This paper examines the use of investigative commissions as a tool of statecraft in the emerging empire of the Danish Oldenburg monarchs across the Atlantic World and Asia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Research on these commissions remains fragmented and confined to national narratives where they have been regarded as abnormal and atypical, leaving their significance understated and largely unexplored. While their mandates were extraordinary and circumstantial, archival evidence suggests that the absolutist Oldenburg monarchs employed these commissions more systematically across disparate territories and legal jurisdictions. Many of them wielded judiciary powers and investigated a range of issues from corrupt officeholders to riots and revolts. Though their hearings could create a spectacle, the secretive nature of their work meant the state could protect any potential lapses of its absolutist administration while simultaneously checking the power of its officeholders. Moreover, they served as vital intelligence tools prompting the issuing of major decrees and ordinances.
Moving beyond the artificial barriers of the modern nation-state and focusing on the contemporary boundaries of empire, this paper argues that the formation and governance of the Danish Oldenburg State and its emerging colonial empire cannot be fully understood without establishing the role of these commissions within government and the judiciary. In doing so, it contributes to a broader reassessment of state formation, absolutism, and the varied governance of early modern empires. The empirical evidence consists of documents created and obtained by commissioners from unique cross-sections of different societies across this empire, creating unique opportunities to better understand center-periphery relations, the autonomy of local officeholders, and the popular contention of subjects in the early modern period.
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