Atlantic History

The field of Atlantic history analyzes the Atlantic Ocean and its four adjoining continents as a single unit of historical analysis. The field is a style of inquiry as much as it is a study of a geographic region. It is an approach that emphasizes connections and circulations, and its practitioners tend to de-emphasize political borders in their interest in exploring the experiences of people whose lives were transformed by their location within this large region. The field’s focus is the period from c. 1450 to 1900, but important debates about periodization reflect the challenges of writing a history that has no single geographic vantage point yet strives to be as inclusive as possible. The history of the United States intersects with Atlantic history in multiple ways, although the fields are neither parallel nor coterminous. Assessing the topics of slavery and citizenship, as they developed in the United States and around the Atlantic, demonstrate the potential advantages of this broader perspective on US history. Although the field emphasizes the early modern era, legacies of Atlantic history pervade the modern world, and individuals and institutions continue to struggle to understand all of the ways these legacies shape legal, social, economic, cultural, and political practices in the first decades of the 21st century.

Anti-Catholicism and Anti-Popery

It is hard to overestimate the extent to which anti-Catholicism structured the Atlantic world. As much as Catholicism itself was a transatlantic force (see the separate Oxford Bibliographies in Atlantic History article “Catholicism” by Allyson M. Poska), the counter-response to Catholicism had a pervasive influence, especially in the Protestant-dominated North Atlantic (see “Protestantism” by Carla Gardina Pastana). It was, as Chris Beneke and Christopher Grenda have observed, “nimble and ubiquitous” (The First Prejudice, p. 15). The past decade has witnessed significant growth in the scholarship on anti-Catholicism. The most important overall advancement is our growing understanding that anti-Catholicism was more than just a knee-jerk prejudice. It was a complex, varied, and protean phenomenon that warrants close analysis. To a great degree, the growing sophistication of the historiography on anti-Catholicism across the Atlantic basin builds on the work of historians of early modern England and Britain, who have been carefully documenting and analyzing the phenomenon since the 1970s. Because this work is relatively narrow in its geographic scope—often limited to a particular county or region, individual, group, or theme—it is not covered here; but this historiography has been hugely important in providing a foundation for the works that are represented. The bibliography covers scholarship on anti-Catholicism from the 17th through the 20th centuries with a necessary focus on the North Atlantic world. It pays special attention to the British context not only because the literature is most developed for that region but also because it was the British who were most responsible for transferring anti-Catholic ideas, identities, institutions, and policies across the ocean. That said, historical examination of anti-Catholicism in the Dutch world is growing and is thus represented here as well. Overall, the works were selected either for their influence on studies of anti-Catholicism in the Atlantic world in various times and places, or because they adopt a wide geographical lens and deal directly with the Atlantic dimensions of anti-Catholicism. Indeed, one of the trends in the historiography is a shift from early modern and nation-centric studies to transnational investigations that include the 19th and 20th centuries (scholarship on the 18th century, while growing, still lags somewhat behind the early modern and 19th-century literature.) Other trends include efforts to distinguish anti-Catholicism from its closely related corollary, anti-Popery, and to explore the relationship between them; growing calls for interdisciplinary approaches to the study of anti-Catholicism; analysis of cross-fertilization of various forms of anti-Catholicism evident in the Atlantic world; and a commitment to studying how those targeted by anti-Catholicism navigated the systemic oppression it created.

Angra do Heroísmo, Azores, Portugal. World Heritage City: An invitation to Cultural Tourism

The city of Angra, whose name derives from the small cove that serves as its port, is the oldest one in the Azores Archipelago, Portugal. It is located on the southern coast of Terceira Island and has this category by letter of D. João III of 21st August 1534. From the beginning, the importance of its port for the Atlantic navigation and as a scale of the designated India’s Career led chronicler Gaspar Frutuoso, by the end of the 16th century, to call it the ‘Western Ocean Sea Scale’. Alongside a significant role in the Atlantic History, the city also played an active part in the History of Portugal. On January 1st, 1980 it was shaken by a violent earthquake. In the process of reconstruction, the strict orthogonal layout of the streets was maintained, and the richness of its buildings was preserved. Recognizing the value of the architectural complex of this historic city center and its site as very relevant to the History of European empires, in 1984 UNESCO classified Angra do Heroísmo as a World Heritage City. Given this classification, it intended, with this work, to contribute to the knowledge of the city, not only for its historical-heritage significance, but also as a destination for Cultural Tourism, which is desirable to develop, in the Azores, as a complement of Nature Tourism.

Introduction

The word coartación was applied to that existential interval between slavery and freedom, and to be effective it required more or less kindly masters who ultimately kept their word. Once this route toward freedom was codified into law, it immediately became the subject of intense debate in Atlantic history. In this book, we argue that coartación generated income for the owner, encouraged productivity, and created a submission situation fed by the expectations that had been created in the slave. To demonstrate these ineffective levels of coartación, we use a qualitative approach that relies on slaves’ claims, often of a complaining nature, and that focuses on the modifications of the tradition regarding this variant of manumission. Ultimately, we aim to demonstrate that coartación laws were not followed in practice, and that as time went by, the process of coartación increasingly turned into a battleground between the enslaved who aspired to be free and those who owned them and wanted to keep a certain degree of control over the mechanisms that guaranteed a road to freedom.

Art and Artists

The conceptual framework of Atlantic history calls for a nuanced understanding of the designations “art” and “artist.” As self-evident as these terms might seem, they are in fact dynamic categories whose meanings have shifted—and continue to shift—in response to historical circumstances. Awareness of the historiography of these terms helps to clarify their past use and current meanings in relation to Atlantic history. Abiding within the terms art and artist are associations with Eurocentric concepts like originality, masterpiece, and genius. This is no surprise. The study of art as a distinct field of history emerged in Europe in the 18th century, and the resulting discipline of art history encoded Enlightenment assumptions regarding the superiority of certain social institutions, cultural forms, and kinds of knowledge. As a category of cultural artifact, art was ascribed a primarily aesthetic function that could be appreciated by all viewers, regardless of cultural origin. The problem with this understanding of art was its internal contradiction: to exist, “art” depends simultaneously on highly subjective judgments about aesthetic merit and on claims of universality. Historically, reliance on this understanding of art excluded the visual and material culture of non-Europeans, including indigenous peoples, from art historical valuation. Constraints imposed by the term “artist” were similar. Conventionally applied to individuals engaged in the deliberate production of objects recognized for their primarily aesthetic value, the category “artist” was closed to those working outside a specifically Western and modern cultural economy. Consideration of art and artists within the context of Atlantic history has provided an opportunity to re-examine these categories. In the early 21st century, most scholars of Atlantic history use the terms art and artist inclusively, without implying aesthetic judgment or intent. Those seeking to distance themselves further from historical prejudices may rely instead on such terms as “visual culture” and “maker” in place of “art” and “artist.” Rather than dispensing with the terms art and artist, this article proceeds from the belief that these concepts retain historiographic usefulness. Strangeness is an inevitable part of cultural encounter, and so is commensurability. To highlight the importance of interconnectedness for the study of art and artists in Atlantic history, this article is organized around networks of cultural exchange, encounter, and exploitation.