Author: Constantin Ardeleanu

“Spatial Histories of Occupation. Colonialism, Conquest and Foreign Control in Asia”, edited by David Baillargeon and Jeremy E. Taylor

Open access

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/spatial-histories-of-occupation-9781350252608/

This open access book explores how different spatial geographies emerged, adapted or were transformed in various occupied and colonial settings around Asia, showing how the experiences of those living under occupation shaped and was shaped by new interpretations and typologies of ‘space’. With case studies across South, Southeast and East Asia and through a variety of disciplinary perspectives, Spatial Histories of Occupation adopts a trans-Asian comparative approach to show how the experiences of occupation and colonialism shifted under particular spatial typologies, particularly in urban, maritime and rural settings.

Revealing the similarities, differences and connections that existed between and across different spaces of foreign occupation and colonialism in modern Asian history, this book shows how a focus on historical geography and ‘space’ can revise our broader categories and conceptualisations related to occupation; be it under colonial, wartime or Cold War powers.

Read the review by Catherine L. Phipps in the August 2024 issue of the IJMH

https://doi.org/10.1177/08438714241264552

“Naval financing and supplies in Cartagena de Indias during the eighteenth century”, by José Manuel Serrano Álvarez in the August 2024 issue of the IJMH

Read it at this link (requires subscription)

https://doi.org/10.1177/08438714241264519

This article analyses the role of the naval system of Cartagena de Indias during the eighteenth century, especially the elements related to its financing and supply needs. Cartagena was the most important naval base in the southern Caribbean, and this made it necessary to deploy a coastguard system that was capable of curbing smuggling and, at the same time, reinforcing coastal surveillance.

“Underwriters of the United States: How Insurance Shaped the American Founding”, by Hannah Farber

Underwriters of the United States | Hannah Farber | University of North Carolina Press

Unassuming but formidable, American maritime insurers used their position at the pinnacle of global trade to shape the new nation. The international information they gathered and the capital they generated enabled them to play central roles in state building and economic development. During the Revolution, they helped the U.S. negotiate foreign loans, sell state debts, and establish a single national bank. Afterward, they increased their influence by lending money to the federal government and to its citizens. Even as federal and state governments began to encroach on their domain, maritime insurers adapted, preserving their autonomy and authority through extensive involvement in the formation of commercial law. Leveraging their claims to unmatched expertise, they operated free from government interference while simultaneously embedding themselves into the nation’s institutional fabric. By the early nineteenth century, insurers were no longer just risk assessors. They were nation builders and market makers.
Deeply and imaginatively researched, Underwriters of the United States uses marine insurers to reveal a startlingly original story of risk, money, and power in the founding era.

Read the review by Mallory Hope in the August 2024 issue of the IJMH
https://doi.org/10.1177/08438714241264538

Ana Rita Trindade, “Caribbean timber supply for the Spanish Navy: Shipbuilding and maintenance of war vessels in the Maritime Department of Cadiz (1729–1759)”, in the August 2024 issue of the IJMH (requires subscription)

https://doi.org/10.1177/08438714241261780

This article constitutes an introduction to the Caribbean timber supply for the service of the Spanish state shipbuilding industry in the context of the reforms of the naval sector promoted by the early Bourbon administration. The selected case study focuses on the hardwoods from Cuba (as well as Mexico, Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo) shipped to Cadiz during the reigns of Philip V and Ferdinand VI, between the late 1720s and 1750s. This supply was facilitated by the naval infrastructures established in Havana and Veracruz, as well as the trade networks of the Carrera de Indias and naval squadrons that took charge of its transport. From the state shipbuilding programmes to the repair and maintenance activities motivated by the participation of vessels in the warfare dynamics of the post-Utrecht and Aix-la-Chapelle geopolitical orders, the rhythm of this transatlantic timber supply was the result of multiple factors that had a direct influence on the metropolitan demand for timber.

Southeast Asian Interconnections: Geography, Networks and Trade, by Derek Heng

Southeast Asian Interconnections

Since the late first millennium CE, Maritime Southeast Asia has been an inter-connected zone, with its societies and states maintaining economic and diplomatic relations with both China and Japan on the east, and the Indian Sub-Continent and Middle East on the west. This global connectedness was facilitated by merchant and shipping networks that originated from within and outside Southeast Asia, resulting in a trans-regional economy developing by the early second millennium CE. Sojourning populations began to appear in Maritime Southeast Asia, culminating in records of Chinese and Indian settlers in such places as Sumatra, Malay Peninsula and the Gulf of Siam by the mid-first millennium CE. At the same time, information of products that were harvested in Southeast Asia began to be appropriated by pockets of society in China, the India and the Middle East, resulting in the production of new knowledge and usages for these products in these markets.
Noelle Richardson writes a review of the book in the August 2024 issue of the IJMH. Read it at this link (subscription needed):

https://doi.org/10.1177/08438714241261783

“The repair of navy ships in Cartagena de Indies in the mid seventeenth century: The case of the Santiago and her loss in the Caribbean”, by Vera Moya Sordo, Laura R. Carrillo Márquez, and Sergio José López Martín in the August 2024 issue of the IJMH

https://doi.org/10.1177/08438714241261776

The Santiago was a galleon of the Armada de la Guarda de las Indias that travelled in convoy with the Tierra Firme fleet in 1658 and was lost in Chinchorro Bank, Mexico, during her returning voyage to Spain. The study of her last repairs carried out in Cartagena de Indias brings the opportunity to understand the infrastructure of the port and its capabilities to face one of the main problems of the Carrera de Indias: the harsh conditions of the transatlantic voyage and the structural deficiencies of some of the Armada ships to accomplish their objectives of defence. Based on historical sources in Spanish and Mexican archives, the authors reconstruct the Santiago’s final repairs in that port, the resources available, and the level of reliance on local society to obtain the materials and labour force needed. This research will help to advance the archaeological identification of her remains among the shipwrecks registered in Chinchorro.

Ramona Negrón, Jessica den Oudsten, De grootste slavenhandelaren van Amsterdam: Over Jochem Matthijs en Coenraad Smitt

Amsterdam’s largest slave traders | Walburg Press

(The largest slave traders in Amsterdam. About Jochem Matthijs and Coenraad Smitt)
The 1730s were a turning point in the history of slavery in the Netherlands: the Dutch West India Company lost its monopoly on the transatlantic slave trade, so several traders in the Republic decided to use their ships for the private slave trade. Jochem Matthijs and Coenraad Smitt are among them. In more than thirty years, they shipped between 11,000 and 13,000 enslaved people from West Africa to Suriname.

Based on the voyage of one of the first private slave ships, ‘t Gezegende Suikerriet (1743-1745), Ramona Negrón and Jessica den Oudsten tell the hitherto unknown story of the enslaved people and crew members on board, the plantation owners involved in Suriname and the working methods of Amsterdam’s largest slave traders.
Matthias Lukkes writes a review of the book in the August 2024 issue of the IJMH. Read it at this link (subscription needed):

https://doi.org/10.1177/08438714241264626

Check out in the August 2024 issue of the IJMH the paper by Alfredo Bueno Jiménez, “The bay of La Isabela, Dominican Republic: The first enclave for the shelter, reception, construction and maintenance of ships in the New World, 1494–1498”

https://doi.org/10.1177/08438714241261807

La Isabela emerged as the first node or point of commercial connection between the ancient kingdoms of Spain and the Caribbean. This achievement was due to the meticulous spatial arrangement and planning of the settlement in the Isabeline cove, designed to facilitate interaction with both the surrounding environment and the maritime routes. Christopher Columbus achieved effective intercommunication between resource-rich areas strategically located for both maritime and river navigation. The subsidiary station of Marta, located in the Bajabonico Valley, played a crucial role as a complement to the residential centre of El Castillo, providing the basic inputs necessary for the functioning of the settlement and the shipbuilding industry. Additionally, the adjacent bay, with its arched configuration, served as a resting and recuperation place for the crew. At the opposite end, to the north-east, the shipyard was located in the La Playa area, equipped with personnel, resources and sufficient infrastructure for the construction, outfitting and repair of vessels.

A review of Meredith Martin and Gillian Weiss, The Sun King at Sea: Maritime Art and Galley Slavery in Louis XIV’s France, is published in the August 2024 issue of the IJMH by Pauline Rocca

Read it at this link (requires subscription):

https://doi.org/10.1177/08438714241261795

This richly illustrated volume, the first devoted to maritime art and galley slavery in early modern France, shows how royal propagandists used the image and labor of enslaved Muslims to glorify Louis XIV.

Mediterranean maritime art and the forced labor on which it depended were fundamental to the politics and propaganda of France’s King Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715). Yet most studies of French art in this period focus on Paris and Versailles, overlooking the presence or portrayal of galley slaves on the kingdom’s coasts. By examining a wide range of artistic productions—ship design, artillery sculpture, medals, paintings, and prints—Meredith Martin and Gillian Weiss uncover a vital aspect of royal representation and unsettle a standard picture of art and power in early modern France.

With an abundant selection of startling images, many never before published, The Sun King at Sea emphasizes the role of esclaves turcs (enslaved Turks)—rowers who were captured or purchased from Islamic lands—in building and decorating ships and other art objects that circulated on land and by sea to glorify the Crown. Challenging the notion that human bondage vanished from continental France, this cross-disciplinary volume invites a reassessment of servitude as a visible condition, mode of representation, and symbol of sovereignty during Louis XIV’s reign.

https://shop.getty.edu/products/the-sun-king-at-sea-maritime-art-and-galley-slavery-in-louis-xiv-s-france-978-1606067307?srsltid=AfmBOopxHkwJyxTEvel7_PC0mJfyn68yKU_ueyIcjBxyP8HyQQ66ZEIf

Alfredo Bueno Jiménez introduces a Forum discussion in the August 2024 issue of the IJMH: “Introduction: The shipbuilding industry in the Spanish Caribbean, 1400s–1700s: Construction, maintenance, supply of materials, and financing”

Despite the subject’s importance, historiography has overlooked the shipbuilding industry and its supplies in the Spanish Caribbean, hence the need for this forum. It contributes to naval historiography by offering four case studies that discuss shipbuilding activities in shipyards and the supply of materials, especially the main raw material – wood.

Check it (requires subscription) at this link:

https://doi.org/10.1177/08438714241264547