Archive Results For: Caribbean
Book Review – ‘The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker dwarf who became the first revolutionary abolitionist’ by Johan Francke
Marcus Rediker, Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh and Senior Research Fellow at the Collège d’études mondiales/Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme in Paris, encountered the remarkable story of the abolitionist Benjamin Lay while working on The Many Headed Hydra, reading Lay’s magnum opus All Slave-Keepers that Keep the Innocent in Bondage, […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | Eighteenth Century | Other (Eighteenth C) | Caribbean
Subjects include: Biography | Miscellaneous
Book Review – ‘The Sea in History: The modern world’ by Steven Gray
This tome forms a substantial finale to the four volume Sea in History series, a result of the huge Oceanides project. It is an 848-page behemoth, with a contributor list that reads like a who’s who of modern naval history, and indeed beyond the field. It is therefore appropriate that the volume is edited by a scholar as distinguished […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | Baltic | English Channel | North Sea | Irish Sea | Mediterranean | Nineteenth Century | Indian Ocean | Caribbean | Pacific
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Manpower & Life at Sea | Merchant Marines | Miscellaneous | Navies | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review – ‘The Sea in History: The ancient world’ by Boris Rankov
The French-based Océanides project on The Sea in History, edited by Christian Buchet of the Centre d’Étude de la Mer at the Catholic University of Paris, has now been published in a series of four large volumes of which this, on the ancient world, is the first. The overall objectives of the series have already […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | Antiquity | Mediterranean | Indian Ocean | Caribbean | Pacific
Subjects include: Archaeology | Manpower & Life at Sea | Pirates, Corsairs & Privateers | Whaling & Fishing
Book Review – ‘Thomas Hurd, RN and His Hydrographic Survey of Bermuda 1789–97’ by M. K. Barritt
The remarkable manuscript survey which is discussed in this book measures, in total, some 13 feet by 6 feet. It was the result of over eight years of work in the field, while compilation took another three. The detailed depiction of the Bermudan archipelago and its intricate fringing reefs has astounded both those who compared […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | Eighteenth Century | Caribbean
Subjects include: Administration | Biography | Harbours & Dockyards | Navies | Science & Exploration
Book Review-‘Tropic Suns: Seadogs aboard an English galleon’ by J. S. Dean
Drake, Hawkins, Raleigh and their ilk continue to stir the imaginations of academic and popular historians alike, despite the often scant evidence on which their voyages can be reconstructed. Here Professor James Seay Dean attempts to convey the realities of life during Tudor and Jacobean expeditions to the West Indies, emphasizing that spoiled provisions, scurvy […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | Tudors | Francis Drake | Health at Sea | Caribbean
Subjects include: Manpower & Life at Sea | Science & Exploration | Ship Handling & Seamanship
The Dummett Freighter: A nineteenth-century log sailing canoe from northeastern Florida
This article provides a comparative physical and cultural study of a cypress log sailing canoe and the plantation culture of nineteenth-century north-eastern Florida that created it. The author makes the argument that this and other vessels of similar construction represent a typology of log boat construction that was limited to Florida’s north-east during the mid- […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | War of 1812 | American Civil War | Nineteenth Century | Caribbean
Subjects include: Historic Vessels, Museums & Restoration | Leisure & Small Craft | Shipbuilding & Design
‘Avarice and Rapacity’ and ‘Treasonable Correspondence’ in ‘an Emporium for All the World’: The British capture of St Eustatius, 1781
In the Revolutionary War the American rebels relied on supplies of munitions, especially gunpowder, from Europe. To circumvent the embargo and avoid seizure by the British, many of those supplies were routed through the neutral Dutch West Indian island of St Eustatius. To cut off supplies to the Americans, the British invaded and occupied that […] Read More
Filed under: American Revolution | Caribbean
Subjects include: Strategy & Diplomacy
Eyewitness Images of Buccaneers and their Vessels
This article describes and discusses several eyewitness illustrations of buccaneers (flibustiers) created by cartographers who made maps and charts of French Caribbean ports during the 1680s. The illustrations are highly detailed and provide new information regarding the appearance and arms of these famous sea rovers, as well as of at least one of their vessels. […] Read More
Filed under: Other (Early Modern) | Caribbean
Subjects include: Art & Music | Pirates, Corsairs & Privateers
Note: Lost and Found: the discovery of HMS Solebay at Nevis
The wreck of HMS Solebay off Nevis in 1782 was unidentified until an old chart was examined. The causes of the wreck are examined. Read More
Filed under: American Revolution | Caribbean | Shipwrecks
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Science & Exploration
A Memorial to Hibberts
The hull of a West Indiaman is nearly complete in artificial stone, intended to be placed over the grand entrance into the West India Docks at Blackwall. The length from stem to stern is upwards of ten feet, with height in proportion. The sides are beautifully adorned with all the minute appendages of a vessel […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | English Channel | French Revolution | Other (Early Modern) | Other (Twentieth C) | Other (Nineteenth C) | Other (Eighteenth C) | Caribbean
Subjects include: Administration | Harbours & Dockyards | Historic Vessels, Museums & Restoration | Merchant Marines | Navies | Pirates, Corsairs & Privateers | Ship Models & Figureheads | Shipbuilding & Design
‘Eminent Service’: War, Slavery and the Politics of Public Recognition in the British Caribbean and the Cape of Good Hope c. 1782–1807
The presentation of gifts to successful naval officers in recognition of their achievements provides insights into the political and commercial priorities of those who made the presentations. Many of these ‘objects of esteem’ are in the National Maritime Museum. They provide important insight into the social and economic context and the motives of the donors, […] Read More
Filed under: Napoleonic War | Other (Eighteenth C) | Caribbean | East India Company
Subjects include: Administration | Navies | Strategy & Diplomacy
The Sinking of the Galleon San Jose on 8 June 1708: an Exercise in Historical Detective Work
In 1708 a Spanish fleet sailed from the Isthmus of Panama to Cartagena on the northern coast of South America carrying a large amount of gold, silver and other valuables. The Spanish ships were attacked by an English squadron and following a battle, the Spanish flagship San José exploded and sank. No-one knows exactly where […] Read More
Filed under: Spanish Succession | Caribbean
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Navies