Borderlands in the Atlantic world

Abstract

This article proposes a theoretical model for what I call the “Atlantic borderlands.” The Atlantic borderlands model is created by integrating the borderlands and the Atlantic world theory into a single construct. The primary purpose of this article is to argue that the Atlantic borderlands were real places and that this historical model can serve to shed much light on the history of Africa, the Americas, and Europe during the early modern era and nineteenth century. In the course of making this argument, I will examine the genealogies of both fields. Then I will offer definitions of borderlands and the Atlantic world, before defining the Atlantic borderlands and then comparing it with alternative theoretical models. The second half of this article uses the North American southeast during the colonial and Revolutionary periods as an extended example of the Atlantic borderlands in action.