Sea Creatures in the Atlantic World
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 May 2023
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0387
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 May 2023
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0387
Introduction
Sea creatures, both real and imagined, helped forge the principal pathways of Atlantic world circulation and exchange. By the sixteenth century Europeans were crisscrossing the North Atlantic in pursuit of fish and marine mammals and the equatorial Atlantic in search of gold, silver, sugar, and souls. Those voyages created new economies of extraction but also produced new knowledge of Atlantic geography and marine natural history. With the help of African and Native American divers, Europeans marveled at turtles, manatees, corals, and pearl-producing mollusks. They forged new material and psychological relationships with sharks, which haunted an expanding slave trade. And fishing transformed European foodways and helped establish New World settler societies. Yet, along the limits of philosophical understanding, where the apprehensions of exploration muddled perception, there often lurked merpeople, sea serpents, and other apocryphal beasts. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, inquiry into these real and imagined sea creatures helped lay the foundations of taxonomy, marine biology, and oceanography. A more organized, professionalized science of the sea developed during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, often in efforts to understand changing ocean ecologies. Some marine scientists sought to fix ailing fisheries, and often made great strides in ocean conservation. But at various times, as was the case with oysters and clams, their efforts to modernize fishery management served to privatize fishing grounds, thereby transferring those resources from fishers to powerful corporations. In other cases, fishery scientists were simply unable to accurately estimate fish stocks or rates of reproduction, which led to overfishing. And in still other cases, traditional knowledge trumped science. As the history of marine creatures has shown, humans have shaped the living sea in profound ways, and sea creatures—from the smallest plankton to the largest whales—have shaped human history across the Atlantic world (and beyond) in return.
Overviews
Although a general history of Atlantic world sea creatures has yet to be written, there are several works that highlight the importance of marine environmental history and the history of science for understanding the living ocean. Holm, et al. 2001 introduced preliminary studies from the History of Marine Animal Populations (HMAP), an international, interdisciplinary effort to reconstruct the environmental history of the seas. Rozwadowski 2005 encouraged historians to consider the volumetric ocean and the importance of the life within it, thereby highlighting the synergies between marine environmental history and the history of ocean science. Bolster 2006 identified new scholarly opportunities among these new modes of interdisciplinary research. Starkey, et al. 2008 collected further results from HMAP in Oceans Past. Schwerdtner-Máñez and Poulsen 2016 surveyed the field of marine environmental history, while Schwerdtner-Máñez, et al. 2014 identified new avenues for future research. Similarly, historians of science continue to investigate the ways knowledge of the sea and its creatures was constructed over time. Adamowsky 2016, for instance, showed that mystery and a sense of wonder continued to shape oceanic science well into the twentieth century. And by combining history of science with environmental history, Rozwadowski 2018 provided one of the best synthetic histories of the living ocean over the long sweep of time.
Adamowsky, Natascha. The Mysterious Science of the Sea, 1775–1943. New York: Routledge, 2016.
Examines the history of ocean science, arguing that following the Enlightenment wonder and mystery shaped scientific knowledge about the sea throughout the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries.
Bolster, W. Jeffrey. “Opportunities in Marine Environmental History.” Environmental History 11.3 (July 2006): 567–597.
In this detailed scholarly review of the field, Bolster makes the case that the ocean is an important, if overlooked, area for further environmental history research. He shows, moreover, that marine environmental history can contribute to the field of marine ecology in important ways.
Holm, Poul, Tim D. Smith, and David J. Starkey, eds. The Exploited Seas: New Directions for Marine Environmental History. St. John’s, NL: International Maritime Economic History Association/Census of Marine Life, 2001.
This collection of papers stems from the History of Marine Animal Populations (HMAP), which was created in 1999 with the goal of historicizing ocean animals for the Census of Marine Life, which tallies current populations of marine species. The volume outlines HMAP’s research agenda and provides preliminary studies of marine fisheries in a global context.
Rozwadowski, Helen. Fathoming the Ocean: The Discovery and Exploration of the Deep Sea. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.
Rozwadowski examines the genesis of ocean science during the nineteenth century. If in earlier centuries the ocean had been an obstacle or void, it was during the nineteenth century, she shows, that people began to reimagine the ocean as a place of recreation, resource extraction, and scientific investigation. The book emphasizes the importance of the volumetric ocean and protecting the life within it.
Rozwadowski, Helen M. Vast Expanses: A History of the Oceans. London: Reaktion Books, 2018.
Synthesizing oceanic history, marine environmental history, and the history of science, Rozwadowski tells the story of the global oceans from its geologic origins to the present. She makes the case that the ocean is central to human history.
Schwerdtner-Máñez, Kathleen, Poul Holm, Louise Blight, et al. “The Future of the Oceans Past: Towards a Global Marine Historical Research Initiative.” PLoS ONE 9.7 (2 July 2014): e101466.
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0101466
Drawing on findings from the History of Marine Animal Populations, this article identifies emerging topics in marine environmental history from a global perspective. It also identifies important tools available to researchers investigating the ocean’s past.
Schwerdtner-Máñez, Kathleen, and Bo Poulsen, eds. Perspectives on Oceans Past: A Handbook of Marine Environmental History. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer Nature, 2016.
This volume includes essays that examine the living ocean from both scientific and humanistic perspectives. It also provides several methodologies for investigating historical marine sources, including modeling, archeology, and archival research.
Starkey, David J., Poul Holm, and Michaela Barnard, eds. Oceans Past: Management Insights from the History of Marine Animals Populations. London: Earthscan Research Editions, 2008.
This collection of studies conducted under the auspices of the History of Marine Animals Populations (HMAP) examines environmental changes to fish and whale populations. It also considers environmental impacts to the sponge industry as well as marine invasive species and disease.
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- 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
- Asia and the Americas and the Iberian Empires
- 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
- Brazilian Independence
- 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
- Cosmopolitanism
- 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
- German Influences in America
- 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
- Maryland
- 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
- Poetry in the British Atlantic
- 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 Atlantic World
- 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
- The Spanish Caribbean
- 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