The Impact of the Atlantic World on the "Old Worlds" in Europe and Africa from the Fifteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries

international conference, Nantes, 7-9 June 2010

organized by Guy Saupin, Université de Nantes, CRHIA
and Cécile Vidal, EHESS, MASCIPO

perspectives
program
practical information

organizing committee

• Natacha Coquery, Université de Nantes
• Antonio de Almeida Mendès, Université de Nantes
• Gérard Le Bouëdec, Université de Bretagne Sud
• Catarina Madeira-Santos, EHESS
• Silvia Marzagalli, Université de Nice
• Jacques Péret, Université de Poitiers
• François-Joseph Ruggiu, Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne
• Guy Saupin, Université de Nantes
• Clément Thibaud, Université de Nantes
• Cécile Vidal, EHESS, MASCIPO

perspectives

The Atlantic world, formed between the fifteenth and the nineteenth centuries, maintained tight relations with the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific. Its specificity, however, lay in the conjunction of three interrelated phenomena whose entangled effects were not found elsewhere: European colonization, the slave trade, and racialized slavery. This symbiosis led to the formation of original new societies in the Americas, which differed from the European, African, and Native societies from which they were born. Moreover, the societies of origin in the “Old Worlds”, from which large numbers of people left for the Americas, were also forever changed in return.

If the new Atlantic history has benefited from an enthusiastic reception, it has also given rise to intense debate. One of the numerous criticisms, as voiced by Alison Games, is that the new historiographical current risks offering only “an expanded history of the colonial Americas.” In order to verify the relevance of the Atlantic paradigm, this conference seeks to reverse viewpoints by focusing on the transformations in Europe and Africa that resulted from their integration in trans-Atlantic dynamics. While the new Atlantic history has mostly been investigated by historians of the “New World”, and while specialists of North America clearly dominate the field, this conference seeks to reach out to historians of Africa and Europe in order to enlarge and enrich a still unexplored question. The goal is thus to gather together the whole community of historians potentially concerned with Atlantic history.

Since the Atlantic world was born of both European and African migrations, the conference will consider both continents together. Atlantic history begins with the Portuguese explorations along the coasts of West Africa from the outset of the fifteenth century. These travels led to the development of long-lasting phenomena: the beginning of the Atlantic African slave trade first to Europe then to the Americas, the creation of the big slave plantation model in the African islands like São Tomé before its transfer to the “New World”, and the formation of the first Creole societies in the Euro-African Atlantic world. However, Europe and Africa were not linked by the same imperial relations that united Europe and the Americas. The Atlantic slave trade developed precisely because the African kingdoms maintained their sovereignty. It is only from the middle of the nineteenth century that Europeans really began to colonize the interior of Africa, while the Atlantic slave trade was abolished everywhere. The comparison of the impact of the Atlantic world on Europe and on Africa will be one of the main questions of this conference.

Articles will pre-circulate. During the conference, each article will be summarized in 15 minutes, so that more time be given to discussions (initiated by a 15-20 minute commentary). Proceedings will be conducted in French, English and Spanish.

You can see the program of the conference here.