One Body of People: Locke on Punishment, Native Land Rights, and the Protestant Evangelism of North America

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to challenge the widespread belief that Locke advocated the dispossession of Native peoples’ land due to their savagery or inefficiency in land use—what Smith terms the "punishment thesis". He argues that textual evidence in Second Treatise and Locke’s engagement with the Carolina colony suggest Locke directed his moral critique toward European settlers rather than Native peoples. Locke is portrayed as envisioning a convergence of Indigenous and European communities into “one body of people” under Christian natural‑law principles.