The Atlantic World

THE ATLANTIC WORLD

1. European Exploration &

Settlement in the New World

2. Colonialism and Trade

3. The Atlantic Ocean in the 17th Century

The Caribbean Slave Trade

The Rise of Piracy

4. New England Colonial Maritime Industries

The Sacred Cod

Shipbuilding

Trade

5. The American Revolution

11 October 1492:

“They were greatly pleased, and were so friendly to us that it was

wonderful… and willingly gave what things they had. … They were very well

built with very handsome bodies, and very good faces. … They must be good

servants and intelligent, as I see that they very quickly repeat all that is said

to them, and I believe that they would easily become Christians, as it

appeared to me that they had no religion. If it please our Lord, at the time of

my departure, I will take six of them from here to your Highnesses that they

may learn to speak.”

14 October 1492:

“This people are very simple in matters of arms, as your Highnesses will see

by the seven which I took captive to be carried along and learn our speech

and then be returned to their country. But when your Highnesses order it,

all can be taken, and carried to Castile or held captives on the island itself,

because with 50 men all can be subjugated and made to do everything which

is desired.”

The Log of Christopher Columbus

First Depictions

of the EncounterCa. 1493

1621: “Insula Canibalium” (Cannibal Island)

FORMS OF CULTURAL ENCOUNTER1. TRADE DIASPORA: Merchants were nearly always a smallminority in the host society, but their need to trade forced them tolearn about the local culture … therefore enjoyed a cross-culturalexperience of unusual intensity. [In the 16th c., these becamemilitarized, with armed shipping and fortified trading posts.]

2. OUTRIGHT MILITARY CONQUEST AND RULE OVERAN ALIEN SOCIETY: The number of Europeans required torun a true empire overseas rarely amounted to as much as fivepercent of the total population. The local communities remainedintact and retained much of their culture, even after centuries.

3. “SETTLEMENT EMPIRE” or “TRUE COLONIZATION”:Natives die in encounter or are pushed aside. (British in N.Am.)

5. “PLURAL SOCIETIES”: Where two or more culturalcommunities exist within a single society.

4. THE PLANTATION COMPLEX: Europeans conqueredand then replaced the vanishing native people with settlers—butnot settlers from Europe.

Philip Curtin, 13-15

Whosever commands the sea

commands the trade;

whosever commands the trade

commands the riches of the

world, and consequently the

world itself.

Sir Walter Raleigh, ca. 1600

DEVELOPING ATLANTIC TRADE:

First: Exploit the resources you already know:

a. gold

b. silver

c. pearls

d. fish and timber

Second: Go “bio-prospecting” for potentially

valuable new products (medicinals, cochineal,

tobacco).

Third: Develop plantations of valuable old world

plants in this more convenient location. (Columbus

brought sugar on his second voyage).

Alfred Crosby, The Colmbian Exchange

Bioprospecting

and

Native Guides

Londa Schiebinger, Plants

and Empire: Colonial

Bioprospecting in the

Atlantic World

Naples pharmacist Ferrante Imperato (1550-1625)

formed one of Europe’s first natural history research

collections.

1658

Linnaeus’ Pharmacopoea, 1749

Cochineal Production in Mexico:Amy Greenfield, A Perfect Red: Empire,

Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire

THE ATLANTIC WORLD

1. European Exploration &

Settlement in the New World

2. Colonialism and Trade

3. The Atlantic Ocean in the 17th Century

The Caribbean Slave Trade

The Rise of Piracy

What do Europeans need to succeed in the New World?

A. Technology

B. Labor

C. Markets

17th century illustrations of progress in the plantations

THE PLANTATION SYSTEM1. Most of the productive labor was forced labor; most peoplewere slaves.

2. The population was not self-sustaing. Neither the Europeanmanagerial staff nor the African work force produced an excessof births over deaths.

3. The agricultural enterprise was organized in large-scalecapitalist plantations [with a single crop], far larger in scalethan that of European agriculture of the time.

5. The plantations were created to supply a distant market witha highly specialized product.

6. Political control over the system lay on another continent andin another kind of society.

4. The plantations also had certain features that can be calledfeudal. Specifically, the owner not only controlled his workforce during working hours, he also had, at least de facto, someform of legal jurisdiction.

Philip Curtin, 11-12

1789

Treaties with Spain/Portugal

France, 1598

England, 1604

Netherlands, 1609

Lasted until the 1690’s

Philip Curtin,

The Rise and Fall of the Plantation System, p. 88

New England Maritime

Interests in the

17th and 18th centuries

• Fisheries

• Shipbuilding

• Mercantile Trade

• Roots of the American Revolution

Alfred Crosby, The Columbian Exchange:Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492

““The impact of the Encounter is so massiveThe impact of the Encounter is so massivethat we should consider it with the samethat we should consider it with the samesense of scale as we do events connectedsense of scale as we do events connectedwith the endings and beginnings of thewith the endings and beginnings of thegeological periods and eras and theirgeological periods and eras and theirinfluence on the direction of evolution oninfluence on the direction of evolution onthe planet. the planet. …… The Encounter is the most The Encounter is the mostinfluential event that has taken place oninfluential event that has taken place onthis planet since the retreat of thethis planet since the retreat of thecontinental glaciers, and we must pay it itscontinental glaciers, and we must pay it itsproper due.proper due.””

EXPLORER JEOPARDY

First European to Cross the Atlantic to the Americas

St. Brendan the Navigator6th Century

First European to Cross the Atlantic to the Americas

Traveled the “Silk Road” from VeniceTo the Court of Kublai Khan

Portuguese Prince Who Sponsored Numerous Voyages along the African Coast

First European around the “Cape of Storms”(a.k.a. The Cape of Good Hope)

First European to see “The Indies” by Sea

First European on the New England Coast

Sees the Great Pacific with Spanish Eyes

Goes farther than Columbus and gets Two Continents Named After Him

First Circumnavigator

First European to Cross the Atlantic to the Americas

Leif Eriksonca. 1000

Christopher Columbus, 1492(First of Four Voyages)

Marco Polo1271

Henry “The Navigator”1394-1460

Bartholomeu Dias, 1487

Vasco de Gama, 1497

John Cabot, 1497

Ferdinand Magellan. 1519

Amerigo Vespucci1499, 1501

Vasco Nunez de Balboa1500

Dr. MalloyDr. Malloy’’ s Patented Memory Elixirs Patented Memory Elixir

1492: First Voyage of Columbus

+5: Vasco da Gama

+5: John Cabot

+30: Magellan+50: Cabrillo in California

-5: Bartholomeu Dias (1487)

-200: Marco Polo (1271)

-500: Leif Erikson, Crusades (ca. 1000)

-1000: Mediterranean & Indian Ocean Trade,Arctic Peoples, Coastal, Pacific

A Document-Based Curriculumof Caribbean Cultural and

Environmental History

Mary Malloy, Ph.D.Sea Education AssociationWoods Hole, Massachusetts

1. The Log of Columbus, 1492

2. The Charter of the Dutch West India Company, 1629

3. Map from Sloane’s Natural History of Jamaica, 1707

4. Documents of the Slave Trade

a. Diagram of the Slave Ship Brookes, 1788

b. Correspondence of the Atkins Family, 1885

5. “Piracies on the Commerce of the United States in the West

Indies, Communicated to the House of Representatives,

December 16, 1824”

6. Schedules of the United Fruit Company’s “Great White

Fleet,” 1901 and 1912

7. “Assessment of the Economic Impact of

Climate Change on CARICOM Countries, 2002”

SOURCES:Crosby, Alfred, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequencesof 1492 (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1972).

Curtin, Philip. The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex (Cambridge University Press,

1998).

Greenfield, Amy Butler. A Perfect Red : Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color

of Desire (New York: Harper Collins, 2005).

Impey, Oliver and Arthur MacGregor, eds. The Origins of Museums: The Cabinet of

curiosities in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-century Europe (Oxford and New York: Oxford

University Press,!1985).

John Carter Brown Library Digital Image Archive

Roggeveen, Arent. The Burning Fen (Amsterdam: 1675)

Schiebinger, Londa. Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World

(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004).

Schiebinger, Londa and Claudia Swan. Colonial Botany: Science, Commerce, and Politics

in theEarly Modern World (Philadelphia: U. of PA Press, 2004).

Smith, Bradley. Mexico: A History in Art (New York, 1968)