In this chapter, I argue that during the period of historical colonialism, colonial law consisted of two bodies of law separated by an abyssal line. When speaking of colonial law, one has to have in mind the law issued or accepted by the colonial power to apply in the colonies and govern their relations with the metropolitan centre. In this sense, colonial law consisted of two bodies of law. The first was the set of legislation (court decisions and administrative measures) emanating from the metropolitan government or colonial administration, to be applied in the colonies and in their relations with the metropolitan government. The second referred to laws and regulations that specifically applied to those sectors of native populations that were not “civilised” (the vast majority) or, in other words, those that had not been assimilated into European values, culture, manners and tastes. Both offered striking contrasts with the body of law that applied on metropolitan soil. The crucial topics that separated metropolitan and colonial law: a racial property regime; labour as a branch of criminal law; extreme punitive justice; formal or informal systems of apartheid grounded in settler or white supremacy; suppression or instrumental manipulative recognition of indigenous law. These topics show that metropolitan and colonial legality were (are) the two sides of modern abyssal law.

Chapter 4 examines the resurgent privateering of the early nineteenth century in order to analyze the way in which trans-imperial networks of the Leeward Islands were connected to wider regional and oceanic networks. Privateering as a political and strategic tool was a thoroughly Atlantic phenomenon, with actors on either side of the ocean employing privateers in order to weaken the maritime sinews of their rivals or to project claims of sovereignty to foreign powers. The Caribbean was at the center of the practice as the region provided fertile ground for recruiting crews, outfitting vessels, and raiding rival ships. The chapter also delves into the specifics of the colonial prize court system, particularly in the British Empire, in order to illuminate the legal framework for privateering and the crucial role played by vice admiralty courts in imperial clashes over jurisdiction and politico-legal power