This anthology addresses and analyses the transformation of interconnected spaces and spatial entanglements in the Atlantic rim during the era of the slave trade by focusing on the Danish possessions on the Gold Coast and their Caribbean islands of Saint Thomas, Saint Jan and Saint Croix as well as on the Swedish Caribbean island of Saint Barthélemy. The first part of the anthology addresses aspects of interconnectedness in West Africa, in particular the relationship between Africans and Danes on the Gold Coast. The second part of this volume examines various aspects of interconnectedness, creolisation and experiences of Danish and Swedish slave rules in the Caribbean. *Ports of Globalisationis now available in paperback for individual customers.

Traces the maritime routes and the historical networks that link port cities around the Atlantic world Port Cities of the Atlantic World brings together a collection of essays that examine the centuries-long transatlantic transportation of people, goods, and ideas with a focus on the impact of that trade on what would become the American South. Employing a wide temporal range and broad geographic scope, the scholars contributing to this volume call for a sea-facing history of the South, one that connects that terrestrial region to this expansive maritime history. By bringing the study up to the 20th century in the collection's final section, the editors Jacob Steere-Williams and Blake C. Scott make the case for the lasting influence of these port cities—and Atlantic world history—on the economy, society, and culture of the contemporary South.

The Scandinavian Early Modern World explores the early modern colonialism, globalization, and modernity in Scandinavia, along with its colonies, and its role in the shaping of the modern world. Scandinavians played an active role in early modern globalization and were present as traders, as colonialists, and as consumers in competition and collaboration with indigenous agents and other colonial actors in America, Africa, and India. This story is rarely told. The joint study of history, historical landscape, and material culture, from a Scandinavian vantage point, provides for a comprehensive and original interpretation of the birth of globalization and modernity. New perspectives and data are presented, deepening and challenging our knowledge of the long seventeenth century. In-depth analysis of case studies, encompassing four continents and their material entanglement, makes this book a unique contribution to historical archaeology. The Scandinavian Early Modern World aims at students and scholars of anthropology, archaeology, and history, alike, taking interest in the global connections of the long seventeenth century and the role of Scandinavia in that process.

This book provides a much-needed comparative approach to the history of cities by investigating the dissemination of cultural forms between cities of the Atlantic world. The contributors attend to the various forms and norms of cultural representation in Atlantic history, examining a wealth of diverse topics such as the Portuguese Atlantic; the Spanish Empire; Guy Fawkes and the conspiratorial rhetoric of slaves; Albert-Charles Wulffleff and the Parc-Musée of Dakar; and the writings of Jane Austen, Alexis de Tocqueville, Benjamin Franklin, and others. By interpreting Atlantic urban history through sustained attention to customs and representational forms, an international group of nine contributors demonstrate the power of culture in the making of Atlantic urban experience, even as they acknowledge the harsh realities of economic history.

This dissertation challenges the conventional narrative of Danish colonial history by critiquing the predominant reliance on textual records and archives as primary carriers of historical knowledge. Through case studies focused on landscape and landscaping practices, it offers an alternative approach to understanding the past by actively engaging with material heritage in what is conceptualized as a vibrant archive. Utilizing interdisciplinary and practice-led methodologies, from cultural and memory studies to ecocriticism, the research examines and engages with colonial history through case studies in dialog with contemporary interlocutors. Emphasizing the dynamic nature of landscapes as vibrant archives-in-the-making, building on Jane Bennett’s concept of vibrant matter, the dissertation underscores their capacity to both shape and be shaped by diverse actors and forces. This perspective prioritizes ethical considerations in preserving and interpreting cultural heritage, aiming to foster inclusivity and resilience in shaping future landscapes. As landscapes embody multiple pasts that transcend national borders, they reveal a global network of interconnected material heritage. However, prevailing historical understandings often prioritize certain discursive national formations, limiting a comprehensive grasp of global connectivity. By exploring contemporary investments in constructing new relational pasts, the dissertation seeks to broaden the analytical scope and challenge such dominant narratives. Through an exploration of colonial trauma and the enduring impacts of historical violence, the research delves into the entangled relationships between past, present, and future. Additionally, the dissertation investigates the role of sound recordings in creating immersive narratives and enhancing the communication of findings, offering insights into preservation efforts, cultural revitalization projects, and community-led initiatives in a contemporary context. Throughout the research, there is a consistent advocacy for a more just and inclusive approach to caring for the colonial archive within the context of colonial exploitation and ecological crisis. This emphasis on interconnectedness across social, environmental, and cultural dynamics highlights the urgent need to reckon with colonial legacies to promote social and environmental justice. Denna avhandling utmanar den konventionella berättelsen om dansk kolonialhistoria genom att kritisera den rådande särställning som skrivna dokument och arkiv har i förmedlingen av historisk kunskap. Via fallstudier som fokuserar på landskap och landskapspraktiker erbjuder den ett alternativt tillvägagångssätt för att förstå det förflutna genom att aktivt engagera sig med materiellt arv i det som konceptualiseras som ett vibrerande arkiv. Med hjälp av tvärvetenskapliga och praxisbaserade metoder, från kultur- och minnesstudier till ekokritik, undersöks kolonialhistorien i fallstudier i dialog med samtida samtalspartner. Genom att betona landskapens dynamiska natur som vibrerande arkiv under uppbyggnad, med utgångspunkt i Jane Bennetts begrepp vibrerande materia, framhåller avhandlingen deras förmåga att både forma och formas av olika aktörer och krafter. Detta perspektiv lyfter fram etiska överväganden i bevarandet och tolkningen av kulturellt arv, med målet att främja inkludering och resiliens i utformningen av framtida landskap. Eftersom landskap förkroppsligar flera skepnader av det förflutna som överskrider nationsgränser, vittnar de om ett globalt nätverk av sammanlänkat materiellt arv. Emellertid betonar rådande historiska förståelser ofta vissa diskursiva nationella formationer, vilket begränsar en heltäckande förståelse av en global sammanlänkning. Genom att utforska samtida ansatser att konstruera det förflutna som multipelt och relationellt, strävar avhandlingen efter att bredda den analytiska ramen och utmana sådana dominerande berättelser. Koloniala trauman och de bestående effekterna av historiskt våld utforskas, vilket leder till en fördjupad förståelse av de sammanflätade relationerna mellan förflutet, nutid och framtid. Dessutom undersöker avhandlingen ljudinspelningars roll i att skapa immersiva berättelser och förbättra kommunikationen av forskningsresultat, och erbjuder insikter i bevarandeinsatser, kulturella revitaliseringsprojekt och samhällsledda initiativ i en samtida kontext. Genomgående förespråkas i avhandlingen ett mer rättvist och inkluderande tillvägagångssätt när det gäller omsorgen om det koloniala arkivet inom ramen för kolonial exploatering och ekologisk kris. Denna betoning på sammanlänkning av sociala, miljömässiga och kulturella dynamiker framhäver det akuta behovet av att hantera det koloniala arvet för att främja social och miljömässig rättvisa.

A history of imperial competition, colonial cooperation, and revolutionary currents in the maritime borderlands of the early nineteenth-century Caribbean.

Kananoja demonstrates how medical interaction in early modern Atlantic Africa was characterised by continuous knowledge exchange between Africans and Europeans.

Long regarded as disturbing remnants of the Atlantic slave trade, the European forts and castles of West Africa have attained iconic positions as universally significant historical monuments and world heritage tourist destinations. This volume of original contributions by leading Africanists presents extensive new historical views of the forts in Ghana and Benin, providing both impetus and a scholarly basis for further research and fresh debate about their historical and geographical contexts; their role in the slave trade; the economic and political connections, centred on the forts, between the Europeans and local African polities; and their place in variously focused heritage studies and endeavours. Contributors are Hermann W. von Hesse, Daniel Hopkins, Jon Olav Hove, Ole Justesen, Ineke van Kessel, Robin Law, John Kwadwo Osei-Tutu, Jarle Simensen, Selena Axelrod Winsnes†, Larry Yarak.

*** Danish Historical Society Award Winner (2018) “Historical research result of the year” *** Mutiny in the Danish Atlantic World discusses how the storytelling of the lower classes shaped antagonisms and struggles for agency in the early modern Atlantic. It takes a mutiny carried out by a group of convicts and sailors on board a Danish ship, the Merman, in 1683 as its central case study. En route to Denmark's Caribbean colony of St. Thomas, the mutineers seized the ship, murdered the captain and six others and elected a former convict as their new leader. This event brought the West India Company to the brink of destruction and changed the course of the fledgling Danish maritime empire forever. Arguing that the mutiny on the Merman was informed by stories and rumour that circulated on both sides of the Atlantic and echoed on the lower deck of the ship itself, Johan Heinsen explores the role of such stories in the social worlds of early modern colonialism. He argues that sites such as ships, colonies and even prisons resonated with words, paying particular attention to how such storytelling created bonds and enabled action. In making the point that historians should pay careful attention to the power of the words of colonial and maritime lower class subjects, Heinsen draws on comparable cases across the early modern seas. Heinsen's study brings the Danish Empire to a new Anglophone audience, expanding our knowledge of the Atlantic world. It brings a fascinating new perspective to topics such as the history of penal transportation, coerced labour and historiographies of storytelling and rumour, making it an important book for students and scholars of Atlantic, maritime, imperial and global labour history.

The tumult of the Age of Atlantic Revolutions provided new opportunities for free communities of color in the Caribbean, yet the fact that much scholarship places an emphasis on a few remarkable individuals—who pursued their freedom and respectability in a high-profile manner—can mask as much as it reveals. Scholarship on these individuals focuses on themes of mobility and resilience, and can overlook more subversive motives, underrepresent individuals who remained in communities, and elide efforts by some to benefit from racial hierarchies. In these free communities, displays of social, cultural, and symbolic capitals often reinforced systemic continuity and complicated revolutionary-era tensions among the long-free, enslaved, and recently-freed. This book contains seven fascinating studies, which examine Haiti, Caracas, Cartagena, Charleston, Jamaica, France, the Netherlands Antilles, and the Swedish Caribbean. They explore how free communities of color deployed religion, literature, politics, fashion, the press, history, and the law in the Atlantic to defend their status, and at times define themselves against more marginalized groups in a rapidly changing world. This volume demonstrates that problems of belonging, difference, and hierarchy were central to the operation of Caribbean colonies. Without recalibrating scholarship to focus on this, we risk underappreciating how the varied motivations and ambitions of free people of color shaped the decline of empires and the formation of new states. This book was originally published as a special issue of Atlantic Studies.