The colonial origins of modern territoriality: property surveying in the thirteen colonies

Goettlich, K. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1225-1478 (2022) The colonial origins of modern territoriality: property surveying in the thirteen colonies. American Political Science Review, 116 (3). pp. 911-926. ISSN 1537-5943 doi: 10.1017/S0003055421001295

Abstract/Summary

Most scholars agree the rise of states led to modern territoriality. Yet globally the transition to precise boundaries occurred most often in colonies, and there are virtually no systematic explanations of its occurrence outside Europe. This article explains how precise boundaries emerged in the earliest context where they were regularly and generally implemented: 17th- and 18th-century colonial North America. Unlike explanations of modern territoriality in Europe, it argues property boundary surveys became an entrenched practice on the part of settlers and were a readily available response to intercolonial boundary disputes. After independence, settlers accustomed to surveys pursued linear boundaries with Britain, Spain, and Russia. Moreover, the article argues that linear borders (delimited linearly and typically physically demarcated), not sovereignty, are constitutive of ‘modern territoriality’. By disentangling the literature’s Eurocentric confusion between modern territoriality and sovereign statehood, the article makes possible a global comparative study of the emergence of modern territoriality.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/100764
Identification Number/DOI	10.1017/S0003055421001295
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Politics, Economics and International Relations > Politics and International Relations
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
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