Oceanic History
- LAST REVIEWED: 28 December 2022
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 May 2016
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0043
- LAST REVIEWED: 28 December 2022
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 May 2016
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0043
Introduction
Oceanic history—specified here as the maritime history of the Atlantic—provides an overall frame of reference for European overseas commercial expansion between Columbus’s discovery of America and the Napoleonic Wars. Statesmen, bureaucrats, scientists, shipowners, and merchants from Britain, the Netherlands, France, Spain, and Portugal were the main players in the navigation, charting, and exploration of oceanic routes. Their endeavors underpinned the migration of thousands of Europeans to the New World in the early modern era and the establishment of settler colonies in the Americas. Many historians have contributed to the study of oceanic history in relation to these themes in the history of the Atlantic world. Some historians have been genuinely interdisciplinary in their investigations, drawing upon a range of methodologies to illuminate the history of chart making, navigation, and exploration and the ideas that promoted colonization. Other scholars, however, have plowed narrower furrows with the unfortunate result that important aspects of oceanic history—notably navigation and cartography—are sometimes examined without contextual reference to mainstream historical investigations. With the early 21st-century emphasis on transnational history and on Atlantic history as important fields of historical enquiry, more sophisticated, holistic considerations of oceanic maritime history have been published, as evidenced by recent books mentioned in this entry.
General Overviews
Oceanic history is a vast historical field, even when confined just to the Atlantic. Only a few authoritative studies deal with the full range of European interaction with the Atlantic maritime world. Some of these are fairly old books. More recent publications (like much work in Atlantic history) have been written by multiple authors with diverse specialties and language proficiencies. Butel 1999 covers this subject in its entirety, but it is very much a first, brave attempt by an experienced historian to analyze the varied history of the Atlantic. Parry 1974 is readable and reliable on the purely maritime aspects of Atlantic colonization. Davis 1973 is still the first port of call for an introduction to the economic history of the white Atlantic—he largely omits Africa—in the early modern period. Parry 1966, Boxer 1965, and Disney 2009 are good overviews of particular European nations and their voyaging and colonies. Quinn 1974 examines English voyages of exploration to North America in the 16th century. Kearney 2004 provides some relevant comparisons of the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans. Kupperman 2012 offers a more recent overview of the societies created by European colonizers across the Atlantic in the early modern period.
Boxer, C. R. The Dutch Seaborne Empire, 1600–1800. London: Hutchinson, 1965.
Traces Dutch sea power over a period when the Netherlands became a leading naval and colonial power and then declined. Covers maritime expansion during war and peace in both the Caribbean and the Indonesian archipelago.
Butel, Paul. The Atlantic. New York: Routledge, 1999.
The only modern scholarly book to discuss the entire history of the Atlantic Ocean. Several chapters cover markets for goods, naval power, trading companies, and international commercial networks in the early modern period. The author is a specialist on French maritime and port history.
Davis, Ralph. The Rise of the Atlantic Economies. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973.
Discusses European economic expansion in the Atlantic world between the Iberian voyages of exploration in the 16th century and the eve of British industrialization. Covers Britain, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal, and the Americas but has only limited reference to Africa.
Disney, A. R. A History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire: From Beginnings to 1807. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Reinterprets the history of Portugal and its empire up to the beginning of the 19th century. Written by an expert on Portuguese trade with India, these volumes trace the growth of the first global empire in world history. Vol. 2 includes detailed material on the Portuguese in Africa, the Atlantic islands, Brazil, and maritime Asia.
Kearney, Milo. The Indian Ocean in World History. New York: Routledge, 2004.
One example among many of the historical analysis of oceans other than the Atlantic. Chapter 6 examines European control of Indian Ocean maritime trade in the early modern period. This can be compared and contrasted with the European maritime penetration of the Atlantic Ocean discussed in other books in this section.
Kupperman, Karen Ordahl. The Atlantic in World History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
A concise overview dealing with first contacts between European, African, and Native American people; migrations across the Atlantic; commodity trade; the impact of disease; and warfare in the Atlantic world in the early modern period. Though an attempt is made to include the African dimension of Atlantic history and there is some coverage of Central and South America, the book largely concentrates on the thirteen British colonies that became the United States.
Parry, J. H. The Spanish Seaborne Empire. London: Hutchinson, 1966.
A comprehensive study of enduring significance that traces the growth and decline of the vast Spanish empire in the Americas. The author’s expertise in maritime history is evident throughout the text, but he covers many other features of Spanish settler societies.
Parry, J. H. The Discovery of the Sea: An Illustrated History of Men, Ships, and the Sea in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. New York: Dial, 1974.
A lucid account of the background and effects of the major voyages of discovery. Discusses the preparations needed in terms of maritime equipment, the technical problems associated with oceanic seafaring and their solutions, and the nature of the ocean crossings. A learned book despite its coffee-table appearance.
Quinn, David Beers. England and the Discovery of America, 1481–1620. New York: Knopf, 1974.
The largest of several volumes of collected papers by the outstanding authority on English voyaging across the Atlantic in the Tudor and early Stuart periods. All chapters are based on rigorous archival research.
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Article
- Abolition of Slavery
- Abolitionism and Africa
- Africa and the Atlantic World
- African American Religions
- African Religion and Culture
- African Retailers and Small Artisans in the Atlantic World
- Age of Atlantic Revolutions, The
- Alexander von Humboldt and Transatlantic Studies
- America, Pre-Contact
- American Revolution, The
- Anti-Catholicism and Anti-Popery
- Argentina
- Army, British
- Arsenals
- Art and Artists
- Atlantic Biographies
- Atlantic Creoles
- Atlantic History and Hemispheric History
- Atlantic Migration
- Atlantic New Orleans: 18th and 19th Centuries
- Atlantic Trade and the British Economy
- Atlantic Trade and the European Economy
- Bacon's Rebellion
- Baltic Sea
- Baptists
- Barbados in the Atlantic World
- Barbary States
- Benguela
- Berbice in the Atlantic World
- Black Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Bolívar, Simón
- Borderlands
- Brazil
- Brazil and Africa
- Britain and Empire, 1685-1730
- British Atlantic Architectures
- British Atlantic World
- Buenos Aires in the Atlantic World
- Cabato, Giovanni (John Cabot)
- Cannibalism
- Capitalism
- Captain John Smith
- Captivity
- Captivity in Africa
- Captivity in North America
- Caribbean, The
- Cartier, Jacques
- Castas
- Catholicism
- Cattle in the Atlantic World
- Central American Independence
- Central Europe and the Atlantic World
- Charleston
- Chartered Companies, British and Dutch
- Cherokee
- Childhood
- Chinese Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World
- Chocolate
- Church and Slavery
- Cities and Urbanization in Portuguese America
- Citizenship in the Atlantic World
- Class and Social Structure
- Climate
- Clothing
- Coastal/Coastwide Trade
- Cod in the Atlantic World
- Coffee
- Colonial Governance in Spanish America
- Colonial Governance in the Atlantic World
- Colonialism and Postcolonialism
- Colonization, Ideologies of
- Colonization of English America
- Communications in the Atlantic World
- Comparative Indigenous History of the Americas
- Confraternities
- Constitutions
- Continental America
- Cook, Captain James
- Cotton
- Credit and Debt
- Creek Indians in the Atlantic World, The
- Creolization
- Criminal Transportation in the Atlantic World
- Crowds in the Atlantic World
- Cuba
- Currency
- Death in the Atlantic World
- Demography of the Atlantic World
- Diaspora, Jewish
- Diaspora, The Acadian
- Disease in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Production and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Slave Trades in the Americas
- Dreams and Dreaming
- Dutch Atlantic World
- Dutch Brazil
- Dutch Caribbean and Guianas, The
- Early Modern France
- Economy and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Economy of British America, The
- Edwards, Jonathan
- Elites
- Emancipation
- Emotions
- Empire and State Formation
- Enlightenment, The
- Environment and the Natural World
- Ethnicity
- Europe and Africa
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Northern
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Western
- European, Javanese and African and Indentured Servitude in...
- Evangelicalism and Conversion
- Female Slave Owners
- Feminism
- First Contact and Early Colonization of Brazil
- Fiscality
- Fiscal-Military State
- Food
- Forts, Fortresses, and Fortifications
- France and Empire
- France and its Empire in the Indian Ocean
- France and the British Isles from 1640 to 1789
- Free People of Color
- Free Ports in the Atlantic World
- French Army and the Atlantic World, The
- French Atlantic World
- French Emancipation
- French Revolution, The
- Gardens
- Gender in Iberian America
- Gender in North America
- Gender in the Atlantic World
- Gender in the Caribbean
- George Montagu Dunk, Second Earl of Halifax
- Georgia in the Atlantic World
- Germans in the Atlantic World
- Giovanni da Verrazzano, Explorer
- Glasgow
- Glorious Revolution
- Godparents and Godparenting
- Great Awakening
- Green Atlantic: the Irish in the Atlantic World
- Guianas, The
- Haitian Revolution, The
- Hanoverian Britain
- Havana in the Atlantic World
- Hinterlands of the Atlantic World
- Histories and Historiographies of the Atlantic World
- Honor
- Huguenots
- Hunger and Food Shortages
- Iberian Atlantic World, 1600-1800
- Iberian Empires, 1600-1800
- Iberian Inquisitions
- Idea of Atlantic History, The
- Impact of the French Revolution on the Caribbean, The
- Indentured Servitude
- Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World, Indian
- India, The Atlantic Ocean and
- Indigenous Knowledge
- Indigo in the Atlantic World
- Insurance
- Internal Slave Migrations in the Americas
- Interracial Marriage in the Atlantic World
- Ireland and the Atlantic World
- Iroquois (Haudenosaunee)
- Islam and the Atlantic World
- Itinerant Traders, Peddlers, and Hawkers
- Jamaica in the Atlantic World
- Jefferson, Thomas
- Jesuits
- Jews and Blacks
- Labor Systems
- Land and Propert in the Atlantic World
- Language, State, and Empire
- Languages, Caribbean Creole
- Latin American Independence
- Law and Slavery
- Legal Culture
- Leisure in the British Atlantic World
- Letters and Letter Writing
- Lima
- Literature and Culture
- Literature of the British Caribbean
- Literature, Slavery and Colonization
- Liverpool in The Atlantic World 1500-1833
- Louverture, Toussaint
- Loyalism
- Lutherans
- Mahogany
- Manumission
- Maps in the Atlantic World
- Maritime Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Markets in the Atlantic World
- Maroons and Marronage
- Marriage and Family in the Atlantic World
- Material Culture in the Atlantic World
- Material Culture of Slavery in the British Atlantic
- Medicine in the Atlantic World
- Mennonites
- Mental Disorder in the Atlantic World
- Mercantilism
- Merchants in the Atlantic World
- Merchants' Networks
- Mestizos
- Mexico
- Migrations and Diasporas
- Minas Gerais
- Miners
- Mining, Gold, and Silver
- Missionaries
- Missionaries, Native American
- Money and Banking in the Atlantic Economy
- Monroe, James
- Moravians
- Morris, Gouverneur
- Music and Music Making
- Napoléon Bonaparte and the Atlantic World
- Nation and Empire in Northern Atlantic History
- Nation, Nationhood, and Nationalism
- Native American Histories in North America
- Native American Networks
- Native American Religions
- Native Americans and Africans
- Native Americans and the American Revolution
- Native Americans and the Atlantic World
- Native Americans in Cities
- Native Americans in Europe
- Native North American Women
- Native Peoples of Brazil
- Natural History
- Networks for Migrations and Mobility
- Networks of Science and Scientists
- New England in the Atlantic World
- New France and Louisiana
- New York City
- News
- Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World
- Nineteenth-Century France
- North Africa and the Atlantic World
- Northern New Spain
- Novel in the Age of Revolution, The
- Oceanic History
- Oceans
- Pacific, The
- Paine, Thomas
- Papacy and the Atlantic World
- Paris
- People of African Descent in Early Modern Europe
- Peru
- Pets and Domesticated Animals in the Atlantic World
- Philadelphia
- Philanthropy
- Piracy
- Plantations in the Atlantic World
- Plants
- Political Participation in the Nineteenth Century Atlantic...
- Polygamy and Bigamy
- Port Cities, British
- Port Cities, British American
- Port Cities, French
- Port Cities, French American
- Port Cities, Iberian
- Ports, African
- Portugal and Brazile in the Age of Revolutions
- Portugal, Early Modern
- Portuguese Atlantic World
- Poverty in the Early Modern English Atlantic
- Pre-Columbian Transatlantic Voyages
- Pregnancy and Reproduction
- Print Culture in the British Atlantic
- Proprietary Colonies
- Protestantism
- Puritanism
- Quakers
- Quebec and the Atlantic World, 1760–1867
- Quilombos
- Race and Racism
- Race, The Idea of
- Reconstruction, Democracy, and United States Imperialism
- Red Atlantic
- Refugees, Saint-Domingue
- Religion
- Religion and Colonization
- Religion in the British Civil Wars
- Religious Border-Crossing
- Religious Networks
- Representations of Slavery
- Republicanism
- Rice in the Atlantic World
- Rio de Janeiro
- Rum
- Rumor
- Russia and North America
- Sailors
- Saint Domingue
- Saint-Louis, Senegal
- Salvador da Bahia
- Scandinavian Chartered Companies
- Science, History of
- Scotland and the Atlantic World
- Sea Creatures in the Atlantic World
- Second-Hand Trade
- Settlement and Region in British America, 1607-1763
- Seven Years' War, The
- Seville
- Sex and Sexuality in the Atlantic World
- Shakers
- Shakespeare and the Atlantic World
- Ships and Shipping
- Signares
- Silk
- Slave Codes
- Slave Names and Naming in the Anglophone Atlantic
- Slave Owners In The British Atlantic
- Slave Rebellions
- Slave Resistance in the Atlantic World
- Slave Trade and Natural Science, The
- Slave Trade, The Atlantic
- Slavery and Empire
- Slavery and Fear
- Slavery and Gender
- Slavery and the Family
- Slavery, Atlantic
- Slavery, Health, and Medicine
- Slavery in Africa
- Slavery in Brazil
- Slavery in British America
- Slavery in British and American Literature
- Slavery in Danish America
- Slavery in Dutch America and the West Indies
- Slavery in New England
- Slavery in North America, The Growth and Decline of
- Slavery in the Cape Colony, South Africa
- Slavery in the French Atlantic World
- Slavery, Native American
- Slavery, Public Memory and Heritage of
- Slavery, The Origins of
- Slavery, Urban
- Smuggling
- São Paulo
- Sociability in the British Atlantic
- Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts...
- Soldiers
- South Atlantic
- South Atlantic Creole Archipelagos South Atlantic Creole A...
- South Carolina
- Sovereignty and the Law
- Spain, Early Modern
- Spanish America After Independence, 1825-1900
- Spanish American Port Cities
- Spanish Colonization to 1650
- Subjecthood in the Atlantic World
- Sugar in the Atlantic World
- Technology, Inventing, and Patenting
- Textiles in the Atlantic World
- Texts, Printing, and the Book
- The American West
- The French Lesser Antilles
- The Fur Trade
- Theater
- Time(scapes) in the Atlantic World
- Tobacco
- Toleration in the Atlantic World
- Transatlantic Political Economy
- Tudor and Stuart Britain in the Wider World, 1485-1685
- Universities
- USA and Empire in the 19th Century
- Venezuela and the Atlantic World
- Violence
- Visual Art and Representation
- War and Trade
- War of 1812
- War of the Spanish Succession
- Warfare
- Warfare in Spanish America
- Warfare in 17th-Century North America
- Warfare, Medicine, and Disease in the Atlantic World
- Weavers
- West Indian Economic Decline
- Whitefield, George
- Whiteness in the Atlantic World
- Wine
- Witchcraft in the Atlantic World
- Women and the Law
- Women Prophets