TY - JOUR
T1 - An Atlantic Slave Trade Stretching from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean and Beyond
AU - Wheat, David
AU - Lamikiz, Xabier
AU - Zaugg, Roberto
AU - Hatfield, April Lee
AU - da Silva, Filipa Ribeiro
AU - Roper, L. H.
AU - García-Montón, Alejandro
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Brill Academic Publishers. All rights reserved.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - The study of the trans-Atlantic slave trade is becoming increasingly sophisticated, diverse, and international. Challenging prevailing stereotypes about the dominance of northern European business interests, García Montón’s study shows the persistent vigor of Genoa’s merchant community in this examination of the asiento system that emerged in the mid-seventeenth century and continued into the mid-eighteenth century. Along the way, he also illuminates the slave trade’s connections to many other forms of trade, legitimate and illegitimate, on both sides of the Atlantic. Impressed with his research and approach, these six reviewers discuss its implications for a variety of international contexts, from Central Europe to Italy, Iberia, England, and the Caribbean, including the profitability of the asiento trade and the many different people who participated in and benefitted from it on both sides of the Atlantic. It emerges that the asiento was about much more than just the slave trade. Its profits and trading networks helped integrate the different imperial economies with footholds in the Caribbean. Drawing on the wealth of new scholarship from these different historiographies, they raise some questions about elements that García Montón did not pursue fully in the book. He responds with additional research to address some of those issues, while also calling for more research on the interconnected “asiento worlds” that are one of the most fascinating and unanticipated results of his research.
AB - The study of the trans-Atlantic slave trade is becoming increasingly sophisticated, diverse, and international. Challenging prevailing stereotypes about the dominance of northern European business interests, García Montón’s study shows the persistent vigor of Genoa’s merchant community in this examination of the asiento system that emerged in the mid-seventeenth century and continued into the mid-eighteenth century. Along the way, he also illuminates the slave trade’s connections to many other forms of trade, legitimate and illegitimate, on both sides of the Atlantic. Impressed with his research and approach, these six reviewers discuss its implications for a variety of international contexts, from Central Europe to Italy, Iberia, England, and the Caribbean, including the profitability of the asiento trade and the many different people who participated in and benefitted from it on both sides of the Atlantic. It emerges that the asiento was about much more than just the slave trade. Its profits and trading networks helped integrate the different imperial economies with footholds in the Caribbean. Drawing on the wealth of new scholarship from these different historiographies, they raise some questions about elements that García Montón did not pursue fully in the book. He responds with additional research to address some of those issues, while also calling for more research on the interconnected “asiento worlds” that are one of the most fascinating and unanticipated results of his research.
KW - Asiento
KW - Economic History
KW - Slave Trade
KW - Smuggling
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85178492379&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1163/18770703-13020001
DO - 10.1163/18770703-13020001
M3 - Book/Film/Article review
AN - SCOPUS:85178492379
SN - 1877-0223
VL - 13
SP - 169
EP - 240
JO - Journal of Early American History
JF - Journal of Early American History
IS - 2-3
ER -