W. Raaijmakers (Wouter)

Working title: Whose Law Is It Anyway? On the Development and Deployment of Roman-Dutch Law in Colonial South Africa and Sri Lanka, c. 1730-1795

My research project recalibrates the theoretical discussion of legal pluralism by introducing the variability of procedural law in early modern jurisprudence, through an examination of the infiltration of Roman-Dutch law into eighteenth-century colonial South Africa and Sri Lanka – outer comptoirs of the Dutch East India Company with markedly differing social structures.

To this end, I am compiling a dataset from plakkaten, or laws issued by local administrators, between 1730 and 1795, with variables ranging from the authority and rationale for the legislation to its scope with respect to persons, places, times, and punishments. In addition, I am reading legal texts against the grain to uncover and document plural legal practices. This mixed-methods approach bridges the divide between existing geographical and temporal scopes and draws on insights from both legal and historical research.

As a result, I employ legal theory and practice to explore the meaning of Roman-Dutch law and legislation in this specific historical and colonial context. Next, I consider the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of this legislation within the broader VOC regulatory system in the Indian Ocean region. Subsequently, I pay specific attention to the forms of colonial control in the fields of tax and religious law. Finally, within these areas, I search for pluralistic legal practices.

Particularly valuable is my comparative approach, which helps understand the lineage of Roman-Dutch legal history and trace its development over the better part of a century. Ultimately, this research project makes an essential contribution to the examination, interpretation, and explanation of early modern legislation that continues to have legal force in South Africa and Sri Lanka today.