At Kingdom's Edge: The Suriname Struggles of Jeronimy Clifford, English Subject

by Jacob Selwood

Overview

At Kingdom's Edge investigates how life in a conquered colony both revealed and shaped what it meant to be English outside of the British Isles. Considering the case of Jeronimy Clifford, who rose to become one of Suriname's richest planters, Jacob Selwood examines the mutual influence of race and subjecthood in the early modern world.

Clifford was a child in Suriname when the Dutch, in 1667, wrested the South American colony from England soon after England seized control of New Netherland in North America. Across the arc of his life—from time in the tenuous English colony to prosperity as a slaveholding planter to a stint in debtors' prison in London—Clifford used all the tools at his disposal to elevate and secure his status. His English subjecthood, which he clung to as a wealthy planter in Dutch-controlled Suriname, was a ready means to exert political, legal, economic, and cultural authority. Clifford deployed it without hesitation, even when it failed to serve his interests.

In 1695 Clifford left Suriname and, until his death, he tried to regain control over his abandoned plantation and its enslaved workers. His evocation of international treaties at times secured the support of the Crown. The English and Dutch governments' responses reveal competing definitions of belonging between and across empires, as well as the differing imperial political cultures with which claimants to rights and privileges had to contend. Clifford's case highlights the unresolved tensions about the meanings of colonial subjecthood, Anglo-Dutch relations, and the legacy of England's seventeenth-century empire.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501764219
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	07/15/2022
Pages:	252
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.94(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jacob Selwood is Associate Professor of History at Georgia State University. He is the author of Diversity and Difference in Early Modern London.

What People are Saying About This

Wim Klooster

At Kingdom's Edge is a remarkable tale. By following the colonial career of Jeronimy Clifford, Jacob Selwood highlights the complex nature of Anglo-Dutch relations in this period and shows what it meant to be an English subject in early America. This is first-rate scholarship.

Alison Games

Jacob Selwood uses the peculiar case of Jeronomy Clifford to explore what it meant to be an English subject in an uncertain era. At Kingdom's Edge makes an innovative contribution to the fields of English, imperial, and Atlantic history.

Susan D. Amussen

At Kingdom's Edge is an important book. Jacob Selwood effectively demonstrates that empire, and particularly changes in sovereignty that resulted from European wars, created complex identities that did not fit the model where your parentage and place of birth determined your rights. Selwood helps us understand the limits of citizenship and belonging in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.