The Maritime Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions

Abstract

Between the 1770s and the 1820s, revolutions erupted across the Atlantic world. In North and South America, colonists rebelled against their colonial governments. Old and new nations experienced political upheaval on both sides of the Atlantic. At the same time, the enslaved population of Saint-Domingue (Haiti) overthrew its masters, inspiring acts of resistance throughout the Caribbean and beyond. While these events were once studied separately, the field of Atlantic history has enabled historians to examine the connections among the American, French, Haitian, and Latin American Revolutions. Yet, the maritime spaces that enabled these connections remained in the background of historical scholarship until recently. New scholarship foregrounds the ocean as a place of exploitation, political development, identity formation, and cross-cultural interaction. Diverse peoples—sailors, fishermen, enslaved Africans, refugees, and revolutionaries—traversed sea lanes during the Age of Revolutions. Some brought with them news of political developments, ideas about sovereignty, or revolutionary materials. Others sought freedom and new opportunities. They hoped to escape enslavement, find refuge from revolution, or envision a different political future. Still others saw the sea as a site of exploitation. There, Africans endured the Middle Passage, the Royal Navy impressed sailors, and fishermen harvested the ocean’s bounty. Indeed, the Age of Revolutions was inherently a maritime age. Given this diversity of maritime experience, this article complements many other Oxford Bibliographies in Atlantic History articles, including those that consider “The American Revolution,” “The French Revolution,” “The Haitian Revolution,” and “Latin American Independence.” It also draws extensively on scholarship that highlights networks, communications, and mobility, more of which can be found in “Communications in the Atlantic World,” “Merchants’ Networks,” “Smuggling,” and “Ships and Shipping.” While this bibliography highlights English-language scholarship, scholars will find relevant non-English-language scholarship in these linked bibliographies. As scholars continue to reconstruct the inter-imperial and transatlantic connections that residents forged across the Atlantic world, the ocean will become a key site for understanding the Age of Revolutions.