John Locke's understanding of property rights in seventeenth-century New England

What is it about?

The article reviews the legal theories and the actual practice of land acquisition in England's New World colonies.

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Why is it important?

It is widely claimed in scholarly literature that Locke's Second Treatise of Government provided the rationale for dispossessing the American Indians of their land. Indeed Locke has been criticised as 'complicit' in advancing a racist ideology of British colonial imperialism. This article rejects that argument and shows, on the contrary, that Locke's Second Treatise provides a radical defence of native right to land.