The author of this book, Dr. L. H. Roper, is a history professor at the New Paltz State University of New York who received his PhD in History from the University of Rochester in 1992. He primarily writes about Colonial America and has written many papers and two books (including this one) on the colonization of North America by the English in the 17th Century. According to his profile page on the State University of New York website, he is currently researching European colonization of North America and 17th century English activities in West Africa. In Advancing Empire, Dr. Roper’s initial argument seems to be that English Colonial efforts were not State directed or Imperial in the traditional sense of the word but were instead undertaken by private individuals and corporations with the bare minimum of State intervention, with what little state intervention often provided at the request of said individuals and corporations.
Dr. Roper’s primary argument makes the case that the British settlements in North America and the Caribbean were implemented and funded by private corporations so that the societal prerequisites for the forms of commerce these individuals were accustomed to could exist. In the northern colonies this was accomplished via direct settlement and indentured servitude while the Caribbean and in Southern colonies this was accomplished via the importation of slaves from Africa, with varying degrees of overlap between these two forms of colonization. Dr. Roper points to the large degree of overlap between those who were in charge of supplying slaves from Africa to the New World and those who traded New World products within Europe in support of his arguments and refers to sources such as cargo manifests and other financial documentation alongside many references to other scholarly works created in the last century.
Dr. Roper’s work is chronologically structured, with each chapter building on the developments of the previous. Chapter 1 deals with the basic organizational principles and initial goals of these early English colonial ventures, while Chapters 2 through 4 detail how local conditions in the Americas led to different approaches in the establishment of colonial societies. Chapters 5 through 7 show how these systems grew and evolved over decades as the political system in England shifted, with Dr. Roper specifically discussing how the interregnum allowed many of the individuals responsible for these colonial efforts to gain direct access to England’s governmental structure and thus gain the ability to direct the state in such a way that they hoped would benefit their endeavors. Dr. Roper does show that the efforts of these colonial ‘investors’ were not always successful in getting the results that they desired, with Dr. Roper concluding the book with an explanation of how the growing stakes and importance of these colonial and now Imperial ventures led to the breakdown of the mostly autonomous corporate backed efforts and the establishment of direct authority by the British government over their subjects commercial ventures and the ultimate ‘formalization’ of the British Empire.
Dr. Roper’s use of records on economic transactions and the cargo manifests of ships heading to and from the colonies to support his arguments on the nature of said colonies is interesting. Coupled with his points on how the ideals expressed by many of the figures involved in the running of the colonial enterprises often conflicted with the realities they themselves created in the colonies in their pursuit of profit, Dr. Roper effectively provides the reader with reasons to doubt the direct statements of these investors as to their purpose in establishing and supporting colonial endeavors. I was personally particularly interested in how Dr. Roper shows that the attitudes held by the backers of colonial projects in the New World did not significantly change after the English civil war and the Regicide. While Dr. Roper highlights the fractious nature of Interregnum politics discussed in Chapter 6 as the reason behind the earliest attempts by the English ‘state’ at providing a uniform stance on colonial matters and its overseas territories, the long-term effects on England’s colonial ventures of its initial indifference was not explored in this work.
While the subject matter was interesting and well-presented, with Dr. Roper often providing both interesting and compelling arguments for the complexities in the administrative minutia present in initially creating and governing the disparate territories of the ‘English overseas Emipre’, I overall do not believe he fully tied together the political developments within England and Europe to the attitudes of the colonial backers that he (in my eyes effectively) argued were most directly involved and responsible for England’s overseas possessions situation. I feel that his work would have benefited greatly from the inclusion of the direct testimony of those involved in these colonial ventures at all levels as the absence of many firsthand accounts or descriptions makes it difficult for the reader to understand how these various forms of society-building were perceived by those within them and those back in England.
In the end, I would say that this book would be of value to anyone wanting to learn more about the reasoning behind England’s early colonial/Imperial efforts and the lack of official support for most of these ventures. While I do have issues with Dr. Roper’s presentation of the colonial investor’s motivations and goals, I would still consider this work to be an excellent source of information on the interplay between English internal politics and the treatment of England’s overseas territories.
