Salamanders and sons of God: Transatlantic legal culture and Colonial Rhode Island

This dissertation suggests a new interpretation of colonial legal history by arguing that colonial law was a transatlantic legal culture. It focuses on the appeal, early legal profession, publication of colonial statutes, equity, legal rights of women within property law, and religious establishments. Based on primary research in England and Rhode Island and adopting different methodologies from prosopography to microhistory, the study brings to life the litigants and lawyers who made the transatlantic legal empire work, particularly in the context of numerous appeals to the Privy Council and so-called reception statutes.;Colonial legal culture has traditionally been understood as either a mere imitation of English legal culture or a wholly local product. This study demonstrates instead that it resulted from ongoing transatlantic negotiation and argument between dual governmental authorities. Transatlantic legal culture was anchored in a coherent jurisprudence stated in the charter: the colony's laws could not be repugnant to the laws of England but could consider the local people and conditions. Yet transatlantic legal culture had to legitimize a range of answers to a central question: how strictly were colonial law and legal culture to follow English laws and legal developments?;Legally literate attorneys used English law books, commonplace books, and prior colonial cases to litigate within this legal culture and to act in many respects as a bar. The Assembly operated within the same jurisprudence and the reluctance to publish statutes reflected the concern that while publication established local authority it also revealed departures from English law. The specific boundaries of transatlantic legal culture were debated through the appeal to the Privy Council. In these equity-based appeals, litigants and lawyers shaped social disagreements into arguments over colonial law's permissible departure from English law. As an empire of land became one of commerce, enforcing the laws of England became a way for the Council to establish areas of uniformity. Departures were permitted in areas uniquely linked to local circumstance. Later constitutional developments such as federalism, and judicial review reflect an adaptation of this legal culture to a new, nontransatlantic nation.