• Home
• Study
• Study Information
• Modules
• Module Information

Sailors, Slavery and Piracy: The Atlantic World, 1600 - 1800

Module description

This module gives you the chance to engage with the extensive historiography on the Atlantic world between 1600 and 1800, and to enquire into how historical evidence has shaped this scholarship. You will encounter social, cultural, intellectual and economic histories and ideas about identity and distance; resistance and protest; violence and warfare; informal empire and trade, using the Atlantic basin as a locus for our investigations.

The module also provides a substantive focus on the African Atlantic, not only in relation to the slave trade, but in considering the relationship between Africa and the Atlantic world in broader terms. You will examine the variegated ideas about race, culture and identity which circulated across the Atlantic, looking at African-European interactions, as well as interactions with and the destruction of indigenous societies in the Americas. Students will be asked to enquire into the relationship between ideas about race, unfree labour, resistance and empire.

This option asks you to engage with the digital history of the Atlantic, from the new ‘Digital Panopticon’ resource to the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database. You will be grounded in both qualitative and quantitative approaches to studying the movement of people and goods, and will be asked to engage critically with source material identified through independent study, and seminar discussion

Due to the manifold interpretations of Atlantic history, ranging from Paul Gilroy’s ‘Black Atlantic’ to the ‘Green’ and ‘Red’, this module provides students with an opportunity to approach a single historical field from a variety of critical perspectives.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module gives you the chance to engage with the extensive historiography on the Atlantic world between 1650 and 1800, and to enquire into how historical evidence has shaped this scholarship. You will encounter social, cultural, intellectual and economic histories and ideas about identity and distance; resistance and protest; violence and warfare; informal empire and trade, using the Atlantic basin as a locus for our investigations.

The module also provides a substantive focus on race and the African Atlantic, not only in relation to the slave trade, but in considering the relationship between Africa and the Atlantic world in broader terms. You will examine the variegated ideas about race, culture and identity which circulated across the Atlantic, looking at African-European interactions but also at interactions with and the destruction of indigenous societies in the Americas. Students will be asked to enquire into the relationship between ideas about race, un-free labour, resistance and imperial possession.

This option asks you to engage with the digital history of the Atlantic, from the new ‘Digital Panopticon’ resource to the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database. You will be grounded in both qualitative and quantitative approaches to studying the movement of people and goods, and will be asked to engage critically with source material identified through independent study, and then discussed in seminars as a group.

Due to the manifold interpretations of Atlantic history, ranging from Paul Gilroy’s ‘Black Atlantic’ to the ‘Green’ and ‘Red’, this module provides students with an opportunity to approach a single historical field from a variety of critical perspectives.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate a detailed knowledge of the key developments within Atlantic history.
• 2. Summarise and evaluate different historiographical perspectives relating to the Atlantic world.
• 3. Critically evaluate the key social, cultural, economic, and political trends relating to Atlantic history.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 4. Analyse the key developments in a complex historical environment
• 5. Demonstrate an ability to handle profoundly different approaches to history in a deeply contested area
• 6. Demonstrate an ability to understand and deploy complex historical terminology in a comprehensible manner

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 7. Select, organise and analyse material for written work and oral presentations of different prescribed lengths and formats.
• 8. Present complex arguments orally.
• 9. Present an argument in a written form in a clear and organised manner, with appropriate use of correct English
• 10. Through essay development process, demonstrate ability to reflect critically on your own work, to respond constructively to feedback, and to implement suggestions and improve work on this basis

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

• ‘What is Atlantic History?’
• ‘The Black Atlantic’
• ‘Atlantic Radicalism’
• ‘Shipboard Society’
• ‘Atlantic Piracy, 1600 – 1800’
• Gender and identity
• Race, slavery and unfree labour
• Amerindian societies
• Africa and the world in the period 1600-1800
• Material culture and the circulation of goods

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

The re-assessment consists of an essay, as in the original assessment, but replaces participation in the presentation with a written script that could be delivered in such a presentation.

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• David Armitage and Michael J Braddick (eds.) The British Atlantic World, 1500-1800 (Basingstoke: 2002).
• Bernard Bailyn, Atlantic History: Concepts and Contours (Cambridge, MA: 2005).
• J.H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492 – 1830 (New Haven and London: 2006).
• Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (London and New York: 1993).
• Jack P. Greene and Philip D. Morgan (eds.) Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal (Oxford: 2009).
• W. Jeffrey, Bolster Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail (Massachusetts: 1997).
• Daniel Maudlin and Bernard L. Herman (eds.) Building the British Atlantic World: Spaces, Places, and Material Culture, 1600-1850 (Chapel Hill: 2016).
• Daniel Maudlin and R. Peel (eds.) The Materials of Exchange between Britain and North East America, 1750-1900 (Oxon & New York: 2013).
• Marcus Rediker and Peter Linebaugh, The Many-Headed Hydra: The Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (Boston: 2000).
• Peter D.O’Neill and David Lloyd (eds.) The Black and Green Atlantic: Cross-Currents of the African and Irish Diasporas (London and New York: 2009).
• Ben Schiller, ‘US Slavery's Diaspora: Black Atlantic History at the Crossroads of ‘Race’, Enslavement, and Colonisation’ Slavery and Abolition 32:2 (2011), 199 – 212.
• John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800 (Cambridge: 1992).
• John Thornton, A Cultural History of the Atlantic World, 1250–1820 (Cambridge: 2012).
• Kathleen Wilson (ed.) A New Imperial History: Culture, Identity and Modernity in Britain and the Empire, 1660 – 1840 (Cambridge: 2004).
• Alden T. Vaughan, Transatlantic Encounters: American Indians in Britain, 1500–1776 (Cambridge: 2006)
• Jace Weaver, The Red Atlantic: American Indigenes and the Making of the Modern World, 1000-1927 (Chapel Hill: 2014).

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE:
• The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, https://www.slavevoyages.org/
• The Digital Panopticon, https://www.digitalpanopticon.org/
• Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History online source collection, http://www.americanhistory.amdigital.co.uk/
• Colonial America (Adam Matthews source collection), https://www.colonialamerica.amdigital.co.uk/
• National Archives Colonial State Papers Online (1547 – 1757), https://search.proquest.com/csp
• Global Commodities: trade, exploration and cultural exchange (Adam Matthews source collection), https://www.globalcommodities.amdigital.co.uk/
• American Indian Histories and Cultures (Adam Matthews source collection), https://www.aihc.amdigital.co.uk/
• Empire Studies Research Source database, https://www.researchsource.amdigital.co.uk/Empire
• Eighteenth Century Collections Online, http://find.gale.com/ecco/start.do?prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=exeter
• Eighteenth-Century Journals, https://www.18thcjournals.amdigital.co.uk/
• British History Online, https://www.british-history.ac.uk/

Key words search

Atlantic History/Empire/Maritime/Slavery/Race/Trade