Gayle K. Brunelle, History 410

The Rise of the Atlantic World

Study Questions

Home Bottom Style sheet for book Reviews Syllabus

Grammar and Style guide Research Paper Questions

******************************************************************************************

Research Paper Question List, History 410

The Rise of the Atlantic World

Instructions: Choose one of the questions below as the basis for your research paper. Your paper must include at least ten distinct sources, at least two of which must be journal articles. It must have footnotes or endnotes, at least twenty of these, and every source cited in the bibliography must be cited at least once. Your papers must be submitted to Turnitin.com (see instructions in the syllabus) and the report handed in with either the draft or the final copy of the paper. Please note: These questions are also your study questions for the mid-term and the final (the final will be a take-home exam – the midterm will be done in class). That means that via your research paper, you will have the opportunity to prepare one of your exam questions well ahead of time. You will, however, need to hand in a separate exam, not your research paper, if you choose to answer that question for your midterm or final. I will choose from this list questions for each exam.

What was the relationship between medieval exploration in the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands and the creation of the Atlantic World?
How did Europeans think about the world in terms of time, space, and geography before the voyages of exploration? How did the voyages alter those perceptions and beliefs?
How did Europeans "digest" the information flowing into Europe from the voyages of exploration? How did this new geographical knowledge reach Europeans, and how did it change how they understood the world?
What were the consequences of the European conquests for the indigenous peoples of the New World?
How did indigenous culture shape the culture and society of the New World?
What were the contributions of Africans and African culture to the Atlantic world (not just in terms of their labor as slaves)?

Why did the slave trade arise, and why did Africans ultimately become the most important source of slaves in the Atlantic world?

What was the "plantation complex" and why was it so important to shaping the economy, society, and culture, of much of the Atlantic world?

What led to the decline of the plantation complex and of slavery in the Atlantic world?

Why can we call cartography "a tool of empire"?

What is cultural syncretism, and why was it so central to shaping the culture of the Atlantic world?

What were the patterns of migration of Europeans into the Atlantic world? Where did the Europeans come from, and where did they go? What drew them to the New World? How stable were the communities they created there?

Study Questions: Born to Die

What is the "Black Legend"? Where did it come from and how did it become so influential? How does Cook assess it as an explanation for the Conquest?
How did European diseases enter the New World? Why were they so successful (virulent) there? How did they travel from place to place?
How did Europeans understand the epidemics? What did their views have in common with how Indians comprehended the waves of disease? How did they differ?
How did Europeans react to the epidemics? Did different Europeans react differently? How and why?
In what ways did the diseases affect Indian societies? What were the ramifications of the epidemics for the conquest and religious and cultural conversion of the natives?
What was the role of Africans in the epidemics? Why did they not suffer the same level of mortality as the Indians?

Study Questions: The Devil in the New World

Why did European views about Satan change during the early modern period? How were these changes related to the New World?

Why does the Indian response to the conquest and to European attitudes toward Indian culture, and European determination to change that culture, seem to be very passive? To what extent is this passivity an illusion?

What does Cervantes mean by the "demimonde"? How did the demimonde react to the new European emphasis on diabolism, and the tendency to associate that diabolism with Indian religion and culture?

What is the "interior castle" Cervantes discusses? What can we learn from this "interior castle" about European spirituality in this period, and the affect of experiences in the New World on it?

Why did belief in diabolic possession decline during the late seventeenth century? To what extent was that decline related to contradictions in traditional thought, and to what extent to new epistemologies for understanding reality, and new ways of thinking about Christianity?

All of these questions lead us to the larger question on the research paper question list:

#5. How did indigenous culture shape the culture and society of the New World (and of the Old)?

Study questions for Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800, Part I

What is "disenclavement," and why does Thornton believe it was an especially important process in the Atlantic world and in African history?

What is "dependency theory"? Why does Thornton take issue with it as a basis for understanding African history? What perspective on Africa’s role in the creation of the Atlantic world does he offer as an alternative to "dependency theory"?

What was the nature of the African economy and the role of the Atlantic trade in it? How important was that trade to the African economy, and in meeting the needs of ordinary Africans?

Who controlled the African trade with the Atlantic economy? Why? How did this affect the nature of the slave trade?

Why does Thornton feel that Europeans and Africans has quite similar attitudes toward trade, and the proper relationship between private enterprise and the state?

Why did the great difference in laws and customs regarding land ownership between European and African societies lead to very different customs and attitudes toward slavery between the two societies as well? Why did this lead to slavery being a much more pervasive institution in Africa than in Europe?

What was the role of the slave and of slavery in African society?

These questions thus lead us to our two major study questions of the week: 1. Why did the slave trade arise, and why did Africans ultimately become the most important source of slaves in the Atlantic world?; 2. What were the contributions of Africans and African culture to the Atlantic world (not just in terms of their labor as slaves)? We will revisit the second question again in a later class.

Study Questions, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 129-234

Why did Europeans turn to Africans to fulfill their need for cheap labor? What was it about Africans that made them attractive as a source of slave labor for Europeans?

If we think of societies in the New World as comprised of three large ethnic blocks, Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans, what was the relationship of Africans to the other two groups? Why?

Thornton argues that "the nature of Africans’ enslavement had a crucial role to play in the way in which they were able to function as cultural actors." (p. 152). What does he mean by this? Why does he make this assertion?

What is a "peasant breach"? Why does Thornton think this concept is applicable to the condition of African slaves as cultural transmitters?

Why do Mintz and Price argue that Africans in the New World found themselves obliged to create a new culture? How important do they believe the influence of European culture was on this new culture, and why? What is Thornton’s assessment of their interpretation?

How was African culture transformed in the New World? How strongly did European culture affect it, and why? What aspects of African culture survived most strongly, and why?

Study Questions, Thornton, Part 3

How and when did Africans begin to convert to Christianity? What was the nature of the African Christianity that developed in the Atlantic World?

What forms did resistance to slavery take? Why? What were the most common issues that elicited resistance? What role did African culture play in determining forms of resistance?

What, in general, was the situation of Africans in the eighteenth-century Atlantic World? Why might it be better to speak of "situations" instead?

How do all the above questions lead to the perception that negotiation played as large a role as confrontation in the ways in which Africans affected, and were affected by, their relationships with Europeans and European culture?

How did the rise of creole culture affect the situation of African slaves in plantation societies?

Note: The three sets of study questions, as well as the lectures and discussions, linked to Thornton should be leading us to the following research questions:

What were the contributions of Africans and African culture to the Atlantic World?

Why did the slave trade arise, and why did Africans ultimately become the most important source of slaves in the Atlantic world?

What was the "plantation complex" and why was it so important to shaping the economy, society, and culture of much of the Atlantic World?

What led to the decline of the plantation complex and of slavery in the Atlantic World?

Study Questions: Jeremy Brotton, Trading Territories

1.     Brotton states in the introduction that it is the “utilization” of maps and globes that is his focus in this book. What does he mean by that statement? How were globes and maps used in ways different from the more scientific ways in which we expect them to be utilized today? Explain.

2.     Brotton also states in the introduction that his study “deliberately focuses on the redefinition of this Old World rather than the impact of the New World.” What does he mean by this, and why does he choose this perspective? How does his perspective help us to fit the Atlantic World in the early modern period into a global geographical perspective? (Hint: Remember, Africa, though part of the Atlantic World, like Europe, belonged to the Old World, not the New). Explain.

3.     Brotton frequently refers to maps as “mediators” of cultural or social experiences, relationships and encounters. What does he mean by his use of this term? Explain.

4.     Why was the rediscovery and dissemination of the mappae mundi of Ptolemy’s Geographia in the Renaissance so revolutionary? Explain.

5.     What does Brotton mean when he says that he wants to explore the “connection between commercial development and cartographic production?” Why does he think this connection is important? What forms does he see this connection taking? Explain.

6.     Why does Brotton feel that the standard interpretation of the Portuguese early modern empire is problematic? How does he argue that it should be understood? Explain.

7.     Why were the Portuguese voyages of exploration and the new cartography that resulted from them viewed with “ambivalence” in Europe? How has this affected how historians have perceived the Portuguese and their empire?

Why does Brotton argue that the print revolution was so important to early modern cartography?

How does Brotton envision the relationship between Ottoman Europe and early modern Europe? Why does he think the Ottomans played a significant role in the Renaissance?

How did the struggle between Spain and Portugal to map the Moluccas arise? What were its consequences in terms of cartography and exploration? Why does Brotton feel that this dispute, and especially maps that resulted from it such as Diogo Ribeira’s 1529 world map, forms a perfect example of the “trading territories” in this book’s title?

How does the work of Ortelius and Mercator illustrate changes in the nature of geography and mapmaking in the sixteenth century? Why did these changes come about? What role did the printing press play in them? What role did commercial and political imperatives play?

What is significant for the theme of this class of Robert Thorne’s adoption of the terms “Orient” and “Occident” in describing the expansion of the Portuguese and Spanish empires in 1527? How and why did Mercator’s work come to enshrine this new way of thinking about the world? What were its consequences?