Beavers, Silks, and Leveller Indians: Reading the Atlantic World in the Writings of William Walwyn.

This article reframes the Leveller leader William Walwyn in an Atlantic context. Through a combination of historical, biographical, and textual analysis, the importance of expanding English colonial trade becomes clear for understanding Walwyn's political thought. "Beavers, Silks, and Leveller Indians" engages two pamphlets written by Walwyn in the early 1640s, Some Considerations (1642) and The Power of Love (1643), alongside the cloth merchant's political connections to a circle of entrepreneurial New World traders. By tracing the rhetorical functions of Atlantic referents in Walwyn's texts, this article attempts to make a small contribution toward desegregating domestic and colonial early modern English history, culture, and literary criticism. The English civil wars were not merely a national or even three-kingdom affair. They were part of a pivotal moment in the development of global capitalist imperialism. The early material, ideological, and textual consequences of this transformation can be studied in Walwyn's prose. This article reframes the Leveller leader William Walwyn in an Atlantic context. Through a combination of historical, biographical, and textual analysis, the importance of expanding English colonial trade becomes clear for understanding Walwyn's political thought. "Beavers, Silks, and Leveller Indians" engages two pamphlets written by Walwyn in the early 1640s, Some Considerations (1642) and The Power of Love (1643), alongside the cloth merchant's political connections to a circle of entrepreneurial New World traders. By tracing the rhetorical functions of Atlantic referents in Walwyn's texts, this article attempts to make a small contribution towards desegregating domestic and colonial early modern English history, culture, and literary criticism. The English civil wars were not merely a national or even three-kingdom affair. They were part of a pivotal moment in the development of global capitalist imperialism. The early material, ideological, and textual consequences of this transformation can be studied in Walwyn's prose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]