ABSTRACT
Utopian writing and transatlantic colonial projects flourished in the seventeenth century. Balthazar Gerbier, an Anglo-Dutch courtier, conceived several New World projects between 1628 and 1660, including an unrealized plan for a new state, a literary utopia and an ill-fated colony in Guiana. Gerbier's reputation as a schemer has recently been revised to reveal a complex Renaissance man, but his transatlantic schemes remain largely unexamined. His ‘Project for Establishing a New State in America’ (1649) outlines a fully-realized state with a rich material culture ruled by princes and nobles. His 1654 utopia echoes this, while a more practical, but still idealistic, plan to settle Guiana in 1658 ended in tragedy – an arc that mirrors wider European colonial endeavors. His ambitious schemes highlight the role of utopian texts and unrealized projects in shaping colonialism in the Americas, and argues for their inclusion in the historiographies of transatlantic slavery and colonialism.
