ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the contested issue of Locke and African slavery. In the Second Treatise, Locke stipulates that slavery is only legitimate as punishment for a serious transgression of natural law, such as launching a war of aggression, and even then precludes the enslavement of innocent parties, such as the wives and children of the aggressors. Yet Locke had investments in the African slave trade, and wrote, or at least had a major hand in writing, the Carolina Constitution, which enshrines hereditary African slavery. So there is a seeming contradiction between his theory and his practice, which various commentators over the years have tried to resolve. The first section of the chapter provides some historical background on modern and pre-modern slavery, and the category of the ‘natural slave’. The second section examines Locke’s Second Treatise theory of legitimate and illegitimate slavery. Finally, the third section compares five major competing theoretical attempts to address the problem: Locke as bourgeois theorist, Locke as changing his mind, Locke as simply inconsistent, Locke as sincerely viewing captured Blacks as justly enslaved, and Locke as racist.
