Rebecca’s Revival, by Jon Sensbach (review)

Jon Sensbach’s narrative portrays a story of a young woman whose religious fervor contributed to the rise of a unique blend of African-American church. This new religion that started on the Danish island of St. Thomas, eventually spread throughout the Caribbean and North America and became “one of the great social and religious movements of modern history.” The mixture of African religions and Christianity provided the enslaved people with escape from harsh environment of treacherous labor and inhumane treatment if only during prayer and gospel. Slave owners’ brutal persecution of black Christians did nothing to extinguish the fire Rebecca had started. Sensbach attributes the beginning of the black church to its roots in St Thomas and further attests that only the unique environment “in the Atlantic World…could have produced a person like Rebecca.”

    In the first chapter Sensbach describes a slave rebellion on the island of St John. The leaders of the insurgency intended to exalt themselves to a position of power and take over the sugar production. But creating a pan-African coalition to rise against their white masters was not part of their plan. The leaders were to be in control and the rest were to remain inferior. This minority possessed a sense of superiority over other blacks because of their high social standing before humiliating enslavement. By no means was this a romantic battle against right and wrong thus the revolt did not provide an inspiration for the enslaved blacks. Sensbach contributes the impetus for the rebellion to famine, harsh reprisals for nonconformity, Gold Coast rivalries among the captured, and slave trade. For the proud Aminas there seemed no other option but to revolt. 

     Sensbach asserts that the early life of Shelly, later baptized as Rebecca, is very sketchy since no documentation exists regarding that period of her life. Nevertheless, the author provides credible explanation to how Rebecca obtained her freedom. Most likely Rebecca’s manumission was possible because she accepted Christianity. But freed blacks did not enjoy total freedom. Many harsh restrictions imposed on the slaves were not lifted due to their changed status. In the house of von Beverhouts the young servant learned how to read and write and used that ability to learn about the bible. Whether Rebecca’s initial interest in Christianity was due to her need of securing certain favors or was it purely out of her personal convictions cannot be established for certain.

     The author describes a skilful Monrovian missionary, Friedrich Martin as Rebecca’s long awaited mentor. As previous missionaries were unable to gain many converts, Martin proved more skilful in the art of salesmanship. His church, in contrast to the Protestant churches of North America, even with a strong opposition from the slaveholders, gained significant following among the black slaves. Although the missionaries’ admitted goal was to provide “spiritual transcendence not social revolution,” it is difficult to see how they could be ignorant of the true results of their gospel. As described by Sensbach, “the bible classes…became searching discussion about slavery, violence, resistance, and the role of religion in helping people make sense of conflicting pressures.” Thus it is hard to dismiss that such injection of ideas would not create problems. How could the enslaved be controlled if they possessed a notion of equality before God?

     Even before Martin’s arrival, Rebecca was knowledgeable about the bible but he noticed her ability to teach and wondered if it can be used to spread the scripture among the women slaves. As more and more blacks learned to read and write, with Martin’s supervision, they wrote letters to the headquarters in Herrngut describing their religious convictions. Those correspondences, according to Sensbach, “constituted historical evidence on how religious sentiments among the enslaved were shifting.”   

     To make the Christian scriptures more convincing, the missionaries had to adjust some of their teachings. This mix of Christian and African beliefs wrought the system that later became the foundation of the black church. Upon their arrival on St. Thomas the captives were quickly incorporated into a support network nurtured by the converts. According to Sensbach, such strategy of “appealing to captives’ desire to rebuild kin connections… would come to form the marrow of black Christian fellowship in the Protestant Atlantic world.” As the congregations’ membership increased, the total eradication of “pagan” beliefs was difficult as Christianized Africans still sought “additional power from traditional spirits and deities.” The path to gain souls among the enslaved was not always easy but the efforts of the missionary with help from Rebecca resulted in “hundreds of people adapting new way of thinking.”

     Eventually, slaveholders realized the danger of Christianity in the hands of the enslaved. Large congregation of blacks, interracial marriage between Rebecca and Freudlich, fueled planters’ fears of insurrection thus this perceived threat was addressed through legal means. Sensbach describes the unbroken faith of the black Brethren and their leader during difficult times. Martin’s failure to pay the fines imposed by the judge resulted in jail time for him and others. Nevertheless, the difficult times provided an opportunity for Rebecca and others to affirm their faith.

     In the chapter titled, The Devil’s Bargain, Sensbach paints a picture of Zinzendorf as an arrogant leader of a church that was shrouded with controversies in Europe. Zizendorf, just like the Aminas who instigated the bloody insurgency on St John, was not concerned with African slavery. His only concern was spiritual – the black captives provided members for his church and souls for Christ. In discussions between the leader of the Moravian church and St Thomas’ planters, slaveholders admitted their fears of black insurrection, accusing missionaries of seducing blacks. In order to assure peace on the island, Zizendorf legitimized slavery in his speech since, in his view, God approved of it thus effectively enslaving the black Brethren “to biblical and racialism defenses of bondage.” This point clearly illustrates that Zizendorf did not support emancipation; God approved slavery.

     Once in Europe, Rebecca was easily incorporated into the church’s strict hierarchy. Sensbach asserts the practice of educating blacks and sending them back to Africa to preach, provided geographical and social mobility for non-Europeans. According to Sensbach, the colored Brethren were conveyors of news and ideas to black communities thus it was the indigenous women and men who were responsible for establishing roots of Christianity around the world. But the discourse of race was always present within the congregation. 

     Although not directly presented by Sensbach, the banishment of Rebecca and Christian could have been motivated by racism. Christian, a highly qualified preacher, most likely felt unappreciated. No matter what, he could not fulfill his ambitions because he was black. Although Rebecca meets a familiar environment in Christiansborg, she did not accomplish as much as she did in St. Thomas.  Sensbach underlines the unusual role

     Sensbach’s strengths are in his concentration on a small community of enslaved peoples and his primary sources. Thus he was able to portray the contemporaneous environment of islands’ inhabitants to life.

     However, Sensbach did not show a clear connection between Rebecca’s role in St. Thomas and the rise of black church in America. Rebecca’s hard work was essential in congregation’s development but how was this new blend of African religions and Christianity established in North American is not shown. Although the primary sources that include letters written by Spangenberg, Martin, Rebecca, Christian, and others, are valuable, they can only be used to describe a relatively small community within a large Atlantic world. Although it may seem Sensbach portrays blacks as having a voice, having an active role in their lives, it is misleading. The enslaved people on the island of St. Thomas were victims of friction between the two different groups of whites in a position of authority. This caused additional, burden, hardship and confusion among the black population. Each group, the slaveholders and religious zealots, used the enslaved to their advantage.

     Sensbach provides yet another thread that connects the transatlantic world together thus further contributing to a better understanding of a complicated dynamics attributed to history. He describes the dynamics present within the slave culture, including gender relations on the small island of St. Thomas. Sensbach proves that blacks could shape and sustain their own culture behind the curtain of daily duties. He further reveals the connection between North America, Denmark, and West Africa, when ship arriving in St Thomas with human cargo from West Africa, had lines and iron from Denmark, and grain from Pennsylvania. The book is most useful in comparing gender roles and treatment of slaves throughout the Atlantic world.

Set Up: Jon F. Sensbach – Intellectual Biography

Fields of Specialization

 

    Early America, African American, Atlantic World, Religion
 

Education

 

        Ph.D., Early American History, Duke University, 1992
        B.A., History, University of Virginia, 1980
 

Professional Appointments

 

University of Florida.

          Professor of History, 2006

          Associate Professor, 2000-06
          Assistant Professor, 1998-2000.
University of Southern Mississippi

          Assistant Professor of History, 1994-98.
College of William and Mary

          Assistant Professor of History, 1992-94.
Old Salem, Inc.  Research historian, 1989-1992. 

 

Selected Awards

 

National Humanities Center.  NEH Fellow, 2001-02.
 Omohundro Institute of Early American History and

         Culture.  Postdoctoral/NEH Fellow, 1992-94.

DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service).  Study and

         Research Visit Grant, 2003.
University of Florida.  Humanities Scholarship Enhancement

         Grant, 2001, 2006
 R.D.W. Connor Award.  Best article, North Carolina Historical 

Review, 1995 

 

   

Selected Recent Publications

 

Books

 

Before the Bible Belt: Religions of the Early South (under contract,

        Harvard University Press)

 

Rebecca’s Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic

        World (Harvard University Press, 2005).

 

A Separate Canaan: The Making of An Afro-Moravian World in

        North Carolina, 1763-1840 (University of North Carolina

        Press, 1998).

  

 Articles and Chapters

“Religion and the Early South in an Age of Atlantic Empire,”

        Journal of Southern History LXXIII (2007), 631-42.

“Slavery, Race, and the Global Fellowship: Religious Radicals

        Confront the Modern Age,”  in Michele Gillespie and Robert

        Beachy, eds., Pious Pursuits: German Moravians in the

        Atlantic World (Berghahn, 2007).

“’Self-Evident Truths’ On Trial: African Americans in the

        American Revolution,” in Andrew Frank, ed., The American

        Revolution (ABC-Clio, 2007), 43-64.

“Beyond Equiano,” invited essay for forum on Olaudah Equiano in

        Historically Speaking VII (Jan.-Feb. 2006), 12-13.

“African-American Christianity, 1815-1915,” Cambridge History

        of Christianity (Cambridge University Press, 2005), 429-42.

“Before the Bible Belt: Indians, Africans, and the New Synthesis

        of Eighteenth-Century Southern Religious History,” in Donald

        G. Mathews and Beth B. Schweiger, eds., Religion in the

        American South: Protestants and Others in History and

        Culture (University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 5-29.

 “Conversion and Kinship: Christianity, Slavery, and the African-

        American Family,” Plantation Society in the Americas (Fall

        2001), 1-15.

“Interracial Sects: Religion, Race and Gender Among Early North

        Carolina Moravians,” in Catherine Clinton and Michele

        Gillespie, eds., The Devil’s Lane: Sex and Race in the Early

        South (Oxford University Press, 1997), 154-67.

 

Retrieved from:

http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/sensbach/index_files/Page413.htm

 

More articles:

“Charting a Course in Early African-American History, The William and Mary Quarterly, (1993), p. 394-405

 

“Culture and Conflict in the Early Black Church: a Moravian Mission Congregation in Antebellum North Carolina.” North Carolina Historical Review, (1994)

 

 

Works reviewed by Jon F. Sensbach:

 

“From Reich to Realm: German Immigrants in a New Land,” A.G. Roeber  Reviews in American History, (1994), pp. 210-215

  

 

 

“Herrnhuter Indianermission in der Amerikanschen Revolution: Die Tagebucher von David Zeisberger 1772 bis 1781.” Hermann Wellenreuther; Carola Wessel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Empires of the Atlantic World, by J.H. Elliott (review)

    

     Elliott’s work is a comparative history of the British and Spanish empires in the New World. As other historians are “unable to reach a common dialogue…pursuing their separate path,” Elliott stresses his comparative approach’s usefulness in “helping to reassemble the fragmented history of the Americas.” At the same time the author admits the difficulty of comparing all colonizing powers. Thus he describes the colonization patterns of the British and Spanish empires by presenting the differences and similarities between the two.

     Elliott’s approach to colonization takes into account the affect of a dynamic political situation in Europe on the structure of British colonies in North America. Economic and religious changes in England had a visible impact on formation of their settlements. When the English colonies in North America attempted to follow the Spanish example and rake in the wealth of the New World, the planters soon realized the region they have settled was less populated than Mesoamerica and its decentralized power structure proved difficult to manipulate…

 

Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest, Matthew Restall. Book Review

Restall, Matthew. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest, New York: Oxford

University Press, 2003.  

    

     Matthew Restall puts to reset what he considers the most widely misinterpreted versions of the Conquest by contrasting false and accurate accounts of the Spanish invasion. Restall explains how contemporaneous sources and later interpretations contributed to the myth of the Spanish Conquest and how the myths were propagated. Through a revisionist approach and consideration of sources of African participants and indigenes, the author challenges interpretations of other historians. 

     In the first chapter, Restall focuses on the myth of exceptional men that supposedly explains how few conquistadors could accomplish something as great as the conquest of the Americas. According to Restall the development of conquistador legends can be attributed to Columbus, Cortes, Pizzaro, and their contemporaneous chroniclers who played a role in inserting the myth into literature. In Restall’s words the “great men” were simply following a standard procedure of conquest established by the Spaniards. Thus Renstall argues that proof-of-merit reports naturally exaggerated conquistadors’ accomplishments, minimized the extend of indigenous resistance, and made it seem as a few men were responsible for pacifying scores of uncivilized tribes. According to the author, “great men approach ignores the roles played by larger processes of social change.” 

     Renstall asserts that the conquistadors were not Spanish soldiers but artisans and professionals, simply armed entrepreneurs. In their reports and narratives, Cortes and others refrain from describing themselves as king’s soldiers. Only toward the end of the sixteenth century the word soldier began to appear in literature concerning the Conquest. The author attributes our views of the conquistadors as being part of a militarized unit to the military revolution in Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth century and its accompanied terminology. Thus this early perception of the conquerors subsequently propagated throughout history morphing into a myth.

     Restall attributes the myth of the white conquistador to Spaniards’ reluctance to acknowledge the importance of Africans in combat roles, although contemporaneous sources reveal the presents of Africans in the many campaigns. The Spaniards regarded black conquistadors as good fighters. This attribute is plausible since many blacks became enslaved through military conquest, therefore had combat experience. A common reward for an enslaved black conquistador was his freedom. Some who survived the Conquest rose to high social levels and even received the coveted encomiendas. Also absent from the Spanish narrative is the vital role the alliance between the invaders and the indigenes played in the Conquest. Some native empires aligned themselves with the Spaniards in order to conquer their traditional enemies thus thousands of native warriors participated in the bloody campaigns.

     To disprove the myth of completion Restall argues that since conquistadors had obligations to fulfill they exaggerated their accomplishments deeming the conquest complete yet the “conquest was incomplete for centuries after the initial Spanish invasion.” The system of patronage further “encouraged rapid claim of success in exploration and conquest.”  As in his previous assertions, Restall blames the sources and historians’ interpretations for the creation of the myth. Since politically motivated conquistadors were eager to perpetuate their supposed successes, modern historians were mislead by the narratives. Restall was able to paint a different picture of the conquest. An example of a critical account that was discounted is one Juan de Villagutierre Soto-Mayor when he admitted in 1701 “that Spanish expansion had left ‘great portions’ of the Americas partially or entirely unconquered.” Renstall is able to further support his interpretation by pointing out that several expeditions to Florida failed between 1513 and 1560’s. Buenos Aires was not permanently founded until the 1580’s. New Mexico although conquered at the beginning of the seventeenth century, was lost in 1680 and had to be reconquered in the 1690’s. Although Catholicism was successfully introduced to native America, it did not retain its form.

     Although vital to communication between the various groups of indigenes and the Spaniards, the interpreters such as Cortes’ Malinche, were not given much credit for their efforts. In the chapter titled, the Myth of (Mis) Communication, Restall examines the myth of communication and countermyth of miscommunication. The author relies on quotes that reveal Spaniards’ difficulty with communication. He also criticizes other historians’ arguments that the indigenes lost wars because they could not communicate with the Spaniards and further states “Spanish actions conveyed their purposes more clearly than the text did anyway.” He also disagrees with Jared Diamond’s assertion that literacy helped Spaniards acquire pertinent information that helped the conquistadors win battles. The author points out that there is no evidence either group had better information regarding one another and doubts that writing would have been a better means of communication in such circumstances.

     The myth of native desolation is somewhat related to the myth of completion and superiority since the indigenes were able to retained many aspects of their culture, language, adapted to new circumstances and survived.  In this chapter Restall condemns academic emphasis on destruction of native culture. He argues against a myth that the natives benefited from the conquest because it introduced them to superior civilization. The author also points out that there is no evidence of Spaniards being taken for gods. As in previous myths, the clash of two alien cultures compounded with difficulty in communication provided inadequate understanding of one another. In author’s words, “native cultures were neither barbarous nor idyllic, but as civilized and imperfect as European cultures of the time.” 

     Although not all aspects of the myths addressed by Restall are adequately argued, most of author’s opinions are well articulated. He clearly points out how historians erroneously interpreted sources that were infested with bias. The most valuable aspect presented by Restall is that he underscores the importance of interpreting sources carefully. Historians must attempt to understand the circumstances and motives surrounding historical narratives, reports, letters, and such. We must be aware of falling into a trap of misconception.

     Restall by no means presents a full story of the Conquest. Although he was able to debunk most of the myths, some arguments were not as strong as others. As he admitted himself, the interactions between the natives and Europeans are complex thus it takes more than simply choosing seven aspects of the Conquest to present a better picture of the native cultures. Some of the seven myths relate to each other thus author’s arguments are redundant. 

     In the transatlantic concept, Restall, as opposed to other historians, gives life to the Africans and Native Americans. He portrays the indigenous peoples not as victims of an inevitable conquest but as active participants. In Restall’s book the natives have a voice and are able to manipulate the circumstances to their advantage and sometimes successfully exploit the Spanish to reaffirm their local authority. The Africans were not just slaves in the service of the conquistadors but they were conquistadors themselves. They had at least some control over their situation and were able to acquire their freedom and even rose to prominent positions within the community.

     In Europe, the Spaniards were busy building their empire competing with other European powers. Armed with their experiences from the re-conquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors and the conquest of the Canaries, they had developed a standard procedure that they applied in the New World. The wealth that they sought in the Americas was needed to finance their activities in Europe.

 

Book reviews of “Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest” by Matthew Restall

 

Fernando Cervantes, The Times Literary Supplement, (January 2004): pp. 7-8.

“Those wanting a politically correct approach can do no better than to turn to Matthew Restall’s brief, provocative, original and readable {book}; an able, revisionist study that displays an admirable command of the wealth of source material written not only by Spaniards but also by indigenous peoples throughout the colonial period. . . . {Restall} rightly reminds us that the Spanish triumphs in America are more adequately explained by the impact of disease on native populations that had little or no immunity. But to this he adds, firstly, the way in which Spaniards ably manipulated native disunity (which suggests superior military tactics) and, secondly, their possession of the steel sword. . . . It is difficult to see how the removal of some notion of superiority in this instance is possible. Still, Restall’s ability to turn the tables on the better-known interpretations will give students and general readers a good number of arguments with which to resist some of {Hugh} Thomas’s more unfashionable views {in Rivers of Gold}. . . . These two excellent and very different books complement each other well.”

 

Altman, Ida. International History Review v. 26 no. 3 (September 2004) pp. 614-616

 

This study debunks many of the standard explanations for the success of the Spanish conquest of American societies in the late 15th and 16th centuries. It considers the key misconceptions about the conquest and its context, identifies the distortions that often characterize depictions of indigenous societies and cultures, and links them to implicit assumptions about European superiority. For the most part, it is a well-written and effectively argued book. It will be useful for introducing students and a more general audience to many of the key issues surrounding the events of the conquest period and their implications for native Americans, Europeans, and Africans.

 

Schwaller, John F. The American Historical Review v. 109 no. 4 (October 2004) pp

 

“Although there are many myths about the conquest and settlement of the Americas, Restall focuses on those he considers to be widespread in the popular imagination. . . . This is an important book. It should be read by all high school world history teachers, and by professors of the same. Although not all of Restall’s points are as strongly reasoned as others, the book is a powerful indictment of the myths that we all inadvertently rely on to explain a complex and distant period. It will undoubtedly stir up discussion about the reality of these myths and what others one might find in both popular and scholarly writing in this field, and others.” 

 

Don, Patricia Lopes. The Sixteenth Century Journal v. 32 no. 4 (Winter 2004) pp. 1208-10. 

 

Restall’s book discredits the usual explanations of the “conquest question,” including those accounts fabricated after the Conquest and even some that have been produced in the last 20 years of historical revisions. Its stated goal to “extract truths” from myth history is achieved in one of the more readable and teachable treatments of the subject. Well conceived, researched, and written, the book is a valuable synthesis of this important event in human history and appropriate for use in the colonial Latin American history and historiography classroom. 

 

 

Julien, Catherine. The Hispanic American Historical Review, v.87 no.2 (May 2007) pp. 370-1. 

 

“When Matthew Restall writes of ‘the Spanish Conquest,’ he does not refer simply to the period when Spaniards arrived in this hemisphere and attempted to establish an administration modeled on their own; he also aludes to the way this period has been represented in writing ever since Columbus’s first voyage. The story hinges on what Restall calls ‘the myth of exceptional men,’ and the conquistador par excellence is Hernan Cortes. . . . This book takes on the persistent myths of the conquest in a wide-ranging commentary, incorporating what participants, scholars, popular authors, and modern-day dream machines have written or divulged about the Spanish success. Written in an accessible style, the book targets the well-educated general reader. Chosen Best Book of the Year by the Economist in 2005, it clearly resonated with this audience. The book will also resonate with historians.”

 

 

John E Kicza, “Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest” (review) Renaissance Quarterly 3, (2005): 933-935

          

 

Matthew Restall has written a serious and important book, but one that is also delightful as it addresses issues about the Spanish conquest that have long intrigued scholars. Each of the book’s seven chapters addresses a specific myth of the conquest, namely, the myth of exceptional men, of the king’s army, of the white conquistador, of completion, of (mis)communication, of native desolation, and of superiority. The individual chapters contrast false and accurate versions of the conquest and discuss how and why the myths developed.

Columbus, Cortés, and Pizarro have been viewed as the three most exceptional men of the conquests. Their actions have been portrayed as unique, but such can only be maintained by ignoring the periods that precede their ventures. In minor conquests in northern Africa and the nearby islands and in the Caribbean Islands, Spaniards had developed a set of expectations and standard procedures in combat against native populations, gaining indigenous allies being one of their [End Page 933] most common tactics. When Cortés and Pizarro did the same to great success, writers ignored their predecessors and attributed all successive use of the tactic to their examples.

The men who joined the expeditions were not soldiers. Few had any previous military experience in the Old World. The members signed on for shares of any possible gains. Many were young merchants, notaries, artisans, and urban workers. They also always included some blacks, commonly thoroughly acculturated, and members of other European societies. (Greeks were assumed to be skilledartillerymen.) Neither did the expeditions constitute armies, as they had no ranks, training, salaries, or formal discipline.

Spanish expeditions benefited greatly from native allies. The many peoples who joined with the Spaniards did so primarily for their own political reasons, especially to become as autonomous as possible through their support. Often these allies far outnumbered the members of the Spanish expeditions they accompanied. They provided food, rescued beleaguered Spaniards, served as spies, and cleaned up the battlefield once an engagement had ended. Their action in combat and decisiveness in campaigns are, I feel, somewhat overrated. Indian allies were typically present at battles, but more as support personnel than warriors. After all, they fought in a manner similar to the Aztecs and Incas, and the Spanish held their weapons and tactics in low regard.

By the end of the sixteenth century, most areas of Spanish America occupied by Spaniards were still only tentatively held by them, and vast regions, especially of northern Mexico and the interior of South America, remained largely unoccupied by Europeans. Nonetheless, Spanish writers of the time persistently portrayed the Americas as fully conquered. They considered the conquest as complete and the Spanish victory as inevitable.

Virtually every Spanish expedition sought a native translator to help them communicate with the peoples they encountered. The most storied example is Doña Marina or La Malinche, Cortés’s translator, advisor, and later his mistress. Some leaders went so far as to kidnap natives and take them back into Spanish-held territory for training in Spanish. But, overall, accurate translation between the two sides did not prevail, and their engagements were more typified by miscommunication and cultural misunderstanding.

Restall devotes a chapter to the myth that he terms “native desolation.” This embraces such concepts as the Indians believing the Spaniards were gods and the natives becoming increasingly culturally passive due to depopulation and an overwhelming sense of defeat. In fact, the early writings about the conquests by both Indians and Spaniards do not refer to the invaders as “gods.” Even the Spanish leaders commonly depicted themselves as envoys of a powerful leader across the ocean. And as Restall states: “To be sure native peoples in sixteenth-century Spanish America faced epidemics of lethal disease and onerous colonial demands. But they did not sink into depression and inactivity because of the Conquest. Instead they tenaciously sought ways to continue local ways of life and improve the quality of life even in the face of colonial changes and challenges” (129). [End Page 934]

This well-written book addresses important misunderstandings about the nature of the Spanish conquests. It serves the needs of Latin Americanists who have not kept up with the latest literature on the subject, as well as the many scholars who address the conquests in their writings.

 

 

 

Schwartz’s book review

Atlantic history can be interpreted through various approaches each with its own merits. One such interpretative approach is economics. Schwartz’s collection of essays is an attempt to compare the sugar production of early Atlantic economies and the impact of sugar on European expansion. Although Schwartz does not completely reject the notion of sugar revolution, he points out that it developed much later and the early industries were harbingers of what eventually became an industrial revolution. He prefers to address the issue of sugar production in terms of staple model to examine each region separately. Although the author asserts that sugar regions played a significant role in the Atlantic economy, sugar alone determined very little. There were other influencial factors that shaped the Atlantic world.

Although the European palates were introduced to sugar by way of Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in the eighth century, it was a luxury item thus its production was rather marginal. Scattered accounts of sugarcane agriculture in southern Spain appear only in the tenth century and sugarcane manufacturing was documented in twelfth century. Since sugarcane fields require extensive irrigation, Iberia, even with its Roman irrigation canals, was not suited for a successful large-scale production.

Westerners began sugar manufacturing and increased its trade to the west as a result of the crusades. With their failure in the Middle-East Christians brought sugar production expertise to the Mediterranean. In the fourteenth century with the financial support of German investors sugar manufacture grew in Valencia. This small- scale production relied mainly on contract labor of experienced workers. The expulsion of the Moriscos, closing of a market in Egypt, growing competition from Madeira, and later from the Americans, resulted in significant decline in sugar production.

 

 

Books on economic history and commodities

 

Arcedeckne, Chaloner, Wood, Betty. Travel, Trade, and Power in the Atlantic,1765-1884. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Harrison, Michelle. King Sugar: Jamaica, the Caribbean, and the World Sugar Industry.New York: New York University Press, 2001.

Martinez, Samuel. Decency and Excess: Global Aspirations and Material Deprivation on a Caribbean Sugar Plantation. Boulder: Paradigm, 2007. 

McCusker, John J, Morgan, Kenneth. The Early Modern Atlantic Economy.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Mintz, Sidney W. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. NewYork: Penguin Books, 2002.

Pomeranz, Kenneth & Stephen Topic. The World That Trade Created: Society, Culture, and the World Economy 1400 to the Present. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1999.

Puckrein, Gary, A., Little England: Plantation Society and Anglo-Barbadian Politics,1627-1700. New York: University Press, 1984.

 Transatlantic Commodities 

Allen, Stewart L. The Devil’s Cup: A History of the World According to Coffee. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986. 

Corti, Count. A History of Smoking. London: Bracken Books, 1996. 

Foster, Nelson & Linda S. Cordell (eds.) Chilies to Chocolate: Food the Americas Gave the World. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1992. 

Jenkins, Virginia Scott. Bananas: An American History. Washington, D.C: Smithsonian Institute Press, 2000.

Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants. New York: Vintage Books, 1993. 

Turner, Jack. Spice: The History of a Temptation. New York: Vintage Books, 2004.

 

Ecological Imperialism, Alfred Crosby

Crosby asserts that in order to ensure successful expansion onto the New World, Europeans had to cross the Atlantic in large numbers. To accomplish this, certain developments had to occur. Most importantly a strong imperialistic desire to undertake a dangerous and expensive journey had to exist.  When that occurred it was a matter of technological factors that presented an obstacle to arrival of Europeans in the New World. Europeans had to build bigger and better vessels that would make their journey across the dangerous waters safe enough. Better equipment and improved techniques were needed. Effective weaponry that was light enough thus transportable in large numbers was necessary to establish a significant martial advantage. The last but not least prerequisite was source of energy. Once the mystery of the wind pattern across the Atlantic was realized all conditions were in place to begin the invasion.

Although imperialistic desires might seem of less importance, when considering the accomplishments of Chinese maritime voyages of Cheng Ho, its significance cannot be overlooked. The Chinese met all but one prerequisite for an imperialistic design: their technology was advanced enough, their vessels could transport thousands of people and supplies, their cannons were superior, yet they did not pursuit an imperialistic desires. Crosby points to political conditions and cultural endogeny as obstacles to Chinese imperialism.

History 6337

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