims that the state of nature could be confirmed by experience: It may seem strange to some man, that has not well weighed these things; that Nature should thus dissociate, and render men apt to invade, and destroy one another: and he may therefore, not trusting to this inference, made from the Passions, desire perhaps to have the same confirmed by Experience.Let him therefore consider with himselfe, when talking a journey, he as himselfe, and seeks to go well accopanied; when going to sleep, he locks his dores; when even in his house he locks his chests; and this when he knows there bee Lawes, and publike Officers, armed, to revenge all injuries shall be done him; what opinion he has of his fellow subjects, when he rides armed; of his fellow Citizens, when he locks his chests. 32 Adams argues, for the reader who did not accept his rational inference, Hobbes believes that they 'could analyse everyday experience and receive confirmation of the conclusion'. 33Experience in Hobbes's theory, according to Zarka, plays 'a simple discriminatory function which permits … to vouch for its [the theory's] explanatory value'. 34While experience cannot provide us with any universal truth or infallible knowledge, it could be used to examine or support the proposed theory.In the English version of Leviathan, Hobbes gives three empirical instances to confirm his theory of the state of nature: many savage places in America; civil war; and the jealous kings and persons of sovereign authority.
The three empirical examples, as Peter Vanderschraaf points out, 'are more like near approximations than literal instances of States of Nature'. 35All three empirical examples were not in the pure state of nature but in a quasi-state of nature, for they are the historical events of a specific time and space while the pure state of nature is a thought experiment that never exists in any specific time or space.
The instance of America is also in a quasi-state of nature, with certain differences from a pure state of nature.For example, men are absolutely solitary, free, and equal in the pure state of nature.However, Amerindians did not exist in the atomic form but lived in families.The existence of families indicated that Amerindians were neither absolutely equal nor free.Rather, there were hierarchical relationships like the lord's dominion over other family members; and the domestic obligations within families like a child's obligation to obey his parents.Furthermore, Hobbes acknowledges that the 'savages of America are not without some good moral sentences', 36 which is quite different from his famous claim that the 'notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place' in the mere state of nature. 37evertheless, the Amerindians, along with other examples of the quasi-state of nature, presents the basic logic of the pure state of nature.All three empirical examples share two essential characteristics of the pure state of nature.First, they lack sufficient common power to keep the diverse powers in awe and unite them into a real union.Second, they suffer a long period of instability, conflict, or war.This may be the reason why Hobbes considers these instances as the state of nature.Hobbes uses them to support his core proposition: the absence of a (sufficient) common power necessarily leads to a conflictual and miserable condition in which the shadow of war constantly looms over our lives and triggers our fears of violent death.These empirical examples also remind the reader that the state of nature, or at least a quasi-state of nature, is not far from their life.Instead, there is always a risk in the real world of slipping into it.Thus, the American state of nature, like other empirical examples, is used to confirm Hobbes's theory of the state of nature.It is an instance of the pre-political state of nature in which Amerindians have not formed a genuine union, and their lives are under constant threat from the danger of war.

America as an example of pre-civil state of nature
In the second group of references and allusions to America, Hobbes's focus is more on America's pre-civil characteristics.Amerindians in Hobbes's theory were not only in a pre-political condition in which they were 'few' and 'short lived' due to the war but were also thus left in a pre-civil condition.They were 'poor and mean and lacked all the comforts and amenities of life which peace and society afford'. 38n several references, Hobbes is especially interested in contrasting the savage and poor American pre-civil condition with the well-developed, prosperous European civil societies.In Answer, Hobbes asserts that 'whatsoeuer distinguisheth the ciuility of Europe, from the Barbarity of the American sauuages, is the workemanship of Fancy, but guided by the Precepts of true Philosophy'. 39In Elements, Hobbes reminds the reader that the Europeans benefit significantly from science and arts while Americans did not enjoy them. 40Moreover, if we accept that the frontispiece of De Cive is an allusion to Europe and America, the contrast between European civil life and American pre-civil life culminates in an extremely visually striking manner in De Cive.
Is the contrast between Europe and Americans in Hobbes's works, as the colonial reading holds, used to justify the European colonization of Amerindians?The answer is surely no.Hobbes's real intention is to use the case of America to stress that without a large and lasting society, there would be no civilized and prosperous life.In De Corpore, Hobbes mentions the pre-civil America again.This time, Hobbes not only contrasts the Amerindians with Europeans, but also with most peoples of Asia and some of Africa.Now, the greatest commodities of mankind are the arts, namely, of measuring matter and motion; of moving ponderous bodies; of architecture; of navigation; of making instruments for all uses; of calculating the celestial motions, the aspects of the stars, and the parts of time; of geography, &c.By which sciences, how great benefits men receive is more easily understood than expressed.These benefits are enjoyed by almost all the people of Europe, by most of those of Asia, and by some of Africa; but the Americans, and they that live near the Poles, do totally want them.But why? Have they sharper wits than these?Have not all men one kind of soul, and the same faculties of mind?What, then, makes this difference, except philosophy?Philosophy, therefore, is the cause of all these benefits. 41e Amerindians did not enjoy the benefits of arts and commodities, which many nations in the world enjoyed.According to Hobbes, it is not because Americans are born inferior to other peoples in the faculties of the mind; the real cause is that Amerindians did not develop and accumulate scientific knowledge like architecture, 42 navigation, calculation, measuring, industries, and technologies.But if Americans were as wise as other people, why didn't the Americans develop philosophy?In Leviathan XLVI, Hobbes exposes the fundamental cause: the absence of a great commonwealth.
The savages of America are not without some good moral sentences; also they have a little arithmetic, to add and divide in numbers not too great.But they are not therefore philosophers.For as there were plants of corn and wine in small quantity dispersed in the fields and woods before men knew their virtue, or made use of them for their nourishment, or planted them apart in fields and vineyards (in which time they fed on acorns and drank water), so also there have been divers true, general, and profitable speculations from the beginning, as being the natural plants of human reason.But they were at first but few in number; men lived upon gross experience; there was no method (that is to say, no sowing, nor planting of knowledge by itself, apart from the weeds and common plants of error and conjecture).And the cause of it being the want of leisure from procuring the necessities of life and defending themselves against their neighbours, it was impossible, till the erecting of great commonwealths, it should be otherwise. 43t is not until after the establishment of the great sovereign state that there would be soil for cultivating philosophy.In Leviathan XXX, Hobbes holds that 'time and industry produce every day new knowledge'.However, the Amerindians lacked both elements.In comparison to a large and lasting society, no common authority in America had the power to maintain a long period of peace among families and tribes.As a result, they lived in constant fear of violent death.To survive, they spent most of their time and energy defending themselves and acquiring the necessities of life.Their harsh living conditions left them with no leisure time to observe, contemplate or explore the nature of materials.As a result, even if they were curious or puzzled about some natural phenomenon, their response was to hastily provide a crude religious interpretation, which later evolved into idolatry. 44he absence of a sufficient common power caused the absence of science in America, with the consequence of Amerindians living 'upon gross experience' rather than 'guided by the Precepts of true Philosophy'.Although Americans have 'true, general and profitable speculations from the beginning', they never developed, and therefore accumulated, scientific knowledge; although they 'have a little arithmetic to add and divide in numbers', they do not have a mature Mathematical Science; although they have 'some good moral sentences', they cannot develop true moral philosophy.
In conclusion, Hobbes uses the case of America to show that a large and lasting society with sufficient common power is not only the precondition of living, but also the precondition of progress, prosperity, and happiness.Hobbes uses the American experience to tell the reader (and especially the English reader) of the miserableness of civil war.So even for their own being and well-being, they should perform their duty of obeying the sovereign and cherish peace.

A colonial strategy similar to Locke's?
The colonial reading may agree that the main purpose of Hobbes's accounts of the American state of nature 'was to modify the behaviour of the inhabitants of the Old World', 45 but it questions whether this is the whole story.For instance, Nichols asserts that Hobbes's use of the state of nature 'served a dual purpose'.The second purpose is to 'deny the Amerindians in practical terms a right of sovereignty that was extended to other peoples'. 46It is tempting to conceive that Hobbes has the intention to justify English colonialism, especially given that Locke uses a similar discourse to defend English colonial activities in America.
However, no direct textual evidence could be found from Hobbes's works to prove that Hobbes's accounts of America were to justify European colonial activities in the Americas.Even the colonial reading also admits this embarrassing fact. 47So, to argue that Hobbes was a defender of English colonialism, scholars often reference the works of other thinkers who provide theoretical justification for European colonialism, including Locke, Grotius, Sheldon, Bacon, and others, and suggest that certain similar discourses in Hobbes's works imply a similar intention.
Specifically, it is incredibly tempting to interpret Hobbes as the successor of Grotius and the predecessor of Locke in the European land occupation story. 48The most extreme version of this interpretation is offered by Aravamudan.Two arguments underpin his interpretation.First, Hobbes's account of the American state of nature is an 'active effacement' of the complex political structure of American tribes, whose purpose was to 'occlude or write over the presence of native forms of sovereignty'. 49Second, such a deliberation construction, akin to Locke's, is to justify the English appropriation of the 'free land' in America.However, none of the arguments are plausible.
First, no evidence could prove that Hobbes's portrayal of America is an 'active effacement' or 'illintentioned' construction.As shown earlier, Hobbes never denies that 'the government of small Families' existed in America.He also mentions that Amerindians had rudimentary religion and idolatry, a little arithmetic, some good moral sentences, and so on.He does not hide from mentioning the King and founder of Peru, and he is also prudent to say that 'the savage people in most places of America' instead of the whole continent was in the state of nature.Therefore, Hobbes does not intent to conceal these facts at all.
Considering his times, Hobbes might sincerely think that the savage people in many places of America were in a conflictual, harsh, and miserable condition.According to Evrigenis's survey, 'even the most optimistic of accounts made it abundantly clear that life in America was unsafe … Hobbes's term is thus fitting'. 50Accounts of America that were similar to Hobbes were not uncommon in Hobbes's era.For example, John Bonoeil wrote in 1622: '[Amerindians] know no industry, no Arts, no culture, nor no good vse of this blessed Country here'.Not only that, Bonoeil's comments are much more negative than Hobbes's.Unlike Hobbes who thought Amerindians had good moral sentences, Bonoeil criticized Amerindians for being the 'most vnnaturall' and having 'meere ignorance, sloth, and brutishnesse, and an vnprofitable burthen onely of the earth'. 51s Evrigenis points out, '[e]ven the most up-to-date information did not disprove Hobbes's claim entirely, for there were many tribes whose political structure was based on familial ties and clans, and which were therefore more akin to the large families of De Cive than to its large and lasting societies'. 52Hobbes does not deny 'the government of small Families' in America, but he might think it did not correspond to his model of large, lasting, and prosperous societies sustained by sufficient sovereign power.The vivid example of the blood feud posed by Tom Sorell could help explain the gap between American tribe politics and Hobbes's model of large and lasting societies. 53Men in tribe politics might rely more on their families to revenge for the harm they suffered but citizens in a large society rely on the institutionalized police power for help and the court to bring justice.Likewise, citizens in a large society could safely travel in a strange place and transact business with strangers; it was impossible for Amerindians in tribe political organization to do these things without being privately armed.
So, the Hobbesian American state of nature was not a deliberate omission.Compared with a large, lasting, and prosperous society, the American families, at least in Hobbes's eyes, did not have a similar domestic peace or the external security and prosperity that came with lasting peace.This may be the reason why Hobbes considered that 'the government of small families' was just the natural concord instead of a real union.One can, as Leo Strauss does, criticizes Hobbes's preference for large, lasting commonwealth as problematic. 54However, it is unwarranted to accuse Hobbes's account of the American anarchy of being an ill-intentioned construction designed to legitimize English colonialism.
Second, no evidence shows that Hobbes had a colonial strategy like Locke's to justify the European appropriation of the 'free land' of America.There is no need to re-emphasize that Hobbes never says a word about English legal possession of the American lands in his extensive works.Even trying to extend such a Lockean theme from Hobbes's theory would fail.The differences between Hobbes and Locke (also Grotius) on property theories alone can explain why it would fail.In Locke's theory, two fundamental ideas underpin his justification of British appropriation of American lands. 55The first is his account of the American state of nature, which argues that there were many free and vacant spaces in America given by God to all people. 56The second one is his theory of property right, which holds that private property is a mix of one's labour with the common resources God gave to human beings. 57Locke also applies this to land property, as he writes in the Second Treatise of Government: '[a]s much land as a Man Tills, Plants, Improves, Cultivates and can use the Product of, so much is his property' and 'He by his labour, as it were, enclose it from the common'. 58According to the two notions, it is legitimate for the English settlers to turn the American free lands into their private property through their labour.Thus, English colonies for Locke are the legitimate result of exercising the property right on the free land.
Unlike Locke, Hobbes's accounts of the American state of nature are not concerned with vacant land.More importantly, Hobbes denies that there could be any property or property right in the state of nature.For Hobbes, property comes after the establishment of the commonwealth instead of before.As Hobbes explains in De Cive: We have shown above that until a commonwealth is instituted, all things belong to all men and there is nothing a man can call his own that any other man cannot claim by the same right as his (for where all things are common, nothing can be the proper to any one man); it follows from this that property and commonwealths came into being together, and a person's property is what he can keep for himself by means of the laws and the power of the whole commonwealth, i.e. by means of the one on whom its sovereign power has been conferred.This implies that individual citizens hold their property, over which none of their fellow citizens has any right, because they are bound by the same laws. 59 Hobbes's theory, property and property rights 'begin with the constitution of the commonwealth'. 60Property is an exclusive possession.It means that one has the exclusive right to possess, keep, and use it while other citizens are excluded from the right to it. 61In the Hobbesian state of nature, there is no such property right at all.'Nature hath given to everyone a right to all'.Everyone in the state of nature could 'possess, use, and enjoy all what he would, or could get' for selfdefence. 62No one can claim that he or she has an exclusive right to something because other men also have the right to the same thing.So, Hobbes asserts that there is 'no propriety, no dominion, no mine and thine distinct, but only that to be every man's that he can get, and for so long as he can keep it'. 63ue to the essential differences between Hobbes and Locke on property theories, Hobbes's theory is completely unsuitable for justifying the European appropriation of American land.Let us image what it would be like when a Lockean man and a Hobbesian man entered America.A Lockean man could make full use of his labour to turn a vacant land into his own property.By enclosing, tilling, planting, improving, cultivating, and enjoy the product of the free land in America, he becomes the owner of that land, and he has an exclusive right to it.It then becomes illegitimate and unjust for the Amerindians to occupy, possess, or use that land.With that, the English settler could turn American land into English colonies.In contrast, a Hobbesian man cannot claim that he is the owner of any land or that he has the exclusive right to any land in the American state of nature.When he encloses and cultivates one area, the free Amerindians could destroy or enjoy the product of the land without guilt.It is neither illegitimate nor unjust for the Amerindians to do so, for they have the natural right to all things in the state of nature.So, how could a Hobbesian person turn the land in America into their own private property?
The inference above demonstrates that Hobbes's theories are not like Locke's that can be used to legitimize English land appropriation in America.And Hobbes himself makes no such an extension as he merely uses America to show the miserable condition without sufficient power.

Hobbes and the Virginia company: supporter or objector?
The colonial reading also sees Hobbes's brief involvement in the Virginia Company as the contextual evidence of his support for early English colonialism.The hidden history was first revealed by Malcolm in 1981.According to Malcolm's survey, '"Mr.Hobbs" mentioned in the lists of attendance' at the court of the Virginia Company meetings was none other than Thomas Hobbes.Hobbes became involved primarily because his pupil-patron, Cavendish, needed more supporters in the internal power struggles of the Virginia Company.In 1622, Cavendish transferred one of his interests to Hobbes to make Hobbes a member with a voting right in the Company.From 1642 to its dissolution in 1644, Hobbes attended no fewer than thirty-seven meetings to vote for Cavendish. 64owever, Malcolm does not infer from this experience that Hobbes supported English colonization.
It was not until about a decade later that Tuck, in The Rights of War and Peace, used Hobbes's involvement in the Virginia Company to support the proposal that Hobbes is a defender of European colonialism similar to Grotius, Bacon and Sheldon.Since then, an increasing number of studiesthough still relatively few in numberhave underscored the influence of this brief experience and proposed that Hobbes's writings, like Locke's, endorse English colonialism. 65evertheless, such a contextual analysis is a bit too crude, omitting that context's uniqueness and some crucial details.What allows us to identify thinkers like Grotius or Locke as apologist for European colonialism is their life-long active involvement in the colonial cause, which could be confirmed by substantial contextual evidence as well as substantial textual evidence in their writings that echoed their colonial practice.However, Hobbes's case is entirely different.His brief involvement in the Virginia Company and the textual evidence that may echo it do not demonstrate that Hobbes is a defender of English colonialism.Instead, they reveal Hobbes's authentic stance of anticolonialism and anti-imperialism.
To understand this point better, let us first compare the context and echoing text of Grotius and Locke with that of Hobbes to see why Hobbes's involvement in the Virginia Company cannot prove that he was an apologist for English colonialism.Then, we can proceed to a more nuanced contextual and textual analysis to understand why Hobbes is a writer opposed to imperial colonialism.
According to Martine Julia van Ittersum, Grotius had a 'lifelong support for Dutch expansion overseas' as a defender, spokesman, Lobbyist, and legal advisor of the United Dutch East India Company (VOC). 66Even if we do not delve as thoroughly as Ittersum, some clear facts indicate Grotius's defence for the Dutch imperial cause.The most well-known one is his famous work De Jure Praedae Commentarius, which he wrote to defend the interests of the VOC in the East Indies. 67In the Dutch's imperial rivalry with Iberian powers, the VOC commissioned Grotius to justify its private capture of the Portuguese Santa Catarina in the Strait of Singapore in 1603.To fulfil this task, he drafted De Jure Praedae Commentarius (1604-1606) with chapter XII later published by the VOC in 1609 as Mare Liberum.In addition, Grotius was continually dedicated to the cause of Dutch expansion overseas, especially from 1604 to his arrest in 1618.For example, as a spokesman and a key delegate of the Dutch during two rounds of Anglo-Dutch conferences with the English held in London (1613) and The Hague (1615), Grotius made full use of his theories expounded in De Jure Praedae Commentarius to defend Dutch colonial interests in the East Indies.To legitimize Dutch's expansion in Asia, he employed the just-war theory to justify its war against the Iberian powers in East Asia.To defend the Dutch's monopoly of the spice trade in Asia, he used the theory of freedom of contract to invalidate the freedom of trade claimed by the English who cited Grotius's Mare Liberum. 68imilarly, it is John Locke's life-long influential involvement in English colonial affairs that allows us to identify him as a defender of English colonialism.Locke participated in almost allimportant aspects of English colonization, particularly in North America.In politics, as Bourne points out, 'Locke's influence in detailed management [of the colony] seems to have been almost paramount'. 69According to James Tully, Locke served as a colonial civil servant as 'the secretary of the Lords Proprietors of Carolina (1668-1671), secretary to the Council of Trade and Plantations (1673-1674), and member of the Board of Trade (1696-1700)'.He was also 'one of the six or eight men who closely invigilated and helped to shape the old colonial system during the Restoration'.In the economy, Locke owned thousands of acres of land in Carolina, and he invested in a number of colonial companies, for example, the slave-trading Royal Africa Company, and took his share of overseas colonial profits.In policy-making writings, he drafted 'Carolina's agrarian laws (1671-1672); a reformed proposal for Virginia (1696), memoranda and policy recommendation for the boards of trade'. 70He also co-wrote, with his patron Lord Ashley, the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina (1669). 71Moreover, his published works like the Second Treatise and a wide range of the unpublished writings like his 'personal journals and administrative records for the colony of Carolina' 72 show his defence for colonialism as well as his thoughts on how to develop the colonies.
Unlike Grotius or Locke, no similar contextual and corresponding textual evidence could prove Hobbes was an apologist for English colonialism.Hobbes's brief involvement in the Virginia Company was due to Cavendish's need for more supporters in the Company's fierce internal wrangle.Compared with Grotius's and Locke's active and passionate participation in colonial activities, Hobbes's role in the Virginia Company was more like 'a vote in Cavendish's pocket'. 73We cannot deduce whether Hobbes supported colonization or not, for he never defended colonial activities in practice as Grotius or Locke did.Instead, Hobbes tends to omit his involvement in the Virginia Company.He never mentions this experience.Additionally, his extensive works have never implied the name or activities of the Virginia Company.Without Malcolm's investigation, Hobbes's early experiences with the Virginia Company might still be a hidden and obscure history to us today.More importantly, Hobbes makes very little use of his knowledge of Amerindians; even the few references to Amerindians are used to show his English reader the necessity and merit of peace, sovereign power, and obedience.
In fact, both the contextual and textual evidence point in the opposite direction.It is highly likely that Hobbes disliked and opposed the Virginia Company because of its anti-royal power represented by Sir Edwin Sandys who was influential in the Company, which may explain why Hobbes omitted his involvement in it.It is necessary to cite Malcolm's investigation: The fact remains that Sir Edwin Sandys was regarded with suspicion by the king and his council, and the Company under his direction was tarred with the brush of his own record of criticism and opposition in parliament.Three of Sandys' sons were later to become colonels in the parliamentary army; one of his close associates in the Company, Sir John Danvers, was actually to become a regicide.Such later facts as these may have no place in the story of the Virginia Company, but they do perhaps serve to explain why Hobbes, in restoration England, remained silent about his own place in that story.In retrospect the Virginia Company must have seemed, to Hobbes, tainted with anti-royalism. 74cording to Malcolm, the merchants in the Company, like Sandys, Digges, and Danvers, supported 'parliamentary privilege against royal prerogative'.They also supported 'the Common law against Chancery' and even interpreted the Common law as the natural reason to legitimate limiting and resisting the King's prerogatives.Malcolm suggests that some of Hobbes's criticisms were probably targeted at Sandys and his anti-royal circle in the Virginia Company.In Behemoth, Hobbes fiercely criticized the merchants as 'the first encouragers of rebellion'. 75In Dialogue, Hobbes attacked the idea of interpreting the common law as the natural reason. 76Hobbes could hardly support Virginia Company if it had fostered great anti-royal and rebellious forces.
However, there remains a question: was Hobbes only opposed to the anti-royal forces within the Company, not to the colonial expansion itself?Warren and Chignola hold precisely such a view.They suggest that it was the democratic overtones of the company's anti-royalty that Hobbes opposed, rather than the company and its colonial activities.Instead, Hobbes probably advocated 'the reorganization of the Virginia Company as well as of the interests involved in it, including his own'. 77They imply that if the company had been reorganized to be controlled completely by the Crown, Hobbes would welcome it, for colonization was in the interest of the king and his personal interests.
However, both the contextual and textual evidence do not support such a view.In terms of the contextual evidence, Malcolm notes that 'there are almost no indications of how Hobbes was occupied after the [resulting 1624] dissolution of the Company'. 78In terms of the textual evidence, it suggests that Hobbes consistently opposed imperial expansion and colonial adventure in his works. 79In Leviathan XXIX on those things that Weaken a Commonwealth, Hobbes views the sovereign's insatiable appetite for expansion as a serious 'disease'.On the ambition for aggrandizement, he writes, 'with the incurable Wounds thereby many times received from the enemy; And the Wens, of ununited conquests, which are many times a burden, and with lesse danger lost, than kept'. 80Hobbes exhorts the sovereign not to adopt a policy of expansion, although this advice is highly pragmatic.In Dialogue, Hobbes criticizes that the kings who imitate the action of Alexander the Great 'have not always the most comfortable lives, nor do such Kings usually very long enjoy their Conquests'. 81For Hobbes, an expansionist policy is short-sighted, for the sovereign loses much more from it than he gains.
Moreover, Hobbes goes against any war superfluous to the purpose of self-defence.Hobbes criticizes the agents who take 'pleasure in contemplating their own power in the acts of conquest, which they pursue farther than their security requires'. 82It sins against the laws of nature to wage war or inflict harm upon another not out of 'the sincere belief' that it is necessary for self-preservation. 83As Hobbes claims, 'a person may sin against the Nature laws.… If he claims that something contributes to his self-preservation, but does not believes that it does so'. 84So, in The Elements of Law, Hobbes satirizes the ambitious sovereigns: 'such commonwealths, or such monarchs, as affect war for itself, that is to say, out of ambition, or of vain-glory, or that make account to revenge every little injury, or disgrace done by their neighbours, if they ruin not themselves, their fortune must be better than they have reason to expect'. 85Hobbes also opposes enriching the commonwealth by conquest.'[F]or as a gain, military activity is like gambling', Hobbes wrote in De Cive XIII, 'in most cases, it reduces a person's property; very few succeed'. 86Hobbes believes that only 'when all the world is overcharged with Inhabitants, the last remedy of all is Warre'.It means that, as Strauss points out, 'as long as this extreme cause has not come about, war should be waged only for defence'. 87For Hobbes, except for war as a last resort for selfdefence, the sovereign should refrain from war, because it comes at a painful cost to its security, peace, and prosperity.
Unlike Locke, Hobbes also sees the colonies as a burden instead of a promise of an English people's happy future.In Leviathan, he compares the 'ununited conquests' to the 'wens' of the commonwealths. 88Hobbes might see the difficulty of incorporating the alien people into a real union; the huge cost of energy and resources in maintaining the colony's stability and obedience; and the potential danger of colony's revolt and secession movement driven by the deep desire for independence.So, in De Cive XIII, Hobbes warns that although Athens and Rome were enriched through conquest, 'we should not take the enrichment by these means in our calculations'.Hobbes excludes conquest and expansion from the proper means of enriching the commonwealth.He asserts that 'there are only three things then which enable the citizen to increase their prosperityproducts of earth and water, hard work and thrift'. 89t remains unclear whether Hobbes's early experience in the Virginia Company influenced his stance against imperialism and colonialism, but this is highly likely.The first attempts at English colonization in North America from 1607 to 1624 caused many deaths and losses.According to Evrigenis, 'At least 6000 people went to Virginia between 1607 and 1624, but only 1,200 remained in 1625'.One main reason for the population reduction was Amerindians' constant wars against English colonization, particularly the famous Great Massacre of 1622.To revolt against and revenge English colonization, Powhatan used every tool they could find and killed 347 English settlers, including women and children.In August 1622, the Virginia Company published Edward Waterhouse's report on the massacre, which recorded its horrible scene. 90hat particular context could help us to understand better why Hobbes saw conquest and expansion as wounds and wens of the commonwealth.Before the Great Massacre, in the same year, Hobbes became a member of the Virginia Company. 91For Hobbes, famous for his fear of death and disgust of war, it was hard not to be affected by the bloody wars and great sacrifices recorded in the massacre report.The imperial expansion was at the vain cost of great loss of lives and money, causing wounds on the body of England.Although Amerindians were at a disadvantage compared to the English armed with advanced technology and weapons, Amerindians could retaliate with all their strength and kill English colonists once they had the opportunity.Thus, colonization in America placed the English themselves in a dangerous state of nature that came at a tragic cost.At the same time, the gain was too little, and even fed the wens of the commonwealth.The Great Massacre of 1622 showed the difficulty of incorporating alien peoples like Amerindians into England to achieve a real union.The oppressed Amerindians might revolt again and again for their freedom.Thus, the colonies were more of a threat than a happy future for England.In addition, what the colonial activities cultivated were ambitious merchants like Sandys.Thus, instead of promoting the peace and prosperity of England, colonial activities fostered rebellious forces and undermined the domestic peace.

Conclusion
In this paper, I have argued that Hobbes is not an apologist for English colonialism, but instead an opponent of imperial expansion, conquest, and foreign adventurism.I am not denying that Hobbes's notion of American anarchy did influence the colonial language from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth century.Earlier in The Nomos of the Earth, first published in 1950, Carl Schmitt pointed out that Hobbes's doctrine of the state of nature, influenced 'not only by the creedal civil wars in Europe, but also by the New World', was a critical example of the conceptualization of the New World. 92It is true that Hobbes's conceptualization of the new world, as Moloney analyses, was systematically developed and employed by thinkers like Locke, de Vattel, John Austin, and James Kent in their defence of European colonialism. 93owever, Hobbes's own purpose of employing the idea of the American state of nature is one story, while later thinkers' reception and use of that idea in European colonial ideology is another.They should not be confused.Otherwise, it would cause a great misunderstanding of Hobbes's authentic intention.The reading of Hobbes's use of America should not ignore Hobbes's deepest writing motivation: his great fear of and concern for the English Civil War, and his keen desire for domestic peace, well-functioning commonwealth, and a real union.
Just because Hobbes is so concerned with modifying European behaviour and opinions, he takes little interest in America itself.Compared with most thinkers in the colonial age, Hobbes shows the least enthusiasm for the New World.He is so indifferent to America that his references to America are very sparse and brief.His works impress us with the turmoil, war, and chaos in Europe instead of the thriving European colonial activities and imperial rivalries in the New World.And even his few references to America are all used to show the reader the miserable, horrible, and tragic condition that occurs without sovereign power rather than serving any other purpose.
Moreover, because Hobbes holds a completely negative view of the life without the commonwealth, possessing property is impossible in the Hobbesian state of nature.Property is the product of the commonwealth instead of the state of nature.This is very different from Locke's much more civil state of nature, which allows for the existence of private property and the exercise of property rights.This essential difference determines that a picture of the Lockean appropriation of American free land is impossible in Hobbes's theory.Therefore, when analysing whether Hobbes's use of America is a similar colonial strategy to Locke's, their essential differences on property theory should not be effaced, for the exercise of property rights in the state of nature is crucial for Locke's successful justification for English occupation of American lands.
Lastly, as a result of Hobbes's deep desire for a lasting civil society, he opposes any foreign adventure that may harm the healthy body of the commonwealth.He does not believe war and conquest could really enrich the commonwealth.He opposes war that is superfluous to the purpose of selfpreservation, for Hobbes regards such a war as a dangerous gamble that will hurt invaluable peace and prosperity.He denounces the lust for expansion, which causes wounds on the body of the commonwealth.He opposes the enlargement of dominion, which nourishes the wens of the commonwealth.So, compared to Grotius, Locke, Sheldon, or Bacon, Hobbes has absolutely no enthusiasm for adventure in the New World.He only wants the country to prosper honestly, and the citizens to live well by hard work and thrift.Thus, when exploring whether Hobbes's use of America has a colonial intention, a more nuanced and consistent contextual and textual analysis is necessary.The crucial background, like Hobbes's role as a vote in Cavendish's pocket, the rebellious merchants and anti-royal colour in the Virginia Company, the great sacrifice of life during the first attempts at English colonization, and the Indian massacre of 1622, should not be ignored.Hobbes's writings that might echo the context, like Hobbes's silence on the Virginia Company, Hobbes's criticism of ambitious merchants, his consistent opposition to conquest, imperial expansion, and colony, should be given much more attention.