scholarly journals James Petiver's ‘ Kind Friends ’ and ‘ Curious Persons ’ in the Atlantic World: commerce, colonialism and collecting

2019 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-274
Author(s):  
Kathleen Susan Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Spanish America ◽  
First Century ◽  
Commercial Activity ◽  
Natural Knowledge ◽  
Plantation Slavery ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean

In 1695, James Petiver concluded the first ‘century’ of his Musei Petiveriani by observing that he had received the specimens described within it from his ‘ Kind Friends from divers parts of the World’ and ‘ Curious Persons … Abroad’. This essay examines Petiver's network of such ‘Kind Friends’ and ‘Curious Persons’ in the Atlantic World. The composition of Petiver's network reflected many of the broader patterns of English commerce in the Atlantic at the turn of the eighteenth century. Moreover, England's growing overseas empire and its expanding commercial activity required a parallel expansion in maritime labour. Mariners were correspondingly central to Petiver's work as a naturalist and collector in the region. The importance of slavery and the slave trade to Atlantic economic and social structures meant that the naturalist relied on the institutions, infrastructures and individuals of the slave trade and plantation slavery. A social history of Petiver's Atlantic network reveals how the naturalist utilized the routes of commerce and colonialism to collect specimens, as well as to collect the correspondents who might provide them from West Africa, Spanish America, the Caribbean and mainland North America. It demonstrates the entangled histories of commerce, colonialism, collecting and the production of natural knowledge.

Atlantic Slavery and the Slave Trade: History and Historiography

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel B. Domingues da Silva ◽  
Philip Misevich
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Feminist Movement ◽  
Future Research ◽  
The Past ◽  
Plantation Slavery ◽  
Share Data ◽  
History Of ◽  
Methodological Approaches ◽  
Atlantic Slavery

Over the past six decades, the historiography of Atlantic slavery and the slave trade has shown remarkable growth and sophistication. Historians have marshalled a vast array of sources and offered rich and compelling explanations for these two great tragedies in human history. The survey of this vibrant scholarly tradition throws light on major theoretical and interpretive shifts over time and indicates potential new pathways for future research. While early scholarly efforts have assessed plantation slavery in particular on the antebellum United States South, new voices—those of Western women inspired by the feminist movement and non-Western men and women who began entering academia in larger numbers over the second half of the 20th century—revolutionized views of slavery across time and space. The introduction of new methodological approaches to the field, particularly through dialogue between scholars who engage in quantitative analysis and those who privilege social history sources that are more revealing of lived experiences, has conditioned the types of questions and arguments about slavery and the slave trade that the field has generated. Finally, digital approaches had a significant impact on the field, opening new possibilities to assess and share data from around the world and helping foster an increasingly global conversation about the causes, consequences, and integration of slave systems. No synthesis will ever cover all the details of these thriving subjects of study and, judging from the passionate debates that continue to unfold, interest in the history of slavery and the slave trade is unlikely to fade.

scholarly journals Slavery in Puritan New England

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-313
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Pleck
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Early America ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Extant Literature ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Staple Crops

Wendy Warren’s deeply researched New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America depends on investigation of handwritten texts rather than the several new databases about slavery and the slave trade. Warren has tracked down references in the extant literature and added research in unpublished court cases, wills, probate inventories, and private papers in New England as well in London. With her ability to convert a line or two in a court deposition or a will into an argument about the nature of New England slavery, Warren successfully circumvents the illegibility of the archive. The theme of this highly accessible study is how the immoral conjunction of cultivating staple crops for export and racialized slavery reshaped the entire Atlantic world, beginning with a fateful exchange of goods and people between the Caribbean and New England.

Spanish Folklore in the Southwest: The Pioneer Studies of Aurelio M. Espinosa

1978 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-237
Author(s):  
J. Manuel Espinosa
Keyword(s):  
New Mexico ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Spanish America ◽  
First Century ◽  
Old Spanish ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
History Of

The centuries-old Spanish folk heritage of our Southwest, and its many faceted and enduring influence on the cultural life of the region, has been written about from various rims of observation. This article describes the pioneer studies of Aurelio M. Espinosa on Spanish folklore in the Southwest, with special emphasis on northern New Mexico. Although he made important contributions to the study of Spanish folklore of southern Colorado, Arizona, and California, and to that of Spain, Mexico, and other parts of Spanish America as well, he devoted most of his research and field work to the upper half of New Mexico which is the richest field of Spanish folklore in the Southwest.In viewing the cultural history of New Mexico, Espinosa reminded his readers that its first century as a Spanish colony, the 17th, was the second great century of Spain's Golden Age of arts and letters. With the vigor of Spain's sense of mission in those centuries, her Golden Age radiated to all parts of Spanish America via Mexico City, Lima, and the other principal colonial capitals. At the same time, from the bookshelf and the store of knowledge of the humble missionary, and the folklore of the Spanish settlers, passed down from generation to generation, the spirit of the Golden Age was reflected on the most remote settled frontiers.

The Persistence of Mutual Influence: Europe and Latin America in the 1820s

2011 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 387-396 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Brown ◽  
Gabriel Paquette
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Mutual Influence ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Old World ◽  
History Of

The independence of Latin America from colonial rule in the first decades of the nineteenth century is generally held to have broken the bonds which had linked Europe to the Americas for three centuries. This article contends that a re-examination of the decade of the 1820s reveals the persistence, as well as the reconfiguration, of connections between the Old World and the New after the dissolution of the Iberian Atlantic monarchies. Some of these multi-faceted connections are introduced and explored, most notably commercial ties, intellectual and cultural influences, immigration, financial obligations, the slave trade and its suppression, and diplomatic negotiations. Recognition and appreciation of these connections has important consequences for our understandings of the history of the Atlantic World, the ‘Age of Revolutions’, and Latin American Independence itself.

Religion

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla Gardina Pestana
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Central Area ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
South Portugal

Religion shaped the early modern Atlantic world in many ways. Although Iberian expansion began before the Protestant Reformation, Europe soon divided between Protestant and Catholic, and this division created a context for European understandings of the purpose of expansion. With permission from the pope to evangelize outside the Old World, the Spanish and the Portuguese split the extra-European world between them; Spain was responsible for most of the Americas (excluding only the area that would become Brazil), while Portugal took Brazil and Africa (as well as Asia). Soon representatives of each kingdom were at work, conquering, colonizing, and evangelizing. Protestantism, although it arrived late in the contest for colonies and trade in this New World, was central to Spanish understanding of its work; evangelizing the native peoples of the Americas would add additional souls to the church, making up for those who had been lost to the Protestant Reformation. When Protestants finally became involved in colonizing the Americas and trading with Africa, they similarly understood their role as combating the reach and influence of their Catholic rivals. If in 1600 the European presence outside of Europe was overwhelmingly Catholic, by 1700 a map of the spread of Christianity showed varied results. Spain controlled the central area of the Americas, including much of South America and the Caribbean, all of Central America, and all the southern area of North America (from Florida and New Mexico south). Portugal had Brazil, while Catholic France held Quebec to the north and selected islands in the Caribbean. The Protestant presence was predominantly British, and included eastern North America between Quebec and Florida as well as some islands in the Caribbean. The Protestant Dutch also held island colonies and a South American outpost. West Africa and West Central Africa hosted trading forts controlled by most of these European powers, from which were shipped slaves as well as trade goods. The religious rivalries of early modern Europe had been effectively exported. Every faith represented along the shores of the Atlantic prior to contact would participate in the intermixing that occurred afterward. The history of religion in the Atlantic world therefore explores the variety of traditions within that world and the effects of the circulation, transplantation, and encounter of these various faiths.

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