Performing Arctic Sovereignty Routledge Research

in Polar Regions 1st Edition Wood-Donnelly pdf

download

https://ebookgate.com/product/performing-arctic-sovereignty-
routledge-research-in-polar-regions-1st-edition-wood-donnelly/

Get the full ebook with Bonus Features for a Better Reading Experience on ebookgate.com
Instant digital products (PDF, ePub, MOBI) available
Download now and explore formats that suit you...

Polar Regions Human Impacts 1st Edition Dana Desonie

https://ebookgate.com/product/polar-regions-human-impacts-1st-edition-
dana-desonie/

ebookgate.com

Russia and the West Environmental Discourses in the

European Arctic Routledge Research in Environmental
Politics 3 1st Edition Geir Hønneland
https://ebookgate.com/product/russia-and-the-west-environmental-
discourses-in-the-european-arctic-routledge-research-in-environmental-
politics-3-1st-edition-geir-honneland/
ebookgate.com

Frontiers in Polar Biology in the Genomic Era 1st Edition

National Research Council

https://ebookgate.com/product/frontiers-in-polar-biology-in-the-
genomic-era-1st-edition-national-research-council/

ebookgate.com

The Law of the Sea and the Polar Regions Interactions

Between Global and Regional Regimes 1st Edition Erik J.
Molenaar
https://ebookgate.com/product/the-law-of-the-sea-and-the-polar-
regions-interactions-between-global-and-regional-regimes-1st-edition-
erik-j-molenaar/
ebookgate.com
Research developments in wood engineering and technology
1st Edition Alfredo Aguilera

https://ebookgate.com/product/research-developments-in-wood-
engineering-and-technology-1st-edition-alfredo-aguilera/

ebookgate.com

Transit Management in the Northwest Passage Problems and

Prospects Studies in Polar Research 1st Edition Cynthia
Lamson
https://ebookgate.com/product/transit-management-in-the-northwest-
passage-problems-and-prospects-studies-in-polar-research-1st-edition-
cynthia-lamson/
ebookgate.com

Politics and Government in Hong Kong Crisis under Chinese

sovereignty Routledge Contemporary China Series 1st
Edition Ming Sing
https://ebookgate.com/product/politics-and-government-in-hong-kong-
crisis-under-chinese-sovereignty-routledge-contemporary-china-
series-1st-edition-ming-sing/
ebookgate.com

Developing a Research and Restoration Plan for Arctic

Yukon Kuskokwim Western Alaska Salmon 1st Edition National
Research Council
https://ebookgate.com/product/developing-a-research-and-restoration-
plan-for-arctic-yukon-kuskokwim-western-alaska-salmon-1st-edition-
national-research-council/
ebookgate.com

Development on the Ground Clusters Networks and Regions in

Emerging Economies Routledge Advances in Management and
Business Studies 1st Edition Scott Garofoli
https://ebookgate.com/product/development-on-the-ground-clusters-
networks-and-regions-in-emerging-economies-routledge-advances-in-
management-and-business-studies-1st-edition-scott-garofoli/
ebookgate.com
 ROUTLEDGE FOCUS

PERFORMING ARCTIC
SOVEREIGNTY
Policy and Visual Narratives

Corine Wood-Donnelly

Focus
Performing Arctic Sovereignty

The Arctic is 5.5 million square miles and has been inhabited by humans
for thousands of years, yet it is still a frontier of development. But who
owns the Arctic?
This book charts the history of performances of sovereignty over the
Arctic in the policy and visual representations of the US, Canada and
Russia. Focusing on narratives of the effective occupation of territory
found in postage stamps, it offers a novel analysis of Arctic sovereignty.
Issues such as climate change, plastics pollution and resource development
continue to impact the future of this space centred around the North Pole.
Who is responsible for the region? This book examines how countries
have absorbed Arctic territory into their national consciousness, examining
the choice of, and use of, symbols and images in postage stamps. It looks
at the story of how these countries have represented their Arctic frontiers
and territorial peripheries.
The book argues that the performance of policy in these regions has
caused relative sovereignty to become a reality. It provides an intriguing
account of how these countries have, in their distinctive ways, established,
legitimised and reinforced their political authority in these regions. This
book will appeal to Geographers and is recommended supplementary
reading for students in political history and regional studies of the North.

Corine Wood-­Donnelly is a researcher at Uppsala University, Sweden,

and is also affiliated with the Scott Polar Research Institute. Her interdisci-
plinary research in political geography and international relations special-
ises on the Arctic region. She has research interests in performativity,
materiality and cosmologies of sovereignty, especially related to maritime
spaces.
Routledge Research in Polar Regions
Series Editor: Timothy Heleniak
Nordregio International Research Centre, Sweden

The Routledge series in Polar Regions seeks to include research and policy
debates about trends and events taking place in two important world
regions: the Arctic and Antarctic. Previously neglected periphery regions,
with climate change, resource development and shifting geopolitics, these
regions are becoming increasingly crucial to happenings outside these
regions. At the same time, the economies, societies and natural environ-
ments of the Arctic are undergoing rapid change. This series seeks to draw
upon fieldwork, satellite observations, archival studies and other research
methods which inform about crucial developments in the Polar regions. It
is interdisciplinary, drawing on the work from the social sciences and
humanities, bringing together cutting-­edge research in the Polar regions
with the policy implications.

Arctic Sustainability Research

Past, Present and Future
Andrey N. Petrov, Shauna BurnSilver, F. Stuart Chapin III, Gail Fondahl,
Jessica Graybill, Kathrin Keil, Annika E. Nilsson, Rudolf Riedlsperger,
and Peter Schweitzer

Resources and Sustainable Development in the Arctic

Edited by Chris Southcott, Frances Abele, Dave Natcher, and
Brenda Parlee

Performing Arctic Sovereignty

Policy and Visual Narratives
Corine Wood-­Donnelly

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/

Routledge-­Research-in-­Polar-Regions/book-­series/RRPS
Performing Arctic
Sovereignty
Policy and Visual Narratives

Corine Wood-­Donnelly
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Corine Wood-­Donnelly
The right of Corine Wood-­Donnelly to be identified as author of
this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77
and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-­in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book

ISBN: 978-1-138-57359-8 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-203-70148-5 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
Contents

List of figures vii

Acknowledgements ix

Part I
Setting the scene 1
Introduction 3
On sovereignty 10
Performances of sovereignty in critical studies 12
Qualitative and quantitative research methodology with
visual representations 15
Structure of the book 17

1 Who owns the Arctic? 23

Introduction 23
Defining ownership: sovereignty 25
Arctic sovereignty in the Age of Discovery: 1492–1908 31
Arctic sovereignty in the Interwar Years: 1908–45 40
Arctic sovereignty in the Cold War: 1945–90 42
Arctic sovereignty in the Contemporary Period:
1990–ongoing 44
Conclusions 45

Part II
Policy and visual representations 51
2 The American Arctic 57
Introduction 57
vi   Contents
US Arctic policy in the Age of Discovery 58
US Arctic policy in the Interwar Years 63
US Arctic policy in the Cold War 66
Contemporary US Arctic policy 70
Conclusions 72

3 The Canadian Arctic 77

Introduction 77
Canadian Arctic policy in the Age of Discovery 78
Canadian Arctic policy in the Interwar Years 80
Canadian Arctic policy in the Cold War 81
Contemporary Canadian Arctic policy 84
Conclusions 89

4 The Russian Arctic 93

Introduction 93
Russian Arctic policy in the Age of Discovery 94
Russian Arctic policy in the Interwar Years 98
Russian Arctic policy in the Cold War 101
Contemporary Russian Arctic policy 104
Conclusions 107

5 Comparing performances of Arctic sovereignty 111

Introduction 111
Comments on methodology 112
Producing visual representations of policy 114
Themes and trends in the visual representations of
policy 116
Variations across state administrative periods 120
Conclusions 122

Conclusion 125

Index 129
Figures

5.1 Production of visual representations by period 114

5.2 Visual representation of policy by state 117
5.3 Comparative policy preferences 118
5.4 Production of visual representations throughout US
administrations 120
5.5 Production of visual representations throughout
Canadian administrations 121
5.6 Production of visual representations throughout Russian
administrations 121
Acknowledgements

This book would not exist without the generous assistance, intellectual dis-
cussions and moral support from my employers, colleagues and friends.
Of primary importance were the affiliations that provided the institutional
infrastructure for this research. This was first as a research associate at the
Scott Polar Research Institute in the Department of Geography at the
University of Cambridge. Second, was the Institute for Russian and
Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University, who employed me as a postdoc-
toral researcher. I am pleased to acknowledge their contributions.
Many people helped me over the course of this project. There are the
conversations with intellectual mentors, including my PhD supervisor
Gareth Dale at Brunel University. While in Cambridge, I was encouraged
by fellows Michael Bravo, Gareth Rees and Alex Jeffrey. In Uppsala, I
have been supported by my colleagues Vladislava Vladimirova and
Matthew Kott. Finally, there are the many peers and friends around the
world who have read drafts, offered criticisms and suggested improve-
ments. I am grateful to you all.
Part I
Setting the scene
Introduction

Consider the following two events separated by the space of a century.

For 5 April 1909, a log entry reads: ‘Tomorrow if ice and weather permit I
shall make a long march, “boil the kettle” midway, and try to make up the
five miles lost on the 3rd.’1 These scribbled words in the expedition diary
of Rear Admiral Robert E. Peary record the day before he claims to have
been the first explorer to reach the North Pole. The next day he writes:

The Pole at last!!! The prize of three centuries, my dream and ambition
for 23 years. Mine at last. I cannot bring myself to realize it. It all seems
so simple and commonplace, as Bartlett said ‘just like every day’.2

Aside from boiling the kettle, there was an additional ceremony to perform
on reaching the North Pole. Peary recalls,

Of course there were some more or less informal ceremonies con-

nected with our arrival at our difficult destination, but they were not
of a very elaborate character. We planted five flags at the top of the
world. The first one was a silk American flag.…3

Following this ceremony, Peary placed a fragment from the flag in a bottle,
along with a note reading:

I have to-­day hoisted the national ensign of the United States of

America at this place, which my observations indicate to be the North
Polar axis of the earth, and have formally taken possession of the
entire region, and adjacent, for and in the name of the President of the
United States of America.4

They take photographs and the expedition records measurements of posi-

tion and temperature before leaving that point so long dreamed.
4   Setting the scene
When Peary returned from the North Pole, his actions were equally as
symbolically significant, even if the actual performance of his activities
was without ceremony. Upon reaching civilisation, he reports telegram-
ming the US President with a message saying, ‘Stars and Stripes nailed to
the North Pole.’5 According to media reports, the President replied con-
gratulating Peary on his achievement, noting the honour it brought to his
countrymen. Directly addressing the message regarding the posting of the
flag, the President said, ‘Thanks for your interesting and generous offer. I
do not know exactly what I could do with it.’6
Nearly 100 years later.…
For 1 August 2007, an expedition account reports that a polar bear is
sighted by observers on the Rossia icebreaker, the first visual of the species
at the extreme latitude of their position: the surface of the Arctic Ocean at
the North Pole.7 With good weather conditions on their side, the main
objective for the expedition is planned for the next morning. Tomorrow will
be the day when the Russian hero of polar exploration, Artur Chilingarov,
attempts to achieve a new first in world history, the first time anyone has
‘ever gone to the “real” North Pole’, the last of the firsts in the Arctic.8 The
dive to reach the seabed is successful and Chilingarov later recalls, ‘How
good it is down there. If in a hundred or a thousand years to where we were,
someone would come down, then he would see the Russian flag.’9
Aside from claiming the title of the first expedition to reach the Real
North Pole in vessels from the Russian Academy of Sciences, there were
additional ceremonies to perform at the site. The group places a time
capsule for future generations together with a plaque and a titanium flag of
the Russian Federation. The expedition report notes that these objects
commemorate ‘the dive as a historic Russian achievement’, adding
‘another chapter to their nation’s history of polar exploration’.10 The team
also captures video footage, records measurements of pressure and collects
soil and sea life samples for analysis.
When the expedition team returned to the surface the ceremonial
aspects of the event continued. The explorers emerged from the submarine
waving a Russian flag, and following, a call was made from the ship back
to Russia announcing, ‘the MIR 1 sub has successfully concluded its
mission at the North Pole. It did achieve the seabed at the point of the geo-
graphic North Pole … and did install the Russian state flag in titanium.’11
When he returned to Russia, while carrying a photograph of the newly
planted flag at the North Pole, Chilingarov stated, ‘the Arctic has always
been ours and the fact that we are there first is great’.12 The already famous
explorer was congratulated by the Russian President and later awarded the
title Hero of Russia.
 Introduction   5
The symbolism of these two events at the North Pole is easy to grasp
because they are repeating well understood ceremonies of possession,
symbolic performances historically used by states claiming territories pre-
viously unclaimed by other sovereign states.13 Although a century apart,
the ventures led by Peary and Chilingarov have the right cocktail of ingre-
dients for the practice of making territorial claims. There are the ‘firsts’, a
critical element of claiming new territory as one cannot assert title of a ter-
ritory already in the possession of another state. Next, there is the record-
ing of performances, chronicling the placing of the national flags or other
memorabilia, along with communications identifying when and how the
possession occurred. Finally, there is the communication of the success of
the acquisition process back to state authorities and to the nation.
From their beginnings in the fifteenth century, the repetitions of these
performances is an explanation for ‘how the west was won’, even if only
theoretically, and often irrespective of the already existing populations. It
is the way in which states asserted their moral authority over a geographic
space. Emerging from the explorations and ‘discoveries’ of Columbus,
imperial states tacitly assented through repetition of practices, thereby
establishing procedural norms for gaining territory beyond the existing
national territory. The result is that the processes for claiming new territory
became an established set of performative rules: discovery, ceremonies of
possession, communication and then finally, one last element not listed
above: effective occupation.14
Effective occupation came to mean the implementation of the political
technologies and systemic structures of the state: government administra-
tion, colonialism, resource management, taxation, and civilizing policies
for indigenous communities as a list of examples. For the Arctic, the final
solidifying element of effective occupation has been an elusive target
given the hostile conditions of the Arctic climate. In fact, because states
had been so ineffective in the execution of occupation of their Arctic territ-
ories, legal scholars came to give the Arctic region a get-­out principle to
allow for the lack of effective occupation, avoiding declaring the Arctic as
open to another cycle of new sovereignty claims. So for the Arctic,
effective occupation came to mean as much occupation as can be reason-
ably exercised given the extreme climes.15
Despite the general attitude that administration requirements were less
stringent for maintaining sovereignty in the Arctic and while most states
accepted that other Arctic states were meeting satisfactory standards, the
ongoing lack of complete effective occupation had two effects on the
behaviour of states. First, for some states it introduced an internal crisis of
confidence in their unsubstantiated claims to Arctic sovereignty. In the
Arctic, some of the territories have been incorporated into national maps
6   Setting the scene
without the usual procedures from first discovery to effective occupation.
This includes claiming sovereignty without the privilege of first discovery,
to the absence of state-­sponsored territorial survey exercises, normally
considered as part of performance cartography and the transformation of
space into place.16 Instead, some claims to Arctic sovereignty were per-
petuated by mere declarations or speech acts, as in the case of the sector
claims of Russia and Canada.
Second, the absence of ordinary administration structures compelled
states to become creative in their interpretation and performance of
effective occupation. The range of strategies include everything from the
government production of maps illustrating the boundaries of sovereignty
to relocation polices for indigenous peoples. This creativity continues in
the mechanisms used to communicate their continued intentions towards
maintaining their sovereignty in the Arctic.
Today, states with Arctic territory are communicating their sovereignty
through performances of effective occupation in a more overt manner than
they do with their other established territorial realms. Imagine, if the
Canadian Prime Minister was making similar statements regarding Canada
establishing sovereignty over Ottawa’s province of Ontario, as it does over
its Arctic islands! It is these performances and their communications,
including diplomatic statements regarding the establishing and enforcing
of Arctic sovereignty, that continue to communicate the subconscious
crisis of sovereignty to observers. The communication of this crisis is a
source of the prevailing public perception that the Arctic is territorial land
grab. It is the variety of performances used to demonstrate Arctic sover-
eignty that will be the focus of this book.
Added to this crisis of confidence is the shifting nature of territorial
sovereignty. Since the seventeenth century, the ‘cannon shot rule’ was the
standard for measuring the breadth of maritime territorial sovereignty.
Combined with the predominance of the principle of the ‘freedom of the
seas’, it was inappropriate to claim sovereignty over maritime spaces
beyond territorial waters of three nautical miles. This explains the US
President’s disinterest in Peary’s offer of possession of the North Pole.
Given the pole’s location in open ocean spaces, the principle of the
freedom of the seas disqualified it as a geographical point available for
possession, even though its location was permanently frozen. Even today,
ice used as land continues to evade internationally recognised legal status.
Regarding the evolution of normative rules, territorial sovereignty experi-
enced a major shift between Peary and Chilingarov’s visits to the North Pole
with the additions to the law of the sea making significant advances. In the
twentieth century, first through a unilateral performance and then through
codification, the rules of maritime sovereignty changed, designating to states
 Introduction   7
sovereign rights over the submarine continental shelf in the UN law of the
sea.17 At first, sovereign claims over submarine territory could extend up to
200 nautical miles from the shoreline. When in 1982 the law of the sea was
renegotiated, the outer boundary was increased to permit claims of up to 350
nautical miles, providing that certain scientific conditions can be proven.
With deadlines to submit these claims at ten years after ratification of the
convention, many Arctic states have been feverishly surveying the potential
extensions to their sovereign maritime territories in recent years. At this time
the submitted claims and some resubmitted claims are awaiting review. It is
unfortunate that these submissions coincide with a US Geological Survey
report on potential oil reserves in the region, adding fuel to the speculation of
an Arctic gold rush.18
In spite of the orderly adherence to the processes of international law
by states submitting their Arctic claims to the UN Commission on the
Continental Shelf, there is a juncture when this process could fail.19 In the
small Arctic Ocean, there is a great likelihood that these sovereign claims
to maritime territory, extending up to 350 nautical miles, will intersect and
overlap at the North Pole.20 Given this, despite the parameters in the law
for scientific measurements to determine the outer limits of sovereignty,
the notion of historicity may still be a factor in determining sovereignty in
the event of a dispute over sovereignty of the North Pole. Hence this per-
formance by Russia is not an outright ceremony of possession – it is still
rather a performance of effective occupation – with claims that they
reached the real pole first, they left their mark, conducted experiments and
communicated the event to the nation and to the world.
This heady mix of the ritual elements for claiming territorial sover-
eignty is the reason why states protested about the Russian performance in
2007. A century earlier, the US President dismissed the claim to the North
Pole by Peary because it was over the ocean. With the exception of Peary’s
performance, it has now been some time since flag planting has been used
to initiate territorial claims, and this is especially atypical for maritime ter-
ritory; since then, the rules and norms have changed. Flag planting is not
considered to be a legitimate performance for new claims, hence the
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister’s dissent to Chilingarov’s performance
with, ‘Look, this isn’t the 15th century. You can’t go around the world and
just plant flags and say “We’re claiming this territory”. Our claims over
the Arctic are very well established.’21 There are, however, new rules on
the performances of territorial claims involving internationally recognised
legal codes. Therefore, for the present, territorial claims in the Arctic
Ocean are first to be delimited through the law of the sea.
An additional aspect to consider is that as the climatic conditions
become a diminishing obstacle, both due to global warming and the
8   Setting the scene
improvement of technological capabilities, the conceptual boundaries for
‘as much as is reasonable effective occupation’ will expand. This will
cause the administrative functions of states claiming sovereignty in Arctic
territories to improve until they align more closely with their domestic
responsibilities elsewhere in the country. Together these conditions create
a ‘perfect storm’ wherein states must continue to be creative in the ways
they express sovereignty over the Arctic. Until the territorial boundary
lines are drawn and accepted as legitimate claims by other states, the show
and the performances of effective occupation must go on.
It is the goal of this book to demonstrate the performances of sover-
eignty that the Arctic states, through a variety of policies and approaches,
have used to demonstrate their effective occupation over the territories of
the Arctic. Through the narrative of the history of Arctic policy of the US,
Canada and Russia, it will demonstrate how performative utterances pre-
sented in state issued declarations in claims to sovereignty give indicative
promises to fulfil the requirements of sovereign authority in that space
through the exercise of political technologies ordinarily associated with
state control.22 Leading on from this, it demonstrates how the performance
of sovereignty through Arctic policy, as textualised government ‘speech
acts’, results in performativity and the legitimisation of authority over the
spaces through the performance of rule-­governed behaviour and specifi-
cally over the space of the Arctic.23
This book argues for an understanding of sovereignty over the Arctic as
a territorial authority socially constructed by states through performances,
where these actions are conceived of as co-­producing knowledge about
this space through the exchange of symbolic performances of sovereignty.
To make this argument, this book explores the evolution of Arctic policy
in response to the changing norms of territorial sovereignty. To illustrate
these performances and the communication of sovereign authority to a
wide audience, it considers these messages as published in state documents
and as communicated not only through government statements, but also as
transmitted through ‘the tiniest messenger of the state’, the postage stamp.
This approach contributes to three areas of existing scholarship.
First, this research contributes to the growing body of current scholar-
ship on Arctic geopolitics. The importance of the Arctic, and especially
the importance of Arctic sovereignty, has accelerated due to drivers of
climate change and resource exploitation. However, there is a significant
divide in the literature of post-­Cold War studies of the Arctic region. On
one hand are those who focus on a realpolitik explanation of Arctic geo-
politics – the scramble for territorial stakes framed largely within narrat-
ives of conflict, military insecurity and divergent national interests.24 On
the other hand is the larger part of Arctic literature, and where this work is
 Introduction   9
situated, a position that sees narratives of a resource scramble as misin-
formed and inadequate for explaining the complexities of the Arctic within
a global context. It is not that states are not interested in Arctic resources
or seeking to make certain their sovereignty in the region, but it is rather
‘how the Polar Regions have been caught up in power-­knowledge scram-
bles’.25 This body of literature focuses on how the Arctic is situated within
the context of significant global processes and provides ‘critical analysis
on the state of Arctic geopolitics and security in the era of globalization
with complex and deeply interdependent ecological, economic, environ-
mental, cultural, political, and societal processes’.26 This book places itself
as narrative of the social construction and evolution of Arctic sovereignty
against the backdrop of the evolving international system and the rules,
exigencies and concerns that order the normative changes and how these
rules are applied to the Arctic.
Second, the research contributes to a new turn in studies of critical geo-
graphy and demonstrations of how the applied performances of the state
create the condition of sovereignty.27 Recent scholarship in the fields of
critical and political geopolitics have been ‘influenced by discourse ana-
lysis and social constructivism … concerned with the political implications
of cartographic representation, linguistic configurations, and rhetorical pat-
terns’.28 This body of research ‘has looked beyond traditional preoccupa-
tion with textual analysis of policy statements to explore the forms of
practices and materials that produce geopolitical knowledge’, revealing
how states create their own reality.29 By exploring the performance of the
norms of sovereignty in the Arctic, the argument contributes to ‘emerging
work studying the production of territorial knowledge’,30 and in studying
the performances of sovereignty in effective occupation politics of the
Arctic, it applies the idea that ‘norms are the result of interest coordin-
ation’31 established, interpreted and reinforced by state practices. Con-
sequently, this study draws not only on an analysis of policy history, but
also considers how those messages have been communicated in Arctic
postage stamps.
Finally, this book contributes to the growing body of research that uses
the postage stamp as a form of government discourse, the smallest mes-
senger of the state, because they ‘emerge as vehicles for identity creation
and propagation, and as mechanisms for regime legitimation’.32 As postage
stamps are widely distributed, both to domestic and international audi-
ences, ‘the messages may be subconsciously and subtly conveyed, and it
can be argued that the process of repetition further consolidates the process
of delivering the message’.33 Some research shows how the postage stamps
and postal administration serve as a method for demonstrating domestic
authority or transitions in authority and also how they are used to signal
10   Setting the scene
authority beyond the borders of the state.34 In the case of this research, the
postage stamps depicting the Arctic show not only the repetition of par-
ticular messages, but also that these messages coincide with the perform-
ances of sovereignty and the broader geopolitical concerns of the US,
Canada and Russia with regards to Arctic spaces.
This book makes several arguments related to these areas of research.
First, it argues that the Arctic is a socially constructed space and that the
communication of the relationship of states to this territory has developed
alongside the evolution of normative frameworks for understanding sover-
eignty. A second argument is that territorial authority in the Arctic is the
result of performances of sovereignty, performances which communicate
alignment with the understood norms of sovereignty for the period, or that
they signal a shift in normative understandings. Further, as a frontier
region with some indeterminate sovereignty, states communicate mixed
messages through their performances which align better with past norms,
causing insecurity in the Arctic region. Finally, it argues that these per-
formances of sovereignty are evident in the postage stamps circulated by
the US, Canada and Russia depicting Arctic events, environment and
culture. The following sections discuss in more detail how this book con-
tributes to these three areas of scholarship, followed by a brief summarisa-
tion of the book’s structure.

On sovereignty
Sovereignty is a condition generated through the application and exer-
cise of authority; it is the unequivocal authority of a state over a given
territory and its people.35 In an abbreviated discussion of the topic
which avoids some of the pitfalls of presenting sovereignty as having
fixed or stable meanings, this research presents sovereignty as both an
uncontested concept for grounding the origins of state authority, but
also as a concept contextually situated in time and place.36 When
depicted as a matrix, sovereignty is described as having both internal
and external features. It should be understood that in some cases, that as
an internal condition, sovereign authority is positioned to originate in a
social contract between the state and citizens, establishing the domestic
legitimacy of state authority.37 Through this contract, the state in effect
promises to ensure the security of its citizens. As an external condition,
the state’s legitimacy is realised through the acknowledgement of other
sovereign entities. Without this recognition, an unrecognised state is not
equal with other states in the international system. In both the domestic
and international realms, sovereignty requires action, and as a result, it
is a performance.
 Introduction   11
Sovereignty, as an ideational conceptualisation of authority, is not
something that can be visually identified in a single item or legal person,
such as a crown or a head of state or government, but the evidence of its
existence can be seen through a multitude of symbols and objects that col-
lectively demonstrate the existence of the authoritative body in a given
space. Of course, crowns, flags and currency are identifiable as symbols of
state authority within this set, but equally significant are other more
mundane and everyday features of government administration: passport
control at border crossings, collecting taxes, paving roads, issuing of
licences for oil exploration and, of course, post boxes and postage
stamps.38 Some of these latter features, while presenting their existence
with physical evidence, are only evidence of sovereign authority when
they are used, or performed. After all, what use is a duty paid for postal
services, represented through the presence of a postage stamp, if the infra-
structure and systems needed to give value to the stamped tariff or to
deliver messages to their intended destination do not exist?
In relation to external sovereignty, performances of a state’s authority
over a given territory can also be produced or reinforced by legal persons
outside of the state; sovereignty is not strictly an outward projecting force.
First, there is the need for a legitimacy of a state as a legal authority to be
recognised by the international community.39 This happens, for example,
when a new state gains recognition in the international community by
gaining a seat at the UN. Second, performances of sovereignty can take a
bodily form. Take as an example the fact that maritime sovereignty is per-
formed by foreign ships when they hoist a ‘courtesy flag’ of the state
whose waters they are entering.40 There are other examples of the perform-
ances of sovereignty by external actors in the Arctic, such as when US
military vessels apply for environmental clearance with Canada to traverse
the Northwest Passage or when commercial ships apply for a licence from
Russia to navigate the Northern Sea Route.
Returning to the sovereignty matrix, on another axis, sovereignty can be
seen as either relative or absolute, dependent upon the projected recipient or
territorial target.41 Few would deny the authority of the sovereign state to
make laws for its people; they have ‘relatively exclusive power to exercise
domestic, transnational, and international legal authority in relations to
matters that bear on its territory and population’42 that is, until they violate
the moral laws of the international community. Yet limits do exist to state
sovereignty, creating a condition of relative sovereignty. Given that territo-
rial stability in the international system is premised on the notion of the fixed
borders of states, the ‘significance of borders derives from the importance of
territoriality as an organizing principle of political and social life’.43 As a
result, the demarcation of borders and the performance of borders becomes a
12   Setting the scene
significant part of defining the limits of the sovereign state. It is by consent
when states enter agreements of international law as a legal person that limits
absolute sovereignty, while it is the capacity of these states to extend their
authority to extra-­territorial spaces that creates the condition of relative
sovereignty. In the Arctic, it is relative sovereignty that applies to the mari-
time spaces and absolute sovereignty to terra firma, creating different layers
of sovereignty and a condition whereby state authority is unequivocal in
some areas while in other areas it is restricted by international law.44
The importance of these nuanced differences between external/internal
sovereignty and of absolute/relative sovereignty is significant in the way in
which they affect the geographies of the Arctic and the interplay of states
in the region. The Arctic is a region characterised by stratified sovereignty,
initiated by the practices of imperialism and framed by evolving inter-
national law. In some of these spaces the Arctic states reproduce sover-
eignty by controlling the space through mechanisms of international
governance and other performances of sovereignty, such as by extending
environmental legislation over waters, as seen with Canada in the North-
west Passage. The effects of this stratification produce both inconsistent
discourse and administrative approaches throughout the Arctic as states
seek to substantiate their sovereignty through performed policy solutions
in geographic areas with different normative rules organizing state
behaviour, expectations and rights of states over territory and resources.
The result of this evolution is that the sovereignty of the Arctic is spatially
distributed over different territorial spheres, which makes for uneven dis-
tribution of government administration.

Performances of sovereignty in critical studies

The conceptual ideas for performance and performativity is an expanding
body of scholarship beginning in theatre studies, but adopted by geography
and political sciences. These concepts have roots in the work of Butler,
who argues that gender and the identities associated with gender are not
genetically determined or socially conditioned but instead are social con-
structions and the result of repeated performances of specific behaviours
that convey to the receptor the gender identity of the actor. In the way that
performances produce meaning, such as performances of gender or iden-
tity creating understandings of social realities, the performances of the
state are likewise practices that produce meaning.45 Through the repetition
of certain types of behaviours and rules associated with the structure of the
state, the state has the ability to perform the story of itself to both its
domestic audience and to the international community, creating a semb-
lance of legitimacy.46
 Introduction   13
States are socially constructed, both as political ideas and as physical
entities. As a political idea, states have come into being by their ability to
project power and through their ability to gain legitimacy. This construc-
tion is a process that happens through performance and through practices
of the state through the repetition of rules, or norms, that the community of
states recognises as legitimate behaviour. To do this, they borrow from a
toolkit of recognised symbols ranging from the spectacular to the mundane
– from flag waving ceremonies to the delivering of the daily post. These
performances communicate compliance with these rules, that states, in
order to be legitimate, must fulfil certain types of functions resulting in the
administration and security of the state. These administrative performances
are often what constructs the physical aspect of the state. The state comes
into physical being when it has a material manifestation of the political
social construction throughout a spatialized territory.
The evidence of these types of performances have been investigated by
a number of scholars where ‘the spatio-­legal performance of that claim,
adjudication, and admission/expulsion is a “deep structure” of sovereign
politics’47 serving either to reinforce or create the sovereignty of the state.
For example, Brown has investigated the ways in which building walls and
fences at national borders is a mechanism to ‘shore up’ state sovereignty.
She says they are a:

theatricalized and spectacularized performance of sovereign power at

aspirational or actual national borders … [where] If walls do not actu-
ally accomplish the interdiction fueling and legitimating them, if they
perversely institutionalize the contested and degraded status of the
boundaries they limn, they nevertheless state both sovereign jurisdic-
tion and an aura of sovereign power and awe.48

This performance of borders has also been taken up by Weizman who shows
through cartographic imaginary and the use of material architecture the way
in which political performances are ‘fully absorbed into the organization,
transformation, erasure and subversion of space’, spaces that are ‘the medium
that [state] actions seeks to challenge, transform or appropriate’,49 adding a
vertical dimension to the sovereignty of space. Meanwhile, Busbridge claims
that by delineating spaces, ‘the border, as a political-­geographical site, can
thus be understood as a legal, social and special performance of sover-
eignty’.50 These scholars demonstrate how performances of sovereignty, such
as in frontier, border and vertical spaces, serve to legitimise the authority of
the state in specific geospatial relations.
In other work, scholars investigate roles of the performance of the state
in creating legitimacy at a more ideational level. For example, Krahmann
14   Setting the scene
has discussed performativity in ‘a focus on the repetitive enactment of spe-
cific forms of behaviour and capabilities’51 as a mechanism for demonstrat-
ing legitimacy through performativity in the area of public goods.
Meanwhile, in the process of creating a new state in the aftermath of a
civil war, Jeffrey argues that, ‘States are improvised. Their legitimacy and
ability to lay claim to rule rely on a capacity to perform their power’; he
further posits that these ‘performances are structured by available
resources’.52 Each of these are instances of states performing their sover-
eignty, such as in a study of writing the state through intervention prac-
tices, Weber says that ‘Sovereignty [is] a code. It is a bundle of practices
which, when performed, grant specific rights and responsibilities.… What
become important are the signs of sovereignty – the ability to access the
code of sovereignty.’53 These works together demonstrate how states use a
variety of political technologies to convey power, capacity and legitimacy
to rule in socio-­political contexts.
Adding to this study on the geography of political performativity in the
context of Arctic sovereignty is ‘exploring the various ways in which
political spaces are both materially and discursively performed’54 through
a consideration of the use of the written and spoken word as tools of per-
formance. In this instance, a performative is where ‘the utterance consti-
tutes the performance of the act named by the performative expression in
the sentence’.55 This occurs not only in spoken form – such as declarations
of war or diplomatic address, but also in forms such as cartography, street
signs, postage stamps and policy documents. By considering illocutionary
and legislative publications of the state as speech acts where ‘the issuing
of the utterance is the performing of an action’,56 in this line of thought,
policy documents and messages from government representatives are not
just saying, but are also doing, or performing.
Speech acts are not just a process of mundane and banal actions of daily
government administration, they are also a promise to change the world by
moving from one condition to another. If a state accepts another state’s
assertions and statements that a certain condition exists, it secondarily
assumes the responsibility to also change the world by mirroring these per-
formances. In this way, performative rules and norms for behaviour are
developed within the international system when ‘agents construe them as
promises, accept them as such, and proceed to rely on them’.57 While states
cannot claim explicit and absolute sovereignty over the entire Arctic, given
the various rules for delimitation of ocean spaces, they can reproduce the
idea of sovereignty through symbolic territorial performances and speech
acts which communicate authority over this space thereby creating at least
relative sovereignty over both horizontal and vertical territories. In the
consideration of sovereignty in the Arctic, the utterances of states should
 Introduction   15
be considered as having performative capacity, not only due to their illo-
cutionary elements, but also due to the role in which norms and the repeti-
tion of norms create stable meanings for the geopolitics of the Arctic.

Qualitative and quantitative research methodology with

visual representations
This research builds on a growing body of literature with contributions
from scholars from fields across the social sciences considering the role of
postage stamps as messengers of the state. Using postage stamps as a
medium for analysing political discourse of a specific state or thematic
area is gaining in popularity because their visual aspects capture states’
positions in a way that the textual or spoken elements of policy do not,
giving additional substance to policy discourse analysis. It has been noted
that ‘when states emphasize “the visual”, which includes maps, postage
stamps, current and official Websites, they inform and educate their own
populations and those beyond about where they are, who they are and what
they are about’.58 As a result, stamps reproduce and reinforce the narrative
of the state in a visual form by using symbols and images of their identity,
authority and governmental administration over a particular people and
territory.
With a direct connection between the state and the bureaucracy of
postal administration, stamps are indicative of sovereignty and effective
administration providing evidence of the production and cancellation of
postage stamps; the delivery of letters indicates the presence of govern-
ment authority in specific geographic areas where these artefacts have
legitimate value at a given place and time.59 Given that all states produce
postage stamps, they are consistent and pervasive empirical documents
available across all global political systems and they are often easier to
access than some other government materials, written in foreign languages
and frequently outside of the public domain. Useful as propaganda tools,
stamps serve as messengers ‘through the dissemination of images that
suggest a familiarity of geographic spaces, repetitive use of indigenous
iconography, and pictorial representations of effective state administration
over the region’,60 in much a similar vein as used in cartographic reproduc-
tions of state territory. Postage stamps are, in effect, marketing mecha-
nisms for the state to showcase policy, using visual media to distribute the
evidence of their administration and engagement with territory. This
occurs when the messages reach domestic audiences, but the value expands
when they reach international audiences.
Reading the semiotics of sovereignty in postage stamps is unique meth-
odology, but with these objects considered as legitimate communications
16   Setting the scene
of the state, ‘stamps can and should be read as texts, often with expressly
political purposes or agendas which are conveyed through the images they
depict’.61 Through this communication, they perform the legitimisation of
their sovereignty in specific bounded spaces as seen in the postage stamps
of the US, Canada and Russia. In these states’ visualisations of the Arctic,
the images showcase their exploration and scientific expeditions, indi-
genous inhabitants and territory, sometimes accompanied by flags and
maps all to the effect of proving their performances of sovereignty in gov-
ernance and policy of the Arctic.
The body of literature using postage stamps as an empirical data
source provides an interesting perspective in showing the performances
of government. Themes researched include the political moments, such
as transitions in power, nationalism and imperialism. In setting the
standard for imperial symbolism in postage stamps, Wallach discusses
how Great Britain ‘displayed an acute awareness of the power of
symbols to shape popular perceptions and to fuel national sentiment, and
hence to shape the political reality’,62 setting the standard for other gov-
ernments to follow in their use of imagery on postage stamps. However,
following the practices of reinforcing empire through postage stamps,
throughout the twentieth century there has been a significant movement
towards independence of territories formerly held by empires and ‘with
independence comes national rebranding, and among the first actions of
any newly independent state is the production of national stamps, notes
and coins’.63 Through postage stamps it is possible to pinpoint this trans-
ition and the icons of national significances that became important to the
emerging states for reinforcing a common identity. The ‘commemorative
stamps [that] are issued year after year … reflect most of the events,
peoples and places that impinge on a nation’s consciousness’,64 and thus
postage stamps are a means to evaluate which issues, histories or dis-
courses are important to a particular country and what images are used
to construct a national identity. In this way, this book presents some of
the symbols of imperialism, nationalism and political transitions includ-
ing icons and motifs of state authority, and references to territory,
effective occupation and the historical and cultural heritage of these
countries. It does this by focusing on the structures of political organisa-
tion and the policy objectives of the Arctic states by explaining ‘social
meanings in terms of which it may have been framed’.65 This establishes
that postage stamps have not been issued in a discourse vacuum, and
situates them within a specific historical context that reflects both
national and international political transitions relating to the develop-
ment and performance of Arctic sovereignty.
 Introduction   17
Structure of the book
Chapter 1 will outline in brief the history of the imperial establishment of
the Arctic, framed within the timeline of the Colombian-­epoch. The
chapter will discuss how the rules of imperial conquest, including perform-
ances of sovereignty, were used to claim nascent sovereignty over the ter-
ritory and peoples of the Arctic, drawing boundaries between imperial
states. This chapter will explain how the present Arctic sovereignty is situ-
ated within the evolution of territorial sovereignty throughout the entire
international system. It pinpoints several key historical pivots in normative
rules causing the turn away from imperialism to the development of the
modern international state system and the impact this had on Arctic sover-
eignty. This change created the need for states to represent their sover-
eignty over the Arctic in a new framework of effective occupation, hence
the turn to emphasis on government administration. Critically, this is a
pivot which required the Arctic states to change tack in their engagement
with the Arctic, situated within a rules-­based and socially constructed
international system when the introduction of new rules created the need
for new expressions of performativity.
Chapter 2 relates the history of US engagement with the Arctic over the
longue durée situated within the narrative of the evolution of US policy in
the Arctic region. This telling of the US relationship with the Arctic is
developed within the framing of the coded themes of Arctic policy as illus-
trated in their postage stamps. It utilises first the empirical and primary
sources of US policy documents, such as Executive acts, Senate records
and Congressional legislative documents as well as commentary from
observers of US Arctic policy, including legal scholars. These primary
materials are supplemented by the work of existing histories of the Arctic
and those who study US Arctic geography and geopolitics. It argues that
US postage stamps depicting Arctic themes correlate with policies that
implement effective occupation of Alaska through performance of govern-
ment administration, projecting sovereignty over this territory in accord-
ance with the rules of the international system. It shows that many of their
current performances demonstrate the confidence of the US in their claims
to Arctic sovereignty.
Chapter 3 narrates the history of Canadian engagement in the Arctic
from the empire of Great Britain to the Dominion of Canada through
Canadian Arctic policy. It develops a historical narrative of Canadian
Arctic sovereignty through Senate records and parliamentary legislative
documents. The analysis of these primary documents is supported by the
research of Canadian Arctic historians and those who study Canadian
Arctic geography and geopolitics. The chapter analyses the Canadian
18   Setting the scene
projection of Arctic sovereignty through a case study of its catalogue of
postage stamps, arguing that Canadian postage stamps depicting Arctic
themes reinforce policy practices that demonstrate effective occupation of
the high north, projecting sovereignty over this territory in response to the
changing rules of the international system. It shows that many of their
current performances reflect the crisis of sovereignty created due to the
procedural failures of their initial efforts to extend sovereignty over the
Arctic outside of the normative rules for territorial acquisition.
Chapter 4 recounts the history of Russian engagement in the Arctic over
the longue durée situated within an analysis of Russian Arctic policy pref-
erences as illustrated in Soviet and Russian postage stamps. It develops a
historical narrative of Russian Arctic sovereignty and their confidence in
their broader Arctic claims, but concern about losing the North Pole as a
symbol of Russian mastery and identity. It analyses the Soviet and Russian
projection of sovereignty throughout Arctic territories from primary source
policy documents and diplomatic statements, supported by historical
accounts and foreign policy analyses of the state. It argues that Russian
postage stamps depicting Arctic themes reinforce policy practices convey-
ing effective occupation of the vast expanse of the Russian Arctic, promot-
ing legitimisation of their sovereignty over this territory in response to the
changing domestic and international structures.
Chapter 5 uses quantitative methods to conduct a comparative analysis
of Arctic policy performances of the US, Canada and Russia as depicted in
their postage stamps across a range of policy options, and shows the con-
version and correlation of domestic policy to foreign policy. The results of
this quantitative analysis demonstrate that within each of these states
underlying domestic policy trends emerge, revealing the prioritisation of
policy agendas of importance to the performance of Arctic sovereignty.
For the US, this correlates with a projection as being good environmental
stewards of natural resources through images of national parks, flora and
fauna. The Canadian priority exists in promoting the indigeneity of their
Arctic sovereignty through emphasising the import of indigenous popula-
tions into the historical narrative of Canadian state-­building, a strategy
maximised under the Harper administration. Meanwhile, Russian priorities
were emphasised in projections of Russian skill of mastery over nature in
their history of polar scientific expeditions and Arctic operational prowess,
beginning in Stalinist projects and continuing through to the Putin
administration.
The Conclusion brings these three case studies together. Through this
merging of policy discussion, it provides the space to discuss how through
projections of sovereignty rooted in domestic territorial authority and legit-
imacy, these states are able to project the aura of sovereignty over the
 Introduction   19
Arctic. This includes reinforcing legitimisation of their domestic sover-
eignty over the terra firma of the Arctic, but also in projecting apparent
sovereignty over the international spaces of the Arctic, spaces which are
not excluded from images of postage stamps by the mere legal technicali-
ties of the delimitation between the domestic and the international. This
demonstrates that although the structure of the international system has
evolved around these states, away from acceptability of formal projections
of imperialism through blatant ceremonies of sovereignty, policy perform-
ances are still used to project power and authority over the international
spaces of the Arctic. While flag planting has been superseded by more
sophisticated forms of performance, states still use policy and the imple-
mentation of policy to demonstrate effective occupation of a legitimate
authority, and therefore sovereignty over the spaces of the Arctic.

Notes
1 Robert E. Peary, Diary of Robert E. Peary, 1909, p. 76.
2 Robert E. Peary, p. 83.
3 Robert E. Peary, The North Pole: Its Discovery in 1909 Under the Auspices of
the Peary Arctic Club (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1910),
p. 295.
4 Robert E. Peary, 1910, p. 297.
5 Robert E. Peary and R.A. Harris, ‘Peary Arctic Club Expedition to the North
Pole, 1908–9’, The Geographical Journal 36, no. 2 (August 1910): 129–44,
p. 141.
6 ‘Taft Has Faith in Peary: Congratulates Him Without Qualifications on Finding
the Pole’, New York Times, 8 September 1909.
7 Mike McDowell and Peter Batson, ‘Last of the Firsts: Diving to the Real North
Pole’ (The Explorers Club, 2007), https://explorers.org/flag_reports/Mike_
McDowell_Flag_42_Report.pdf.
8 McDowell and Batson.
9 ‘The Arctic Triumph of the Chilingarov Expedition’, United Russia, 3 August
2007, www.edinros.ru/news.html?id=122356.
10 McDowell and Batson, ‘Last of the Firsts: Diving to the Real North Pole’.
11 ‘Russian Flag Planted on N Pole Seabed’ (Russia Today, 2 August 2007),
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-drWfpNCRb4.
12 ‘Arctic Expedition Team Return Home After Flag-­Planting’, AP Archive
(Associated Press, August 2007), www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp3twlJJxwY.
13 See Patricia Seed, Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New
World, 1492–1640 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
14 Andrew F. Burghardt, ‘The Bases of Territorial Claims’, Geographical Review
62, no. 2 (1973): 225–45.
15 W. Lakhtine, ‘Rights Over the Arctic’, The American Journal of International
Law 24, no. 4 (1930): 703–17.
16 See Nicholas Blomley, ‘Disentangling Property, Performing Space’, in Perfor-
mativity, Politics and the Production of Social Space, eds. Michael R. Glass
and Reuben Rose-­Redwood (New York: Routledge, 2014).
20   Setting the scene
17 United Nations, ‘United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea – Part VI:
Continental Shelf ’ (United Nations, 1982), www.un.org/depts/los/convention_
agreements/texts/unclos/part6.htm.
18 See, for example, US Geological Survey, ‘Circum-­Arctic Resource Appraisal:
Estimates of Undiscovered Oil and Gas North of the Arctic Circle’, Science for
a Changing World (Menlo Park, California: US Department of the Interior,
2008), https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2008/3049/fs2008-3049.pdf.
19 The US have not ratified the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of
the Sea (UNCLOS) Convention. It is, however, party to earlier versions of the
law of the sea. Given the short continental shelf adjacent to Alaska, there is
little incentive for the US to increase its continental shelf sovereignty beyond
the already existing 200 nautical miles if only to access Arctic resources.
20 See International Boundaries Research Unit, Status of Arctic Waters Beyond
200 Nautical Miles from Shore, Arctic Maps (Durham University, 2016), www.
dur.ac.uk/resources/ibru/resources/ArcticmapStatusofArcticWatersbeyond200
NM.pdf.
21 Alan Freeman and Unnati Ghandi, ‘Russian Mini-­Subs Plant Flag at North Pole
Sea Bed’, The Globe and Mail, 2 August 2007, www.theglobeandmail.com/
technology/science/russian-­mini-subs-­plant-flag-­at-north-­pole-sea-­bed/article
20400041/.
22 John R. Searle, ‘How Performatives Work’, Linguistics and Philosophy 12,
no. 5 (1989): 535–58.
23 For more on rule-­governed behaviour and speech acts, see John R. Searle,
Speech Acts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969).
24 See, for example, Scott G. Borgerson, ‘Arctic Meltdown: The Economic and
Security Implications of Global Warming’, Foreign Affairs 87, no. 2 (2008):
63–77.
25 Klaus Dodds and Mark Nuttall, The Scramble for the Poles: The Geopolitics of
the Arctic and Antarctic (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016), p. 4.
26 Lassi Heininen and Matthias Finger, ‘The “Global Arctic” as a New Geopoliti-
cal Context and Method’, Journal of Borderlands Studies, 2017, https://doi.org/
10.1080/08865655.2017.1315605, p. 1.
27 See, for example, Eyal Weizman, Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occu-
pation (London: Verso, 2007).
28 Øyvind Østerud and Geir Hønneland, ‘Geopolitics and International Govern-
ance in the Arctic’, Arctic Review on Law and Politics 5, no. 2 (2014): 156–76,
p. 156.
29 Alex Jeffrey, The Improvised State: Sovereignty, Performance and Agency in
Dayton Bosnia (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2013), p. 4.
30 Jeffrey, p. 3.
31 Cynthia Weber, Simulating Sovereignty: Intervention, The State and Symbolic
Exchange (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 4.
32 Phil Deans and Hugo Dobson, ‘East Asian Postage Stamps as Socio-­Political
Artefacts’, East Asia 22, no. 2 (2005): 3–7, p. 6.
33 Jack Child, Miniature Messages: The Semiotics and Politics of Latin American
Postage Stamps (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2008), p. 4.
34 For example, see Stanley D. Brunn, ‘Stamps as Messengers of Political Trans-
ition’, Geographical Review 101, no. 1 (2011): 19–36.
35 See Jean Bodin, On Sovereignty: The Six Bookes of a Commonweale, trans.
M.J. Tooley (London: Basil Blackwell, 1967).
 Introduction   21
36 See Stephen D. Krasner, ‘Abiding Sovereignty’, International Political Science
Review 22, no. 3 (2001): 229–51; Cynthia Weber, Simulating Sovereignty:
Intervention, The State and Symbolic Exchange; Winston P. Nagan and Aitza
M. Haddad, ‘Sovereignty in Theory and Practice’, San Diego International
Law Journal 13 (2012): 429–520.
37 See the social contract theories of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau.…
38 Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism (London: Sage Publications, 1995).
39 Allen Buchanan, Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-­Determination: Moral Founda-
tions for International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
40 See A.R. Clute, ‘The Ownership of the North Pole’, Canadian Bar Review 5,
no. 1 (1927): 19–26.
41 See Hans Aufricht, ‘On Relative Sovereignty’, Cornell Law Quarterly 30 (May
1944): 318–49.
42 Patrick Macklem, The Sovereignty of Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2015), p. 33.
43 James Anderson and Liam O’Dowd, ‘Borders, Border Regions and Territoriality:
Contradictory Meanings, Changing Significance’, Regional Studies 33, no. 7
(1999): 593–604, p. 594.
44 See Jon D. Carlson et al., ‘Scramble for the Arctic: Layered Sovereignty,
UNCLOS, and Competing Maritime Territorial Claims’, SAIS Review of Inter-
national Affairs 33, no. 2 (2013): 21–43; Corine Wood-­Donnelly, ‘Construct-
ing Arctic Sovereignty: Rules, Policy & Governance 1494–2013’ (Brunel
University London, 2014), Brunel University Research Archive, http://bura.
brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/10542/1/FulltextThesis.pdf.
45 See, for example, Judith Butler, ‘Performative Acts and Gender Constitution:
An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory’, Theatre Journal 40, no. 4
(1988): 519–31.
46 See Judith Butler, ‘Giving an Account of Oneself ’, Diacritics 31, no. 4 (2001):
22–40.
47 Mark B. Salter, ‘When the Exception Becomes the Rule: Borders, Sovereignty,
and Citizenship’, Citizenship Studies 12, no. 4 (2008): 365–80, p. 366.
48 Wendy Brown, Walled States, Waning Sovereignty (Brooklyn, NY: Zone
Books, 2010), p. 26.
49 Eyal Weizman, Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation, p. 7.
50 Rachel Busbridge, ‘Performing Colonial Sovereignty and the Israeli “Separa-
tion” Wall’, Social Identities 19, no. 5 (2013): 653–69, p. 659.
51 Elke Krahmann, ‘Legitimizing Private Actors in Global Governance: From
Performance to Performativity’, Politics & Governance 5, no. 1 (2017): 54–62,
p. 54.
52 Jeffrey, The Improvised State: Sovereignty, Performance and Agency in Dayton
Bosnia, p. 2.
53 Cynthia Weber, Simulating Sovereignty: Intervention, The State and Symbolic
Exchange, p. 127.
54 Michael R. Glass and Reuben Rose-­Redwood, eds., Performativity, Politics, and
the Production of Social Space (New York, New York: Routledge, 2014), p. 3.
55 John R. Searle, ‘How Performatives Work’, p. 537.
56 J.L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), p. 6.
57 Nicholas Onuf, ‘Speaking of Policy’, in Foreign Policy in a Constructed
World, ed. Vendulka Kubálková (London: Routledge, 2015), p. 86.
58 Stanley D. Brunn, ‘Stamps as Messengers of Political Transition’, p. 19.
22   Setting the scene
59 See A. Ayalon, ‘The Hashemites, T.E. Lawrence and the Postage Stamps of the
Hijaz’, in The Hashemites in the Modern Arab World, eds. A. Susser and A.
Shmuelevitz (Abingdon, UK: Frank Cass & Co, Ltd, 1995), 15–30.
60 Corine Wood-­Donnelly, ‘Messages on Arctic Policy: Effective Occupation in the
Postage Stamps of the United States, Canada and Russia’, Geographical Review
107, no. 1 (2017): 236–57, https://doi.org/DOI: 10.1111/j.1931-0846.2016.12198.x,
p. 240.
61 Phil Deans and Hugo Dobson, ‘East Asian Postage Stamps as Socio-­Political
Artefacts’, p. 4.
62 Yair Wallach, ‘Creating a Country Through Currency and Stamps: State
Symbols and Nation-­Building in British-­Ruled Palestine’, Nations and Nation-
alism 17, no. 1 (2011): 129–47, p. 138.
63 Keith Jeffery, ‘Crown, Communication and the Colonial Post: Stamps, the
Monarchy and the British Empire’, The Journal of Imperial and Common-
wealth History 34, no. 1 (2006): 45–70, p. 63.
64 Igor Cusack, ‘Tiny Transmitters of Nationalist and Colonial Ideology: The
Postage Stamps of Portugal and Its Empire’, Nations and Nationalism 11, no. 4
(2005): 591–612, p. 593.
65 Ingmar von Homeyer, ‘Symbolic Policies and “Rational” National Interests:
Explaining the Crisis of European Integration in 1965/66’, in Political Symbols,
Symbolic Politics: European Identities in Transformation, ed. Ulf Hedetoft
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), p. 148.
1 Who owns the Arctic?

Introduction
The Arctic region has been the object of geopolitical gaze during various
cycles over the last several centuries, periods of engagement that included
imperial expansion, scientific exploration and Cold War insecurities.
Today, the Arctic is again a global focal point and there are several drivers
behind the recent revival of interest. Some of these drivers include factors
such as climate change reducing the ice cover, the availability of techno-
logy better suited to withstanding the harsh northern climes, and growing
economic interests in the resources and development possibilities of the
region. Taken together, these interests position the issue of Arctic sover-
eignty at the centre of intense geopolitical speculation. One of the biggest
myths in this flurry of interest is the idea that the Arctic region is at the
centre of a scramble for territorial claims. While the idea of an Arctic land
grab is pervasive in popular discourse, perhaps mirroring the discourse in
past cycles of interest in the Arctic, the present situation is rather different,
as ‘anarchy does not reign at the top of the world; in fact, it’s governed in
a manner not unlike the rest of the planet’,1 a position held by much of the
academic community. It is the purpose of this chapter to address the often-­
repeated query ‘Who Owns the Arctic?’ against the backdrop of the cycles
of Arctic fervour showing sovereignty of the Arctic in different temporal
positions.
The Arctic is governed according to the norms and rules of territorial
sovereignty widely understood throughout the international system.
Although governance of the region follows global standards, there are
some grounds for the conditions of uncertainty that prevail in discussions
of Arctic sovereignty. As it happens, both our understanding of the geo-
graphy of the Arctic and the rules that frame the game of sovereignty for
the region have changed significantly during the long twentieth century.
This is most evident by these ‘new’ claims to Arctic territory, seen in the
24   Setting the scene
current filing of claims for extended delimitation of the continental shelf,
one of the actions underpinning the appearance of an Arctic scramble in
contemporary geopolitics. Beyond this, of some significance in this discus-
sion is that man’s knowledge about this Polar Region and its incorporation
into geographical knowledge has had a lengthy evolution. In brief, let us
first consider the point that our understanding of the geography of the
Arctic, and especially that of the North Pole, has changed.
The object in many claims to sovereignty and the focus of exploration
for much of the last century has been fixated on a small geographical point
in the centre of the Arctic: the North Pole. What is extraordinary about this
fact is that the celestial axis of the earth at the North Pole is an entirely
imaginary construction. Even though it is not a place that can be reached
with any near certainty except by the calculations of scientific instruments,
the North Pole has a symbolic status in geopolitical imaginations. With
both the North and South poles designated as the celestial centres of the
earth, they gained an almost metaphysical sacredness. It has been said that
‘these are the spots pierced by the axis of the heavens; they are the crowns
of the world, about which all the stars dance, the points to which all com-
passes direct their needles’.2 Through this, somehow the North Pole and
the surrounding Arctic region have gained a cosmology related to its geo-
graphic characteristics and its ideational quality as an object, or a material
thing to be possessed.
The idea of the North Pole as a geographical place has its origins in the
introduction of the spherical earth concept in ancient Greece; it is Pytheas
who is credited with being the first geographer and explorer to discover the
Arctic region.3 He returned from his journeys with reports on ‘the sleeping-
­place of the sun’ and gave descriptions of materials that most certainly
would have been broken-­up pack ice.4 Later, Mercator is said to have
drawn his map of the Polar Regions from a collection of knowledge
assembled since Pytheas’ voyages, a map that appears to incorporate
mythological beliefs from northern indigenous peoples.5 It is perhaps these
cosmological ideas about world rivers that ‘flows into the icy seas of the
north … [where] It contains an Island of the dead’ that Mercator used to
depict his inward drawing rivers around four magnetic islands at the North
Pole – information that would later go on to feed the long held beliefs
about the Open Polar Sea and the existence of another continent at the
North Pole.6 These maps would inform those who would explore the
Arctic region: Frobisher, Davis and Hudson, adventurers whose explora-
tion gave credibility to the claim that Queen Elizabeth held legitimate
ownership of territories to the North Pole.7
However, this was not the first, nor the last claim to ownership of the
North Pole and the space that surrounds it. The answer to ‘Who Owns the
 Who owns the Arctic?   25
Arctic?’ is not as simple as compiling a short list of those who have made
claims to this territory throughout history. The answer ultimately requires
a complex explanation of how sovereignty has evolved through structural
power in the modernisation of the international system, as well as an
understanding of the different layers of sovereignty found within the law
of the sea. It is a response that traces not only the history of claims to the
Arctic and the North Pole, but also presents a genealogy of the rules,
sometimes given as international principles or laws, that provided the glue
to legitimise these claims at certain points in history. Understanding these
processes is important, as not only does it show who has ‘owned’ the
Arctic at various points in history, but it also helps us to understand who
‘owns’ the Arctic today, and to consider where ‘ownership’ of the Arctic
may be going in the future.
Like any good mystery, the case of sovereignty and the melting Arctic
requires a methodical process to review the facts and evidence of the situ-
ation. The method used to understand how the sovereignty of the Arctic
came to be situated in its contemporary context is the procedure of
process-­tracing, a method that ‘trace[s] backward the causal process that
produces the case outcome, at each stage inferring from the context what
caused each cause … lead[ing] the investigator back to a prime cause’.8
Beginning with the present circumstances of sovereignty in the Arctic, one
can trace backwards throughout history to establish who, when, where,
why and how the Arctic came to be owned by the littoral states, by con-
sidering the steps that changed the rules of sovereignty throughout history.
In the process of tracing back through the case of the melting Arctic, this
chapter discusses what it means to own the Arctic through the concept of
sovereignty and gives snapshots of different conceptions of Arctic sover-
eignty at different points in history. Here, the case of ‘Who Owns the
Arctic?’ is presented in a chronological narrative, with each stage pre-
sented as a cross-­section of Arctic sovereignty across a range of temporal
and spatial contexts.

Defining ownership: sovereignty

When ‘Who owns the Arctic?’ is asked, what is really meant is ‘Who
holds the legitimate authority over decision-­making?’ or, who has sover-
eignty for this territory. A second question that underpins this query is the
issue of who holds the property rights to the Arctic and thus the benefits to
exploit the resources that lie within this territory. Although within political
studies, sovereignty is ordinarily conceived of as authority rather than as
property rights, it is yet true that states hold the ultimate decision-­making
authority over that land, as well as owning the property or exploitation
26   Setting the scene
rights to land as well. Here are some examples of how some of these
nuances between ownership and authority play out in Arctic spaces.
On a circumpolar map of the Arctic, most of the region is coloured into
some form of political organisation indicating the political authority of that
territory. What these maps do not show is that within Alaska, the US gov-
ernment is the largest landowner9 and the federal government holds the
ultimate decision on what development takes place within this territory,
including the issuing of licences for oil or mineral exploration. In Canada,
although it has recently settled many land claims agreements along its
northern borders with indigenous groups, the boundaries for those land
claims extend only to the territorial seas and do not include the continental
shelf or its resources.10 Under Soviet administration, land in Russia was
amalgamated through the policy of collectivisation and placed under state
control, and in the post-­Cold War period, private land ownership continues
to be a murky area under Russian law where indigenous people are
required to lease land for traditional economic activities from local muni-
cipalities. Here, then, are three states with vested interests in the sover-
eignty of the Arctic due to the implications for their national interests, each
as private landowners11 and each being sovereign and holding sovereignty
over this territorially stratified region.
Sovereignty has a basic definition of the ‘supreme power or authority’,12
and it is ‘an idea of authority embodied in those bordered territorial organ-
izations we refer to as “states …’.13 It is a complex term with a much-­
deliberated significance, varying usage and applied contradictions, as well
as disciplinary contestations in its usage. Within this tangle of discourse, it
has been described as ‘organised hypocrisy’14 and despite the reliance of
governments that wield the term, it is argued to be a disintegrating method
for describing the authority of the bordered state.15 However, the term
often appears in Arctic discourse, referring to both domestic and inter-
national policy aspects of Arctic states, and this induces the need to unpack
what these states mean when they refer to ‘Arctic sovereignty’. It is par-
ticularly perplexing when diplomats and government officials make state-
ments with reference to Arctic sovereignty using verbs such as ‘to
establish’, ‘to exercise’, ‘to maintain’; how is it that after centuries of
exploration, commercial exploitation and decades of scientific investiga-
tions, the sovereignty of the Arctic is still in question? There are several
aspects to this conundrum.
There are two dimensions to the condition of being sovereign and it is
achieved when a state holds both internal and external sovereignty.16
Internal sovereignty is when within a state ‘there are none who acknow-
ledge any other sovereign’.17 Emerging in medieval Europe, this concep-
tion of sovereignty becomes raison d’état – the reason of state, where the
 Who owns the Arctic?   27
‘acquisition, maintenance and expansion of sovereign power’18 is an
attribute of a monarch who is accountable to no higher authority. Pre-­
dating the Westphalian system of sovereign states, this concept of sover-
eignty developed when the Pope wielded significant political and religious
authority; perceived as the messenger of God, he served as arbitrator
between warring monarchs. The decline of the monarch as the sovereign
authority, the waning power of the Pope and the consolidation of princi-
palities occurring in this period introduced change for the fledgling inter-
national system, including changes in the concept of sovereign authority.
Corresponding with the decline of papal authority, the concept of
sovereignty advanced, becoming defined as the ‘absolute and perpetual
power of a commonwealth’19 where sovereignty was invested not in the
monarch, but in the ruler’s obligations to the citizens on the basis of
contractual agreement. In this period of political enlightenment, the
absolute authority of the monarch was under attack when the rights of
the people directly challenged it. This challenge emerged in the social
contract theories of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, who for varying
reasons, including fear and security of property, determined that indi-
viduals choose to surrender the freedoms accorded them by the laws of
nature in the hypothetical state of nature to an authority figure – a sover-
eign. As a result, the legitimacy of the sovereignty of the state becomes
inextricably linked to the consent of the governed and through the evo-
lution of parliamentary representation, the monarch’s sovereignty is con-
solidated with the internal sovereignty of the state.
Yet the advancement of the joint investment of sovereignty between the
ruler and the ruled becomes problematic when Europeans transplant the
norm of sovereignty to the New World. When this happens, the imposition
of authority outside of the social contract again becomes a reality when
European monarchs impose their authority over non-­consenting indigenous
subjects. Sovereignty over newly discovered lands and inhabitants was
rooted in at least two different principles, one religious, the other material.
An early justification of the Iberian empires, granted their entitlements by
the Pope, was based in ecclesiastical obligation, in the notion of the uni-
versal sovereignty of God and ‘the obligation to bring all infidels and
pagans into a state of Christianity and, therefore, civility’.20 However, as
the sovereignty of states became joined with consent and as the notion of
territorial integrity entered into the fledgling international system, new
forms of justification were required for annexing new territories, especially
with the decline of papal authority.
To challenge the ‘first discovery’ claims of the Iberian powers and to
denigrate their position of religious right, the rest of Europe needed new
methods to adapt the norms of territorial sovereignty for the New World in
28   Setting the scene
their favour. This came in the material justifications for the appropriation
and conversion of common land into private property, explained through
the idea that although God may have given the earth to all men, this
bequest came with a caveat. This was presented in

a justification of appropriation which would do double duty, both in

England and in America … ‘God gave the World to Men in Common;
but … it cannot be supposed he meant it should always remain
common and uncultivated. He gave it to the use of the Industrious and
Rational.’21

The result is the labour theory of property, which suggested that any land
wasted through lack of cultivation was available for appropriation.
Through this manipulation, European powers determined that New World
lands were underutilised by the inhabitants, as well as by the Iberian
empires, and were available for new territorial claims beyond the efforts of
religious conversion and overriding the prior land-­use and habitation of
indigenous populations.
Following this designation of self-­entitlement to the New World, the:

European nation-­states proceeded to colonize North America by

making grandiose territorial claims on the basis of discovery, papal
bulls, symbolic acts of possession, royal charters, and settlement, as
though the continent was juridically vacant and the Indigenous
peoples living there did not have sovereignty.22

Although it was possible to rationalise the appropriation of unused land

through the notion of added labour, there is one aspect of this process that
proved problematic: the sovereign status of indigenous inhabitants. This
sovereign status and the rights of indigenous peoples was explained away
by exposing the differences in political organisation, by justifying one
system over another and enforcing it through asymmetric power. Europe-
ans determined that because indigenous people lacked a recognised uni-
versal and supreme authority, they could not be considered internally
sovereign.
By applying their own legal codes and definitions, European civilisa-
tions determined that indigenous societies in the New World lacked
internal sovereignty. As a result, they also denied them the status of exter-
nal sovereignty and equality with other political units in the international
system. External, or international sovereignty, ‘is defined by three charac-
teristics: territory, autonomy, equality’.23 The condition of sovereignty
implicitly established in the Peace of Westphalia 1648,24 sometimes
 Who owns the Arctic?   29
considered to be the starting point of the modern international system, pro-
liferated the rule of external sovereignty in international relations.
However, even if indigenous peoples had been considered to hold internal
sovereignty, political thought at the time also permitted for the ‘rights of
other sovereigns to enforce justice in the entire world’;25 a ruler could be
deemed to have in some way violated the social contract with its subjects
and therefore be deposed.
Because the concept of sovereignty described the authoritative relation-
ship between the ruler and the ruled, there was a direct correlation to the
rights of a monarch to levy taxation on his subjects, so in the European
context there was an ‘inseparable connection between land tenure … [and]
genuine sovereignty’.26 As the idea of sovereignty over a fixed territory
with its population and the use of cartography to represent territorial pos-
sessions became normalised in the international realm, states encountered
two problems. The first is that they experimented with the possibility of
maintaining continuous sovereignty from one land to another over the
ocean in debates between mare clausum and mare liberum.27 Second, as
they made sovereignty claims to sparsely populated territories with the
land takeovers legitimised through the labour theory of property, the lack
of subjects over which to exercise authority required the generation of new
methods for exercising the administration of sovereignty, a practice and
performance that came to be known as effective occupation.
The debates between the closed seas, mare clause, and the free seas,
mare liberum, was an issue that ultimately determined whether it was pos-
sible to exercise sovereignty over the oceans in the same way that it was
exercised over land. The contention between the two approaches is rooted
in the practices of some Mediterranean city-­states who claimed their near
waters as sovereign territory28 contrasted with legal practices of Romans,
who ‘held that all the peoples of the world possessed a universal right to
travel and trade’.29 At first, Spain and Portugal claimed authority over large
swathes of ocean, creating monopoly conditions on trade routes between
Europe and its imperial territories. The rest of Europe challenged this posi-
tion through the legal arguments of Hugo Grotius who posited these claims
as ‘far fetched and unjust’30 as their techniques could not constitute rivalry
or even fair competition. However, the idea of enclosed seas soon had a
revival when John Selden argued that the British had a right to maritime
dominion because their ‘sovereignty in territorial waters was based on long
and continuous possession’.31 In many ways, the debate between mare
clausum and mare liberum was a contest between resource materiality
versus the commons, and this debate yet continues.
These opposing approaches found a middle position in a three-­mile rule
for territorial waters, a standard maintained until the mid-­twentieth century
30   Setting the scene
when the contest between the two approaches was reignited by a challenge
to the norms of maritime territory. These challenges came in the form of a
unilateral declaration by the US to extend their sovereign rights over the
submarine continental shelf for exploitation purposes, an action which
quickly gained international consensus. Since then, the law of the sea has
been codified with new forms of maritime territory including extending the
limits of the territorial waters, and introducing the idea of the continental
shelf and exclusive economic zone. As we enter a new age of awareness
of plastics pollution and climate change, it may be that there are yet
new normative changes to expect with regards to ocean governance and
the responsibilities of states within delimited areas to correspond with the
rights of exploitation that they claim.
The second problem that imperial states encountered involved the
paradox between sovereignty as derived from the social contract in juxta-
position with the use of the labour theory of property to justify claims to
territorial annexation. The normative rules for extending sovereignty over
new territory began with discovery and symbolic performance of cere-
monies of possession, but that was ‘capable of granting only an inchoate
title which must in due time be completed by actual occupation’.32 Not
only did European sovereigns lack a mutually constituted political rela-
tionship with indigenous persons, but they were also failing to use the land
through the application of labour to fulfil the legal requirements for
effective occupation.
Effective occupation was ultimately fulfilled in the New World through
the development of industrial land-­use as well as settling the land through
colonisation. In the Arctic, however, the stringent requirements for
effective occupation were waved in lieu of government administration
meeting ‘reasonable requirements’.33 It is this exception that led to the cre-
ative mechanisms used by Arctic states to demonstrate their effective
occupation over the region, including scientific exploration, environmental
stewardship, residential schools and resource exploitation.
Despite this creativity, throughout much of the Arctic the condition of
‘perfect’ sovereignty, both internal and external, remained elusive. This is
true both for states making claims to sovereignty and for the status of indi-
genous inhabitants living in the region. This imperfect condition has been
perpetuated by changes to the climate, the increasing accessibility of the
Arctic, changes to the rules for annexing new territory and finally, changes
in the materiality of the oceans as modifications to the law of the sea
increasingly placed the oceans into a framework of delimited sovereign
spaces. These spaces represent a compromise in the debate between mare
liberum and mare clausum by maintaining the principle of free navigation
while designating the resources of the oceans as a material good. The
 Who owns the Arctic?   31
effect has been to reduce the oceans as a commons and to expand the
spaces that fall under the state’s national realm.
Designating ‘who owns the Arctic’, sovereignty is a rule that estab-
lishes normative order by establishing political authority and rights to eco-
nomic exploitation in specific spaces. The condition of sovereignty
‘represents claims of rights, specifically the right to rule and the right of
authority. As a property right, “sovereignty” is the highest, most complete
right of ownership.’34 The Arctic states are following the norms of sover-
eignty; however, these rules have seen significant evolution over the
century. The myth that the Arctic is at the centre of a territory scramble is
perpetuated by the lack of perfect sovereignty in the region, a condition
created by the changing rules in combination with the communication of
state’s practices and performances of sovereignty for demonstrating
effective occupation of the region.
There are eight states with territory in the Arctic or sub-­Arctic, and five
of these also border the Arctic Ocean. At present, the land boundaries of
the Arctic states are stable, but within the maritime spaces, significant
expansion is underway given the recent introduction of new forms and
parameters for the maximum extent of territory in the law of the sea,
including the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf. Current
claims to sovereignty in the Arctic, although introducing the movement of
territorial boundaries (a situation that usually brings conflict and insec-
urity), are in fact reproducing stable normative understandings. Through
the types of performances states employ to demonstrate their claims to
Arctic territory, they are using known and recognised rules of spatial
annexation and they are repeating these performances of territorial author-
ity to broadcast and confirm their legitimate sovereignty over the Arctic.
Yet how did the current rules for territory come to frame the Arctic as it is
today?
What now follows is a discussion of who has owned the Arctic in
different combinations of rules ever since the discovery of the New World.

Arctic sovereignty in the Age of Discovery: 1492–1908

Setting the stage: the rules of territorial expansion

The movement of European explorers searching for a new route to Asia
and the Indies by sailing west set in motion the development of laws regu-
lating the processes of territorial expansion. Columbus never truly dis-
covered the New World, as ‘actually millions of human beings were
already living full and imaginative lives on the continent in 1492. That was
simply the year in which the sea pirates began to cheat and rob and kill
32   Setting the scene
them.’35 The implication of discovery was to determine which European
was first to sight a new territory, the first step in the developing rules of
procedure for the annexation of new and formerly ‘undiscovered’ territory
by European empires. The traditions established during this period
developed into customary international law, providing the still existing
standards for maintaining territorial sovereignty. However, almost all
lands, discovered or undiscovered, are in some way claimed by con-
temporary states.

Rules 1 and 2: discovery and ceremonies of possession

During this period, new land was often claimed by explorers on official
missions for European sovereigns intent on expanding state territory for
access to resources or sea routes. Discovery of new territory gave right to
first possession. Given that explorers often used the cartographic know­
ledges of previous adventurers, it was necessary to leave a trace for those
who might eventually reach the same territory to indicate the land had
already been discovered. For this reason, explorers left symbolic memen-
tos to inform others that the land was no longer free. These symbolic acts
‘may be interpreted also as a device to show to the world that an inchoate
title to the discovered region was acquired which rendered it terra pro-
hibita as far as other States were concerned’.36 It is the use of these sym-
bolic acts in contemporary Arctic international politics that has often
caused great consternation, even though they no longer hold significance
within international law.
Symbolic acts varied greatly in practice from state to state. The Spanish
were fond of unfurling flags while Russian practice included the burial of
copper plates with the inscription Russia Imperial Territory over which a
cross was erected. In the case of Alaska, Behring ‘left a number of articles,
consisting of beads, an iron kettle, and some coins, as evidence of his pres-
ence there’, and this was sufficient evidence of Russian ownership when
Cook explored the region in 1778.37 Peary understood the necessity of
symbolic acts accompanying claim to discovery, and upon his arrival at
the North Pole in 1909 also executed symbolic acts to indicate that he was
first to acquire the pole. The importance of symbolic acts in claiming ter-
ritory and its universal recognition as the first step to sovereign control of
an area is intriguing given the performance of flag planting on the seabed
at the North Pole and the discourse of ‘firsts’ that accompanied the sub-
sequent press releases.
However, the rules of the international system developed so that it was
necessary for symbolic annexation to be followed by effective occupation.
Discovery and symbolic acts granted only initial rights and a rudimentary,
 Who owns the Arctic?   33
albeit worthless title that ‘finally perishes unless it is followed and per-
fected by effective possession in a reasonable time’.38 The advantages of
first discovery and ceremonies of possession had to be followed eventually
by use of the territory and extension of government administration.

Rule 3: effective occupation

Discovery and symbolic acts were established in international custom as the
first elements of claiming sovereignty over new lands, but these had to be
followed by performance of the third rule: effective occupation. This rule of
effective control ‘implied continuous administration and effective occupying
of the land; ideally, the territory should be settled throughout and the natural
resources of the area should be developed and used’.39 Historically this was
demonstrated in the New World through the establishment of trading com-
panies – such as the Hudson Bay Trading Company, establishment of territo-
rial governors and the placement of colonies, granted existence through
charters issued by European monarchs.
However, the notion of effectiveness has variable application, as ‘the
nature of the territory affects the degree of sovereign activity needed to
establish effective control’.40 In the Arctic, the harsh climate is generally
unsuited to settler colonialism, and when the fur trade declined as a
method of government administration, the sparse indigenous populations
were reorganised to provide a paltry substitute for evidence of government
control. In the Arctic, effective occupation came to be understood in the
terms of ‘as much as could be reasonably required’ given the climatic con-
ditions, and instead states began to operate on the notion of regions of
attraction.41
The remainder of the Arctic region is assorted ocean spaces, which cur-
rently fall under the jurisdictional areas of territorial waters, exclusive eco-
nomic zones and the high seas regimes. In the contemporary Arctic,
demonstration of effective control and occupation still finds its way into
the language of policy documents and diplomatic statements in the style of
‘maintaining’ or ‘establishing’ sovereignty. Today, states perform this
effective occupation through a variety of political technologies, many of
which are visually recorded in the tiniest messenger of the government, the
postage stamp.

Act 1: the game begins

The year 1492 is arguably one of the most important moments in both the
development of the Arctic and of the international system, as it is the year
that sparked a rapid acceleration of the expansion of European knowledge.
34   Setting the scene
When Columbus sailed the ocean blue ‘discovering’ the New World, the
processes of the Columbian exchange began with the expansion of Euro-
pean empires culminating in an irreversible global transformation. While
one does not usually associate the adventures of Columbus with the Arctic,
his actions and the political events of his time provide the seed from which
germinated the development of the international legal order relating to
maritime and territorial law which now frames the whole narrative of the
territoriality of the Arctic. School children learning the modern history of
Western civilization are given this date as a starting point of history; it is
also the starting point for the development of Arctic sovereignty.
Although Europe had long since moved beyond the idea of a flat earth,
maps used by navigators of the fifteenth century still depicted a world of
unknowns. This includes a map drawn by Columbus circa 1490 which
shows the known discoveries of Portugal in Africa,42 but nothing was
known beyond the Atlantic Ocean. As ‘Portuguese expansion along the
coasts of Africa had established a sequence for gaining possession of these
lands: first, discovery; second, construction of a fort and establishment of a
garrison; third, a papal bull granting possession to Portugal’,43 these Portu-
guese discoveries provided the impetus for Spain to also secure new
resources. And while seeking an alternative route to India, Columbus dis-
covered the New World for Spain.44 Here they repeated the established
procedures and performances to establish jurisdiction over their new
territories.45
This pivotal year was followed by two eventful years of exploring, dis-
covering new territory and making territorial claims for the Iberian
empires, leading to confusion and conflict over which power owned what
territory. Based upon recommendations from Columbus,46 the Pope
divided the Western hemisphere between Spain and Portugal ‘in virtue of
his territorial supremacy over the whole world’.47 Spain received the ter-
ritory to the west of the division line and Portugal, the territory to the east.
Even though this meant a diminished role in the New World, Portugal
accepted the jurisdiction of the Pope, the de facto head of the international
system as this was also the source of their supremacy in Africa.48 Yet
within two years, these powers had determined that the terms of the delim-
itation were inconvenient, both in its placement in the Western hemisphere
and in its absence in the Eastern hemisphere.
In the now seemingly insignificant Spanish village of Tordesillas, Spain
and Portugal negotiated ‘possibly the most pregnant treaty in world history’.49
Here, they bypassed papal authority and changed the placement of the line of
demarcation.50 The treaty states ‘that a boundary or straight line be deter-
mined and drawn north and south, from pole to pole, on the said ocean sea,
from the Arctic to the Antarctic pole’.51 An idea often forgotten in the
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
throne as the puppets of nobles; then when feudalism was dying
elsewhere, it attempted to raise its head in Spain, capturing the
government of towns on the one hand and beggaring and
dominating the King on the other. By the time of which we are now
speaking, the process was well nigh complete; and the only
safeguard against the absolute tyranny of the nobles, was their
mutual greed and jealousy.
For years Juan Pacheco, Marquis of Villena, had ruled the King
with a rod of iron. The grants and gifts he had extorted for himself
and his friends made him more powerful than any other force in the
land. But there were those who sulked apart from him, nobles, some
of them, of higher lineage and greater hereditary territories than his;
and when the handsome foot page, Beltran de la Cueva, captured
the good graces of the King and his gay young Portuguese wife,
Queen Juana, the enemies of Villena saw in the rising star an
instrument by which he might be humbled. After the Beltraneja’s
birth and christening, honours almost royal were piled upon Beltran
de la Cueva; and Villena and his uncle, Alfonso Carrillo, Archbishop
of Toledo, grew ever more indignant and discontented. Only a
fortnight after the Cortes had sworn allegiance to the new Princess,
Villena drew up a secret protest against the act, alleging the
illegitimacy of the child,[4] and soon open opposition to King and
favourite was declared.
There is no space here to relate in detail the complicated series of
intrigues and humiliations that followed. The King on one occasion
was forced to hide in his own palace from the assaulting soldiery of
Villena. To buy the goodwill of the jealous favourite towards his little
daughter he went so far as to agree to a marriage between the
Beltraneja and Villena’s son;[5] and more humiliating still, in
December 1464, he consented to the inquiry of a commission of
churchmen nominated by Villena and his friends, to inquire into the
legitimacy of his reputed daughter. The inquiry elicited much piquant
but entirely contradictory evidence as to the virility of the King, who,
it was admitted on all hands, delighted in the society of ladies, and
aroused the violent jealousy of the Queen; but, although with our
present lights there seems to have been no valid reason for
disinheriting the princess, the commission was sufficiently in doubt
to recommend the King to make the best terms he could with the
rebels. The King’s sister, Princess Isabel, who at the time lived at
Court, was also used as an instrument by Henry to pacify the league
against him. She had been betrothed when quite a child at Arevalo
to Prince Charles of Viana, eldest son of the King of Aragon, and in
right of his mother himself King of Navarre; a splendid match which,
failing issue from Henry and from her younger brother Alfonso,
might have led to the union of all Spain in one realm. But Charles of
Viana had already in 1461 fallen a victim to the hate and jealousy of
his stepmother, Juana Enriquez, daughter of a great Castilian noble,
Don Fadrique, the Admiral of the realm, and Isabel became to her
brother a valuable diplomatic asset. Before the storm of war burst
Henry attempted to wed his sister to Alfonso V. of Portugal, his wife’s
brother, and so to prevent her claims to the Castilian crown being
urged to the detriment of the Beltraneja; but the match had no
attraction for the clever cautious girl of thirteen; for the suitor was
middle-aged and ugly, and already her own genius or crafty
councillors had suggested to her the husband who would best serve
her own interests. So she gravely reminded her brother that she, a
Castilian princess, could not legally be bestowed in marriage without
the formal ratification of the Cortes.
In September 1564 Beltran de la Cueva received the great rank of
Master of Santiago, which endowed him not only with vast revenues,
but the disposal of an armed force second to none in the kingdom,
and this new folly of the King was the signal for revolt. A party of
nobles immediately seized Valladolid against the King, and though
the townspeople promptly expelled them and proclaimed the loyalty
of the city, the issue between the factions was now joined. On the
following day, 16th September, an attempt that nearly succeeded
was made to capture and kidnap the King himself near Segovia. He
was a poor, feeble-minded creature, hating strife and danger, and,
though some of his stronger councillors protested against such
weakness, he consented to meet the revolted nobles, and redress
their grievances. In October Villena, the Archbishop of Toledo, Count
Benavente, the Admiral Don Fadrique, and the rest of the rebels,
met Henry between Cabezon and Cigales, and in three interviews,
during their stay of five weeks, dictated to the wretched King their
demands.[6] The King was to dismiss his Moorish guard and become
a better Christian: he was to ask for no more money without the
consent of the nobles, to deprive Cueva of the Mastership of
Santiago, recognise his own impotence and the bastardy of his
daughter, and acknowledge as his heir his half-brother Alfonso,
whom he was to deliver to the guardianship of Villena. On the 30th
November the nobles and the King took the oath to hold the boy
Alfonso as the heir of Spain; and then Henry, a mere cypher
thenceforward, sadly wended his way to Segovia, where the
commission to inquire into the shameful question of his virility was
still sitting,[7] and Villena and his uncle, the warlike Archbishop, were
thus practically the rulers of Spain. But though Henry consented to
everything he characteristically tried to avoid the spirit of the
agreement. Beltran de la Cueva was deprived of the Mastership of
Santiago, but he was made Duke of Alburquerque in exchange for
the loss, and the poor little disinherited Beltraneja was treated with
greater consideration than before.
When civil war was seen to be inevitable in the spring of 1465,
Henry carried his wife and child with his sister Isabel to Salamanca,
whilst the Archbishop of Toledo, in the name of the revolted nobles,
seized the walled city of Avila, where within a few days he was
joined by Villena and his friends, bringing with them the Infante
Alfonso, who, in pursuance of the agreement made with the King at
Cigales, had received the oath of allegiance as heir to the crown.
From the King it was clear that the nobles could hope for no more,
for he had summoned the nation to arms to oppose them; but from
a child King of their own making, rich grants could still be wrung,
and for the first time since the dying days of the Gothic monarchy,
the sacredness of the anointed Sovereign of Castile was mocked and
derided. In April 1565, at Plascencia, the nobles swore secretly to
hold Alfonso as King; and on the 5th June 1364, on a mound within
sight of the walls of Avila, the public scene was enacted that
shocked Spain like a sacrilege. Upon a staging there was seated a
lay figure in mourning robes, with a royal crown upon its head; a
sword of state before it, and in the hand a sceptre. A great multitude
of people with bated breath awaited the living actors in the scene;
and soon there issued from the city gate a brilliant cavalcade of
nobles and bishops, headed by Villena escorting the little prince
Alfonso. Arriving before the scaffolding, and in mockery saluting the
figure, most of the nobles mounted the platform, whilst Villena, the
Master of Alcantara, and Count Medillin, with a bodyguard, conveyed
the Infante to a coign of vantage some distance away. Then in a
loud voice was read upon the platform the impeachment of the King,
which was summed up under four heads. For the first, it ran, Henry
of Castile is unworthy to enjoy the regal dignity; and as the
tremendous words were read the Archbishop of Toledo stepped forth
and tore the royal crown from the brows of the lifeless doll: for the
second, he is unfit to administer justice in the realm, and the Count
of Plascencia removed the sword of state from its place: for the
third, no rule or government should be entrusted to him, and Count
of Benavente took from the figure’s powerless grasp the sceptre
which it held: for the fourth, he should be deprived of the throne
and the honour due to kings, whereupon Don Diego Lopez de
Zuñiga cast the dummy down and trampled it under foot, amidst the
jeers and curses of the crowd. When this was done, and the
platform cleared, young Alfonso was raised aloft in the arms of men
that all might see, and a great shout went up of “Castilla, Castilla,
for the King Don Alfonso,” and then, seated on the throne, the boy
gave his hand to kiss to those who came to pay their new sovereign
fealty. Like wildfire across the steppes and mountains of Castile sped
the awful news, and Henry in Salamanca was soon surrounded by
hosts of subjects whose reverence for a sacrosanct King had been
wounded by what they regarded as impious blasphemy.
Both factions flew to arms, and for months civil war raged, the
walled cities being alternately besieged and captured by both
parties. Isabel herself remained with the King, usually at Segovia or
Madrid; though with our knowledge of her character and tastes, she
can have had little sympathy with the tone of her brother’s court. At
one time during the lingering struggle in 1466, Henry endeavoured
to win Villena and his family from the side of rebellion by betrothing
Isabel to Don Pedro Giron, Master of Calatrava, Villena’s brother. The
suitor was an uncouth boor, and that an Infanta of Castile should be
sacrificed in marriage with an upstart such as he was too much for
Isabel’s pride and great ambition. Nothing in the world, she said,
should bring her to such a humiliation; though the King, careless of
her protests, petitioned the Pope to dispense Don Pedro from his
pledge of celibacy as Master of a monkish military order. Isabel’s
faithful friend, Doña Beatriz Bobadilla, wife of Andres Cabrera, High
Steward of the King, and Commander of the fortress of Segovia, was
as determined as her mistress that the marriage should not take
place, and swore herself to murder Don Pedro, if necessary, to
prevent it. A better way was found than by Dona Beatriz’s dagger,
for when the papal dispensation arrived, and the prospective
bridegroom set out in triumph to claim his bride, poison cut short his
career as soon as he left his home. Whether Isabel herself was an
accomplice of the act will never be known. She probably would not
have hesitated to sanction it in the circumstances, according to the
ethics of the time; for she never flinched, as her brother did, at
inflicting suffering for what she considered necessary ends.
On the 20th August 1467, the main bodies of both factions met on
the historic battlefield of Olmedo, the warlike Archbishop of Toledo,
clad in armour covered by a surcoat embroidered with the holy
symbols, led into battle the boy pretender Alfonso; whilst the royal
favourite, Beltran de la Cueva, now Duke of Alburquerque, on the
King’s side, matched the valour of the Churchman.[8] Both sides
suffered severely, but the pusillanimity of the King caused the fight
to be regarded as a defeat for him, and the capture of his royal
fortress of Segovia soon afterwards proved his impotence in arms so
clearly, that a sort of modus vivendi was arranged, by which for
nearly a year each King issued decrees and ostensibly ruled the
territories held by his partisans.[9]
 At length, in July 1468, the promising young pretender Alfonso
died suddenly and mysteriously in his fifteenth year, at Cardeñosa,
near Avila; perhaps of plague, as was said at the time, but more
probably of poison;[10] and the whole position was at once
revolutionised. Isabel had been in the Alcazar of Segovia with her
friends the commander and his wife when the city was surrendered
to the rebels, and from that time, late in 1567, she had followed the
fortunes of Alfonso, with whom she was at his death. She at once
retired broken-hearted to the convent of Santa Clara in Avila, but
not, we may be certain, unmindful of the great change wrought in
her prospects by her brother’s premature death. She was nearly
seventeen years of age, learned and precocious far beyond her
years; the events that had passed around her for the last six years
had matured her naturally strong judgment, and there is no doubt
from what followed that she had already decided upon her course of
action. She was without such affectionate guidance as girls of her
age usually enjoy; for her unhappy widowed mother, to whom she
was always tender and kind, had already fallen a victim to the
hereditary curse of the house of Portugal, to which she belonged,
and lived thenceforward in lethargic insanity in her castle of Arevalo.
Isabel’s brother the King was her enemy, and she had no other near
relative: the churchmen and nobles who had risen against Henry,
and were now around her, were, it must have been evident to her,
greedy rogues bent really upon undermining the royal power for
their own benefit; and deeply devout as Isabel was, she was quite
unblinded by the illusion that the Archbishop and bishops who led
the revolt were moved to their action by any considerations of
morality or religion. On the other hand, the rebellious nobles and
ecclesiastics could not persist in their revolt without a royal figure
head. Young Alfonso, a mere child, had been an easy tool, and
doubtless the leaders thought that this silent, self-possessed damsel
would be quite as facile to manage.
They did not have to wait many days for proof to the contrary.
The Archbishop of Toledo was the mouthpiece of his associates.
Within the venerable walls of the royal convent at Avila he set before
Isabel a vivid picture of the evils of her elder brother’s rule, his
shameful laxity of life, his lavish squandering of the nation’s wealth
upon unworthy objects, and the admitted illegitimacy of the
daughter he wished to make his heiress; and the Archbishop ended
by offering to Isabel, in the name of the nobles, the crowns of
Castile. The wearer of these crowns, wrested painfully through
centuries of struggle from intruding infidels, had always been held
sacred. The religious exaltation born of the reconquest had invested
the Christian sovereigns in the eyes of their subjects with divine
sanction and special saintly patronage. To attack them was not
disloyalty alone, but sacrilege; and the deposition of Henry at Avila
had, as we have seen, thrilled Spain with horror. It was no part of
Isabel’s plan to do anything that might weaken the reverence that
surrounded the throne to which she knew now she might succeed.
So her answer to the prelate was firm as well as wise. With many
sage reflections taken from the didactic books that had always been
her study, she declared that she would never accept a crown that
was not hers by right. She desired to end the miserable war, she
said, and to be reconciled to her brother and sovereign. If the nobles
desired to serve her they would not try to make her Queen before
her time, but persuade the King to acknowledge her as his heir,
since they assured her that the Princess Juana was the fruit of
adultery.
At first the nobles were dismayed at an answer that some thought
would mean ruin to them. But the Archbishop, Carrillo, knew the
weakness of Henry, and whispered to Villena as they descended the
convent stairs, that the Infanta’s resolve to claim the heirship would
mean safety and victory for them. Little did he or the rest of the
nobles know the great spirit and iron will of the girl with whom they
had to deal. No time was lost in approaching the King. He was ready
to agree to anything for a quiet life, and Alburquerque, and even the
great Cardinal Mendoza, agreed with him that an accord was
advisable; though it might be broken afterwards when the nobles
were disarmed. Before the end of August all was settled, and the
cities of Castile had sent their deputies to take the oath of allegiance
to Isabel as heiress to the crown. A formal meeting was arranged to
take place between Henry and his sister at a place called the Venta
de los Toros de Guisando, a hostelry famous for some prehistoric
stone figures of undetermined beasts in the neighbourhood. All was
amiable on the surface. Henry embraced his sister and promised her
his future affection, settling upon her the principality of Asturias and
Oviedo, and the cities of Avila, Huete, Medina, and many others,
with all revenues and jurisdictions as from the beginning of the
revolt (September 1464).[11] But by the agreement Isabel was bound
not to marry without the King’s consent, and it is evident that to this
condition Henry and his friends looked for rendering their
concessions voidable.
The intrigues of the two parties of Castile were therefore now
centred upon the marriage of the Princess. Suitors were not lacking.
If we are to believe Hall, Edward IV. of England, before his marriage
with Elizabeth Grey, was approached by the Spaniards, and it is
certain that his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was at one time
a wooer. Either of them would have suited Henry of Castile, because
it would have removed Isabel from Spain. A Portuguese would have
also been acceptable to the same party, because Portugal was
naturally on the side of the Beltraneja and her Portuguese mother.
But Isabel had other views, and the only suitors that were
entertained seriously were the Duke of Guienne, the brother of Louis
XI., and the young Ferdinand of Aragon, the son and heir of John II.
and nephew of the doughty old Admiral of Castile, who had stood by
the side of the nobles in their revolt. There was never any doubt as
to which of the suitors Isabel favoured. The Frenchman was
reported to her as a poor, puny creature with weak legs and watery
eyes, whilst Ferdinand, a youth of her own age, was praised to the
skies for his manliness, his good looks, and his abilities, by those
whose judgment she trusted. It is impossible to say whether Isabel
as yet fully understood what such a marriage might mean to Spain;
but it is certain that the wicked old John II. of Aragon was quite
aware of its advantages for his own realm.
 The house of Aragon, with its domains of Sicily and Naples, and its
secular ambition towards the east, had found itself everywhere
opposed by the growing power of France. The Mediterranean, the
seat of empire for centuries, had no finer havens than those under
the sceptre of Aragon, but the Catalans were harsh and independent
with their kings, and sparing of their money for royal purposes. A
poor king of Aragon could not hope, with his own unaided resources,
to beat France on the Gulf of Lyons, and bear the red and yellow
banner of Barcelona to the infidel Levant. But with the resources in
men and money of greater Castile at his bidding, all was possible;
and John II., who had not scrupled to murder his first-born son for
the benefit of his second, and oust his own children from their
mother’s realm of Navarre, was ready to go to any lengths to bring
about the union which might realise the dream of Aragon.
From Isabel’s point of view, too, the match was a good one, apart
from personal inclination. There is no doubt whatever that she was,
even thus early, determined when her time came to crush the
tyrannous nobles who had reduced Castile to anarchy and the
sovereign to a contemptible lay figure. With her great talent she
understood that to do this she must dispose of force apart from that
afforded by any league of nobles in Castile itself; and she looked
towards Aragon to lend her such additional strength. This fact,
however, was not lost upon the greedy nobles, especially Villena.
The turbulent leader of conspiracy already looked askance at the
quiet determined girl who thus early imposed her will upon her
followers, and throwing his power again on the side of the king he
had once solemnly deposed, he seized the mastership of Santiago as
his reward. In a panic at the fear of the Aragonese match, the king
and Villena once more agreed to marry Isabel with the king of
Portugal, Villena and Cardinal Mendoza being heavily bribed by the
Portuguese for their aid.[12] Isabel was at her town of Ocaña at the
time, and her position was extremely difficult and perilous when the
Portuguese envoys came to her with Villena to offer her their king’s
hand. As Isabel had several weeks before secretly bound herself to
marry Ferdinand of Aragon, her reply was a diplomatic refusal to the
Portuguese advances; and Villena, enraged, was disposed to capture
her on the spot and carry her a prisoner to Court. Inconvenient
princes and princesses were easily removed in those days, and
Isabel’s danger was great. But she had the faculty of compelling love
and admiration; she was as brave as a lion and as cunning as a
serpent, and the people of Ocaña made it quite evident to Villena
that they would allow no violence to be offered to her. But clearly
something must be done to prevent Isabel from becoming too
strong; and as a last resort after her refusal to entertain the
Portuguese match it was determined to capture her by force of
arms. She was then at Madrigal, and Villena’s nephew, the Bishop of
Burgos, bribed her servants to desert her in her hour of need: the
King sent orders to the townsmen that no resistance was to be
offered to his officers; and Cardinal Mendoza with a strong force
marched towards Madrigal to arrest Isabel. But another archbishop,
more warlike than he, Carrillo of Toledo, was before him. With the
Admiral Don Fadrique and a band of horsemen, he swooped down
from Leon and bore Isabel to safety amongst those who would have
died for her, and entered into the great city of Valladolid after sunset
on the 31st August 1469. No time was to be lost. Envoys were sent
in disguise hurrying up to Saragossa, to hasten the coming of the
bridegroom. The service was a dangerous one; for if Ferdinand had
fallen into the hands of the Court party a short shrift would have
been his. But the stake was great, and Juan II. of Aragon and his
son, young as the latter was, did not stick at trifles. One difficulty,
indeed, was overcome characteristically. Isabel was known to be
rigidity itself in matters of propriety; and, as she and Ferdinand were
second cousins, a papal bull was necessary for the marriage. The
Pope, Paul II., was on the side of the Castilian Court, and no bull
could be got from him; but Juan II. of Aragon and the Archbishop of
Toledo carefully had one forged to satisfy Isabel’s scruples.[13]
Whilst one imposing cavalcade of Aragonese bearing rich presents
took the high road into Castile and occupied the attention of the
King’s officers, a modest party of five merchants threaded the
mountain paths by Soria, after leaving the Aragonese territory at
Tarazona on the 7th October. The first day after entering Castile they
rode well-nigh sixty miles; and late at night the little cavalcade
approached the walled town of Osma, where Pedro Manrique and an
armed escort were to meet them. The night was black, and their
summons at the gates of the town was misunderstood: a cry went
up that this was a body of the king’s men to surprise the place; and
from the ramparts a shower of missiles flew upon the strangers
below. One murderous stone whizzed within a few inches of the
head of a fair-haired lad of handsome visage and manly bearing,
who, as a servant, accompanied those who wore the garb of
merchants. It was Ferdinand himself who thus narrowly escaped
death, and a hurried explanation, a shouted password, the flashing
of torches followed, and then the creaking drawbridge fell, the great
gates clanged open, and the danger was over.[14] The next day, with
larger forces, Ferdinand reached Dueñas, in Leon, near Valladolid;
and four days later, now in raiment that befitted a royal bridegroom,
for his father had made him king of Sicily, he rode when most men
slept to Valladolid. It was nearly midnight when he arrived, and the
gates of the city were closed for the night, but a postern in the walls
gave access to the house in which Isabel was lodged; and there the
Archbishop of Toledo led him by hand into the presence of his bride,
to whom he was solemnly betrothed by the Archbishop’s chaplain. It
was all done so secretly that no inkling of it reached the slumbering
town; and within two hours the youth was in the saddle again and
reached Dueñas long before dawn.[15]
On the 18th October 1469, four days later, all was ready for the
public marriage, and Ferdinand entered the city this time in state,
with Castilian and Aragonese men-at-arms and knights around him.
Isabel was staying at the best house in Valladolid, that of her
partisan, Juan Vivero, and the great hall was richly decked for the
occasion of this, one of the fateful marriages of history, though none
could have known that it was such at the time. The celebrant was
the warlike Archbishop who had been so powerful a factor in
bringing it about; and the next day, after mass, the married pair
dined in public amidst the rejoicing of the faithful people of
Valladolid. There was little pomp and circumstance in the wedding,
for the times were critical, the realm disturbed, and money scarce;
but imagination is stirred by the recollection of the great
consequences that ensued upon it, and those who saw the event,
even with their necessarily limited vision of its effects, must have
realised that any splendour lavished upon it could not have
enhanced its importance.
The news of the dreaded marriage filled the King and his court
with dismay. Villena, in close league with Alburquerque and the
Mendozas, now espoused the cause of the Beltraneja,[16] who was
declared the legitimate heiress to the Crown, and betrothed to
Isabel’s former suitor, the Duke of Guienne, in the presence of the
assembled nobles, at the monastery of Loyola, near Segovia. It
mattered not, apparently, that the very men who now swore fealty
to Juana, the hapless Beltraneja, had previously denounced her as a
bastard: they wanted a puppet, not a mistress, as Isabel was likely
to be, and they were quite ready to perjure themselves in their own
interests. Isabel was formally deprived of all her grants and
privileges, even of the lordship of her town of Dueñas, near
Valladolid;[17] where she and Ferdinand had kept their little court,
and where their first child had just been born (October 1470), a
daughter, to whom they gave the name of Isabel.
Ferdinand could not remain long in idleness, and was soon
summoned by his father to aid him in a war with France, being
absent from his wife for over a year, winning fresh experience and
credit both as soldier and negotiator. In the meanwhile, things were
going badly again for the Beltraneja. Her French betrothed died in
May 1472; and some of the nobles, jealous of the greed of Villena,
were once more wavering, and making secret approaches to Isabel.
She had bold and zealous friends in the Chamberlain Cabrera, who
held the strong castle of Segovia, and his wife, Beatriz de Bobadilla.
[18]
In the last weeks of 1473, Doña Beatriz and her husband urged
Henry to forgive and receive his sister. She was, they told him, being
persecuted by the Marquis of Villena, and had meant no harm in her
marriage with the man she loved. Henry was doubtful, but Cardinal
Mendoza and Count Benavente had changed sides again, and now
quietly used their influence in Isabel’s favour. A grudging promise
was given by the King, but it was enough for Doña Beatriz; and,
disguised as a farmer’s wife, she set forth from Segovia on a market
pad; and alone over the snowy roads, hurried to carry the good
news to the Princess in the town of Aranda, which had just been
surrendered to her by the townsfolk. A few days afterwards, on
further advice from Doña Beatriz, Isabel, escorted by the Archbishop
of Toledo and his men-at-arms, travelled through the night, and
before the first streak of dawn on the 28th December 1473, they
were admitted into the Alcazar of Segovia, where no force but
treachery could harm her.
Villena’s son, who, fearing betrayal, had refused to enter the city
when he had come with the King weeks before, and had remained in
the neighbourhood at the famous Geronomite monastery of El
Parral, founded by his father, fled at the news. His father, with
Alburquerque and the Constable of Castile, Count of Haro, at once
met at Cuellar, and sent an insolent order to Henry to expel his sister
from Segovia. It came too late, however. The King, by this time, had
met Isabel, who had received him at the gate of the Alcazar, and
professed her love and duty to him. In a speech full of womanly
wisdom,[19] she said she had come to pray him to put aside anger
towards her, for she meant no evil; and all she asked was that he
should fulfil his oath taken at Toros de Guisando, and acknowledge
her as heiress of Castile. ‘For by the laws of God and man, the
succession belonged to her.’ Weak Henry swayed from one side to
the other like a reed in the wind, as either party had his ear; and at
last Isabel took the bold course of sending secretly for Ferdinand,
who had just returned from Aragon. The risk was great, but Isabel
knew, at least, that she could depend upon the Commander of the
Alcazar of Segovia, and Ferdinand secretly entered the fortress on
the 4th January 1474. It was a difficult matter for Doña Beatriz to
persuade the King to receive his young brother-in-law; but she
succeeded at last, and when Henry had consented, he did the thing
handsomely, and they all rode together through the city in state,
with great show of affection and rejoicing. On Twelfth Day, Doña
Beatriz and her husband gave a great banquet to the royal party[20]
at the Bishop’s palace, between the Alcazar and the Cathedral.
Whilst the minstrels were playing in the hall after dinner, the King
suddenly fell ill. Violent vomiting and purging seemed to point to
poison, and the alarm was great. Prayers and processions continued
night and day, and the unfortunate man seemed to recover; but,
though he lived for nearly a year longer, he never was well again,
the irritation of the stomach continuing incessantly until he sank
from weakness.
In the interim both factions interminably worried him to settle the
succession. Sometimes he would lean to Isabel’s friends, sometimes
to Villena and Alburquerque, but Isabel herself, wise and cautious,
knew where safety alone for her could be found, and took care not
to stir outside the Alcazar of Segovia, in the firm keeping of Cabrera,
who himself was in the firm keeping of his wife, Doña Beatriz. Once
in the summer it was found that the King had treacherously agreed
that Villena’s forces should surreptitiously enter the town and occupy
the towers of the cathedral, whence they might throw explosives
into the Alcazar and capture Isabel on the ground that she was
poisoning the King; but the plan was frustrated, and Henry, either in
fear or ashamed of his part of the transaction, left Segovia to place
himself in the hands of Villena at Cuellar. Greedy to the last, Villena
carried the sick King to Estremadura to obtain the surrender of some
towns there that he coveted; but to Henry’s expressed grief, and the
relief of the country, the insatiable favourite died unexpectedly of a
malignant gathering in the throat on the way, and the King returned
to Madrid, himself a dying man. His worthless life flickered out
before dawn on the 12th December 1474, and his last plans were for
the rehabilitation of the Beltraneja. He is said to have left a will
bequeathing her the succession; but Cardinal Mendoza, Count
Benavente, and his other executors, never produced such a
document, which, moreover, would have been repudiated now by
the nation at large, passionately loyal, as it already mainly was, to
Isabel.[21]
 There was hardly a private or public shortcoming of which Henry
in his lifetime had not been accused. From the Sovereign Pontiff to
frank, but humble subjects, remonstrances against his notoriously
bad conduct had been offered to the wretched King; and at his
death the accumulated evils, bred by a line of frivolous monarchs,
had reached their climax. There was no justice, order or security for
life or property, and the strong oppressed the weak without reproach
or hindrance, the only semblance of law being maintained by the
larger walled cities in their territories by means of their armed
burgess brotherhood. But in the disturbances that had succeeded
the birth of the Beltraneja the cities themselves were divided, and in
many cases the factions within their own walls made them scenes of
bloodshed and insecurity. Faith and religion, that had hitherto been
the mainstay of the throne of Castile, had been trampled under foot
and oppressed by a monarch whose constant companions and
closest servitors had been of the hated brood of Mahomet. Nobles
who, for themselves and their adherents, had wrung from the Kings
nearly all they had to give, and threatened even to overwhelm the
cities, were free from taxation, except the almost obsolete feudal aid
in spears which the Sovereign had nominally a right to summon at
need. Such men as Villena, or Alvaro de Luna in the previous reign,
with more armed followers than the King and greater available
wealth, were the real sovereigns of Castile in turbulent alternation,
and the final disintegration of the realm into petty principalities
appeared to be the natural and imminent outcome of the state of
affairs that existed when Henry IV. breathed his last.
All Castile and Leon, with their daughter kingdoms, were looking
and praying for a saviour who could bring peace and security; and at
first sight it would seem as if a turbulent State that had never been
ruled by a woman could hardly expect that either of the young
princesses who claimed the crown could bring in its dire need the
qualities desired for its salvation. Isabel’s popularity, especially in
Valladolid, Avila and Segovia, was great; and at the moment of the
King’s death her friends were the stronger and more prompt, for
Villena had just died, the Beltraneja was but a child of twelve, and
the Queen-Mother, discredited and scorned, was lingering out her
last days in a convent in Madrid.[22] The towns, for the most part,
awaited events in awe, fearing to take the wrong side, and a
breathless pause followed the death of the King. Isabel was at
Segovia, and under her influence and that of Cabrera, the city was
the first to throw off the mask and raised the pennons for Isabel and
Ferdinand, to whom, in her presence, it swore allegiance and
proclaimed sovereigns of Castile. Valladolid followed on the 29th
December; whilst Madrid, whose fortress was in the hands of
Villena’s son, declared for the Beltraneja. The nobles shuffled again;
moved by personal interest or rivalry, the Archbishop of Toledo,
abandoning Isabel out of jealousy of Cardinal Mendoza; whilst
Alburquerque, the supposed father of the Beltraneja, joined her
opponent, and civil war, aided by foreign invasion from Portugal, was
organised to dispute with Isabel and her husband their right to the
crown.
By rare good fortune the young couple, who were thus forced to
fight for their splendid inheritance, were the greatest governing
geniuses of their age. It is time to say something of their gifts and
characters. They were both, at the time of their accession, twenty-
three years of age, and, as we have seen, their experience of life
had already been great and disillusioning. Isabel’s was incomparably
the higher mind of the two. The combined dignity and sweetness of
her demeanour captivated all those who approached her, whilst her
almost ostentatious religious humility and devotion won the powerful
commendation of the churchmen who had suffered so heavily during
the reign of Henry. There is no reason to doubt her sincerity or her
real good intentions any more than those of her great-grandson,
Philip II., a very similar, though far inferior, character. Like him, she
never flinched from inflicting what we now call cruelty in the
pursuance of her aims, though she had no love for cruelty for its
own sake. She was determined that Spain should be united, and that
rigid orthodoxy should be the cementing bond; that the sacred
sovereign of Castile should be supreme over the bodies and souls of
men, for her crown in her eyes was the symbol of divine selection
and inspiration, and nothing done in the service of God by His vice-
regent could be wrong, great as the suffering that it might entail.
She was certainly what our lax generation calls a bigot; but bigotry
in her time and country was a shining virtue, and is still her greatest
claim to the regard of many of her countrymen. She was unmerciful
in her severity in suppressing disorder and revolt; but we have seen
the state at which affairs had arrived in Castile when she acceded to
the crown, and it is quite evident that nothing but a rod of iron
governed by a heart of ice was adequate to cope with the situation.
Terrible as was Isabel’s justice, it entailed in the end much less
suffering than a continuance of the murderous anarchy she
suppressed.[23] Her strength and activity of body matched her
prodigious force of mind, and she constantly struck awe in her
potential opponents by her marvellous celerity of movement over
desolate tracts of country almost without roads, riding often
throughout the night distances that appear at the present day to be
almost incredible.
Ferdinand was as despotic and as ambitious as she, but his
methods were absolutely different. He wanted the strength of Castile
to push Aragonese interests in Italy and the Mediterranean; and, like
Isabel, he saw that religious unity was necessary if he was to be
provided with a solid national weapon for his hand. But for Isabel’s
exalted mystic views of religion he cared nothing. He was, indeed,
severely practical in all things; never keeping an oath longer than it
suited him to do so, loving the crooked way if his end could be
gained by it, and he positively gloried in the tergiversation by which
throughout his life he got the better of every one with whom he
dealt, until death made sport of all his plans and got the better of
him. His school of politics was purely Italian; and he cynically acted
upon the knowledge, as Henry VII. of England also did, that the
suppression of feudalism doomed the sovereign to impotence unless
he could hoard large sums of ready money wrung from subjects. In
future he saw that kings would be feared, not for the doubtful
feudatories they might summon, but in proportion to the men and
arms they could promptly pay for in cash; and he went one better
than the two Henry Tudors in getting the treasure he saw was
needed. They squeezed rills of money from religious orthodoxy, and
divided their subjects for a century; he drew floods of gold by
exterminating a heterodox minority, and united Spain for the ends
he had in view. Ferdinand and Isabel might therefore challenge the
admiration of subjects for their greatness and high aims, and
command loyalty by their success as rulers; but they cannot be
regarded as loveable human beings.
Between two such strong characters as these it was not to be
expected that all would be harmonious at first, and the married life
of Isabel began inauspiciously enough in one respect. There is no
doubt that both Ferdinand and his father intended that the former
should be King regnant of Castile, and not merely King consort.
Ferdinand indeed, through his grandfather of the same name, was
the male heir to the Castilian crowns; and as the Salic law prevailed
in Aragon, they assumed that it might be enforced in Castile. This,
however, was very far from Isabel’s view; reinforced as she was by
the decision of the Castilian churchmen and jurists, and she stood
firm. For a time Ferdinand sulked and threatened to leave her to
fight out her battle by herself; but better counsels prevailed, and an
agreement was made by which they were to reign jointly, but that
Isabel alone should appoint all commanders, officers and
administrators, in Castile, and retain control of all fiscal matters in
her realms.
On the 2nd January 1475, Ferdinand joined his wife in Segovia,
where a Cortes had been summoned to take the oath of allegiance
to them. Through the thronged and cheering street he rode to the
Alcazar; Beltran de la Cueva, Duke of Alburquerque, by his side, and
nobles, bishops and burgesses, flocked to do homage to the new
sovereigns. Two months later the faithful city of Valladolid greeted
the royal couple with effusive joy; and a round of festivities drew the
lieges and gave time for adherents to come in. Both parties were
mustering forces for the great struggle; and it needed stout hearts
on the part of Isabel and her husband to face the future. The
Archbishop of Toledo was now on the side of the Beltraneja; and so
was Madrid and some of the great nobles of Andalucia; and, worst
of all, Alfonso of Portugal had been betrothed to his niece the
Beltraneja; and was even now gathering his army to invade Castile
and seize the crown. On the 3rd April the new sovereigns held high
festival at Valladolid. Isabel, in crimson brocade and with a golden
crown upon her veiled abundant russet hair, mounted a white
hackney with saddle cloth, housings and mane covered with gold
and silver flowers. She was followed by fourteen noble dames
dressed in parti-coloured tabards, half green brocade and half claret
velvet, and head dresses to imitate crowns; and, as they rode to
take the place of honour in the tilt yard, men said that no woman
was ever seen so beautiful and majestic as the Queen of Spain.[24]
Knights and nobles flocked to the lists, and King Ferdinand rode into
the yard mounted upon his warhorse to break a lance, the
acknowledged finest horseman in Spain. But as he entered the
populace stared to see the strange crest he bore upon his helm, and
the stranger motto emblazoned upon his shield. What could it mean?
asked, not without fear, some of those who professed to be his
friends. The crest took the form of a blacksmith’s anvil, and the
motto ran;—
Como yunque sufro y callo,
Por el tiempo en que me hallo.

I do bear, like anvil dumb,

Blows, until the time shall come.[25]

which we are told was meant as a warning to those at his side that
he knew they were beguiling him with such pageantry whilst they
were paltering with his enemies.
It was a gay though ominous feast; but Isabel could not afford
much time for such trifling, and on the second day she mounted her
palfrey and rode out to Tordesillas, forty miles away, to inspect the
fortifications, and then to make an attempt to win back to her cause
the Archbishop of Toledo. With prodigious activity the young
Sovereigns separately travelled from fortress to fortress, animating
followers, and providing for defence; and Isabel was in the imperial
city of Toledo late in May 1475, when the news came to her that the
King of Portugal had entered Spain with a large army, had formally
married the Beltraneja at Palencia, and proclaimed himself King of
Castile.[26] Without wasting a moment Isabel started on horseback
for her faithful fief of Avila, ninety miles away. She was less than two
days on the road, and, though she had a miscarriage on the way at
Cabezon she dared not tarry until safe within the walls of the city,
which she entered on the 28th May.
For some months thereafter the fate of Spain hung in the balance.
Ferdinand strained every nerve, but the forces against him were
stronger than his, and the Archbishop of Toledo with his wealth and
following had reinforced the Portuguese. The invading army lay
across the Douro at Toro, a frontier fortress of Leon of fabulous
strength, and Ferdinand from Valladolid attempted to push them
back and was beaten. All Leon, and the plain of Castile as far as
Avila, looked at the mercy of the invaders. But the Portuguese was
slow of action, and at this critical juncture the splendid courage of
Isabel saved the situation.[27] Summoning Cortes at her city of
Medina, the centre of the cloth industry and the greatest mart for
bills of exchange in Europe, she appealed to their patriotism, their
loyalty, and their love. Her eloquent plea was irresistible. Money was
voted without stint, merchants and bankers unlocked their coffers,
churches sold their plate, and monasteries disinterred their hoards.
Aragonese troops marched in, Castilian levies came to the call of
their Queen, and by the end of 1475 Ferdinand was at the head of
an army strong enough to face the invaders. Isabel took her full
share of the military operations. On the 8th January 1476, she rode
out of Valladolid through terrible weather, in the coldest part of
Spain, to join Ferdinand’s half-brother, Alfonso, before Burgos. For
ten days the Queen travelled through the deep snowdrifts before she
reached the camp, to find that the city had already surrendered; and
on the evening of her arrival, in the gathering dusk, she entered the
city of the Cid, to be received by kneeling, silk-clad aldermen with
heads bowed for past transgressions, to be graciously pardoned by
the Queen. The pardon was hearty and prompt; for these, and such
Welcome to Our Bookstore - The Ultimate Destination for Book Lovers
Are you passionate about books and eager to explore new worlds of
knowledge? At our website, we offer a vast collection of books that
cater to every interest and age group. From classic literature to
specialized publications, self-help books, and children’s stories, we
have it all! Each book is a gateway to new adventures, helping you
expand your knowledge and nourish your soul
Experience Convenient and Enjoyable Book Shopping Our website is more
than just an online bookstore—it’s a bridge connecting readers to the
timeless values of culture and wisdom. With a sleek and user-friendly
interface and a smart search system, you can find your favorite books
quickly and easily. Enjoy special promotions, fast home delivery, and
a seamless shopping experience that saves you time and enhances your
love for reading.
Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and
personal growth!

ebookgate.com