William Robertson on Natural Resources and Cultural Contacts in Colonial America

Abstract

Key to the Scottish conception of historical progress was the famous four-stages theory, claiming that all societies, given the proper natural surroundings, would progress from a hunting stage, to a shepherding (pastoral), agricultural, and finally the commercial stage found in modern advanced societies. Scholars have long recognized that each stage was characterized by the development of new modes of acquiring subsistence. What has not been sufficiently emphasized, however, is that stadial theory entailed growing sophistication in utilizing natural resources, thus enhancing the Enlightenment's emphasis on the mastery of nature. The purpose of the present paper is not to revisit these well-studied aspects of Scottish Enlightenment thought, but rather to investigate their intersection. Scholars to date have devoted little attention to how these two topics were often mutually at play in discussions of the progress, or lack thereof, of non-Europeans. This was particularly evident in the thought of Robertson, and to a certain extent also Smith.