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Lauren Benton begins her chapter “Treacherous Places” with a quote from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: “The big trees were kings.” She later states that to open with Conrad is needed to express the grandeur rivers and landscapes of colonized lands are portrayed with in European literature. Benton explains that Conrad’s Heart of Darkness mystifies the Congo River, urging readers to think about the potential evils Africa and its people hid beneath its surface (Benton, 41). Similarly, European texts about the Atlantic also fantasize about landscape, but rather than creating an ominous idea, these writings describe the unknown terrain and rivers with potential and hope.
According to Benton, rivers played an essential role in the colonization of Atlantic territory and the expansion of European empires. To defend claims, Roman Law was implemented and available across the Atlantic: “[Europeans] depended on Justinian’s Institutes in applying, by analogy, forms of acquiring property to claims for sovereign control over territory” (Benton, 55). The results of implementing Western guidelines were fortification, mapping, and other forms over marking territory throughout the Atlantic. According to Derek Taylor in Navigation and Murder on the “Saltwater Frontier”, “Europeans believed they were master navigators for having traveled across the Atlantic Ocean (Lipman 274) but, the Native Americans were no strangers to navigation.” When first arriving in the Atlantic, European sailors believed that through Roman Law, they could implement a superior form of conquest and colonization. While Europeans viewed Native Americans as barbaric and savage, Native settlers had the tools and skills necessary for navigation; the differences in the two cultures and practices led to a superiority-inferiority complex between Europeans and Native Americans. I found Taylor’s statement insightful, and it serves as an excellent connection between European navigation and colonization, and Native American prejudice and oppression.
Benton concludes her chapter by stating that the geography of the Atlantic contributed to the legalities put in place by Europeans. While in an unknown and unfamiliar environment, Europeans realized that laws and codes were not enough to gain control of the land. Instead, subjecting the terrain and waters to Roman law and creating property guidelines allowed Europeans to successfully conquer the Atlantic. Through estuary enclaves, river networks, and even literary grandeur regarding land, Europeans created sovereign spaces that merged treacherous natural territory with Western legal practices (Benton, 103).