Atlantic World

The Atlantic World comprises the interactions among the peoples and empires bordering the Atlantic Ocean rim from the beginning of the Age of Discovery (from an indigenous point of view the Age of Invasion) to the early 21st century. Atlantic history is split between three different contexts. transatlantic history, meaning the international history of the atlantic world, circum-atlantic history meaning the transnational history of the atlantic world, and cis-atlantic history within an atlantic context. The Atlantic slave trade continued into the 19th century, but the international trade was largely outlawed in 1807 by Britain. Slavery ended in 1865 in the United States and in the 1880s in Brazil (1888) and Cuba (1886). While some scholars stress that the history of the 'Atlantic world' culminates in the 'Atlantic Revolutions' of the late 18th century and early 19th century , the most influential research in the field examines the slave trade and the study of slavery, thus in the late-ninetennth century terminus as part of the transition from Atlantic history to globalization seems most appropriate. The Atlantic World comprises the interactions among the peoples and empires bordering the Atlantic Ocean rim from the beginning of the Age of Discovery (from an indigenous point of view the Age of Invasion) to the early 21st century. Atlantic history is split between three different contexts. transatlantic history, meaning the international history of the atlantic world, circum-atlantic history meaning the transnational history of the atlantic world, and cis-atlantic history within an atlantic context. The Atlantic slave trade continued into the 19th century, but the international trade was largely outlawed in 1807 by Britain. Slavery ended in 1865 in the United States and in the 1880s in Brazil (1888) and Cuba (1886). While some scholars stress that the history of the 'Atlantic world' culminates in the 'Atlantic Revolutions' of the late 18th century and early 19th century , the most influential research in the field examines the slave trade and the study of slavery, thus in the late-ninetennth century terminus as part of the transition from Atlantic history to globalization seems most appropriate. The historiography of the Atlantic World, known as Atlantic history, has grown enormously since the 1990s. The Atlantic World comprises the histories of Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Travel over land was difficult and expensive, so settlements were made along the coast, especially where rivers allowed small boats to travel inland. Distant settlements were linked by elaborate sea-based trading networks. Since the easiest and cheapest way of long-distance travel was by sea, international trading networks emerged in the Atlantic world, with major hubs at London, Amsterdam, Boston, and Havana. Time was a factor, as sailing ships averaged about 2 knots speed (50 miles a day). Navigators had to rely on maps of currents or they would be becalmed for days or weeks. These maps were not only for navigational purposes however, but also as a way to give insight in regards to power and ownership of lands that had already been claimed, essentially creating a greater desire to finding new routes and land. One major goal for centuries was finding the Northwest Passage (through what is now Canada) from Europe to Asia. Given the scope of Atlantic history it has tended to downplay the singular influence of the voyages of Columbus and to focus more on growing interactions among African and European polities (ca 1450-1500), including contact and conflict in the Mediterranean and Atlantic islands, as critical to the emergence of the Atlantic World. Awareness of the Atlantic World, of course, spiked post-1492: after the earliest European voyages to the New World and continuing encounters on the African coast, a Euro-centric division of the Atlantic was proclaimed between the Spanish Empire and the Portuguese Empire by the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. The West Coast and Central Africa, which are distinct from one another and each made up of many competing polities, played core roles in shaping the Atlantic World and as major sources for slave labor. An elaborate network of economic, geopolitical and cultural exchange took shape—an 'Atlantic World' comparable to the 'Mediterranean World.' It linked the nations and peoples that inhabited the Atlantic litoral of North and South America, the Caribbean, Africa and Europe. The main empires that built the Atlantic world were the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch; entrepreneurs from the United States played a role as well after 1789. Other countries, such as Sweden and Denmark, were active on a smaller scale. The beginning of extensive contact between Europe, Africa, and the Americas had sweeping implications for the environmental and demographic history of all the regions involved. In the process known as the Columbian Exchange, numerous plants, animals, and diseases were transplanted—both deliberately and inadvertently—from one continent to another. The epidemiological impact of this exchange on the indigenous peoples of the Americas was profound, causing very high death rates and population declines of 50% to 90% or even 100%. European and African immigrants also had very high death rates on their arrival, but they could be and were replaced by new shipments of immigrants (see the Population history of American indigenous peoples). Many foods that are common in present-day Europe, including corn (maize) and potatoes, originated in the New World and were unknown in Europe before the sixteenth century. Similarly, some staple crops of present-day West Africa, including cassava and peanuts, originated in the New World. Some of the staple crops of Latin America, such as coffee and sugarcane, were introduced by European settlers in the course of the Columbian Exchange. The slave trade played a role in the history of the Atlantic world almost from the beginning. As European powers began to conquer and claim large territories in the Americas in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the role of chattel slavery and other forced labor systems in the development of the Atlantic world expanded. European powers typically had vast territories that they wished to exploit through agriculture, mining, or other extractive industries, but they lacked the work force that they needed to exploit their lands effectively. Consequently, they turned to a variety of coercive labor systems to meet their needs. At first the goal was to use native workers. Native Americans were employed through Indian slavery and through the Spanish system of encomienda. Indian labor was not effective on a large scale for complex reasons (e.g., high death rates and relative ease of escape to Native communities), so plantation owners turned to African slaves via the Atlantic slave trade. European workers arrived as indentured servants or transported felons who went free after a term of labor. In short, the Atlantic World was one of widespread inequality where the exploitation of human labor provided the foundation for a small handful of elites to reap enormous profits. The Trans-Atlantic Slave trade played a massive role in shaping the demographics of the Americas, especially in areas where huge plantations were the norm, such as in Brazil and the Caribbean. Roughly three quarters of immigrants to the Americas before 1820 were African, and more than half of these Africans were originally from West or Central Africa. In Brazil, the population percentage of Africans was even higher, with about seven African to every one Portuguese immigrant. Because there was such a large population of Africans, it is unsurprising that African slaves aided in shaping the culture of these regions. In the early colonial period, there was a high prevalence of African spiritual practices, such as spirit possessions and healing practices. Presumably, these practices served as a point of connection and as an identity hold for slaves hailing from the same African origin. Such cultural practices allowed, at least to an extent, African slaves to maintain kinship structures similar to those that they might have seen in their homeland. In many cases, European authorities viewed spiritual positions that were highly esteemed in African societies to be socially unacceptable, morally corrupt, and heretical. This led to the disappearance or transformation of most African religious practices. For example, the practice of consulting kilundu, or Angolan spirits, was seen as homosexual by Portuguese authorities, a clear example of Eurocentrism in colonial societies, as European ideas of religion often did not match African ones. Unfortunately, there is a lack of documents written from the African point of view, so almost all information from this time period in these colonial societies is subject to cross-cultural misinterpretation, omission of facts, or other such changes that could affect the quality of description of African spiritual practices. Maintaining the integrity of cultural practices was difficult due to disagreement with European propriety and European tendency to generalize the African demographic makeup to merely “Central African,” rather than acknowledging individual cultures. Eventually, most African traditions such as Kilundu, which was ultimately reduced to the popular Brazilian dance “Lundu,” were either absorbed into other African traditions or reduced to a ritual simply resembling the original tradition. The extent of voluntary immigration to the Atlantic world varied considerably by region, nationality, and time period. Many European nations, particularly the Netherlands and France, only managed to send a few thousand voluntary immigrants. Though 15,000 or so who came to New France multiplied rapidly. In New Netherland, the Dutch coped by recruiting immigrants of other nationalities. In New England, the massive Puritan migration of the first half of the seventeenth century created a large free workforce and thus obviated the need to use unfree labor on a large scale. Colonial New England's reliance on the labor of free men, women, and children, organized in individual farm households, is called the yeoman or household labor system. There is an important distinction to be made between 'societies with slaves,' such as colonial New England, and 'slave societies,' where slavery was so central that it can properly be said to define all aspects of life in that region.