Frontiers of Possession "asks how territorial borders were
established in Europe and the Americas during the early modern
period and challenges the standard view that national boundaries
are largely determined by military conflicts and treaties. Focusing
on Spanish and Portuguese claims in the New and Old Worlds, Tamar
Herzog reconstructs the different ways land rights were negotiated
and enforced, sometimes violently, among people who remembered old
possessions or envisioned new ones: farmers and nobles, clergymen
and missionaries, settlers and indigenous peoples.
Questioning the habitual narrative that sees the Americas as a
logical extension of the Old World, Herzog portrays Spain and
Portugal on both sides of the Atlantic as one unified imperial
space. She begins in the Americas, where Iberian conquerors had to
decide who could settle the land, who could harvest fruit and cut
timber, and who had river rights for travel and trade. The presence
of indigenous peoples as enemies to vanquish or allies to befriend,
along with the vastness of the land, complicated the picture, as
did the promise of unlimited wealth. In Europe, meanwhile, the
formation and re-formation of boundaries could last centuries, as
ancient entitlements clashed with evolving economic conditions and
changing political views and juridical doctrines regarding how land
could be acquired and maintained.
Herzog demonstrates that the same fundamental questions had to
be addressed in Europe and in the Americas. Territorial control was
always subject to negotiation, as neighbors and outsiders, in their
quotidian interactions, carved out and defended new frontiers of
possession.
General
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