Abstract
The current issue reflects a series of articles based on original research covering a period from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. These articles touch on a range of topics from economic, environmental and social history, all related to the maritime world and its communities. F. Andrew Smith and Sue Paul provide the reader with insights into the trade networks developed out of Captain Richard Etherington’s voyages to the East. As European traders and travellers increased their presence everywhere in the world after the seventeenth century, European navies faced the continuous challenge of diversifying shipbuilding activities to account for fishing, trade and warfare. In this context, institutional regulations played a paramount role in adapting different types of ships to different commercial and naval goals, as Ida Jorgensen eloquently demonstrates for the case of Denmark in the first half of the eighteenth century.
While eighteenth-century shipbuilders in Europe faced technical and aesthetic challenges, European navies in Europe and elsewhere faced severe constraints contractualising a labour force. These constrains were overcome differently in different countries: some enrolled non-Europeans into the navy, free and unfree alike, and melded these with European crews. Jeremy Young shows the unique archival tools required to trace non-Europeans of African descent, born in Africa or the Americas, who served the French navy. His skilful navigation of France’s national and local archives illustrates the potential of his methodology for future research.
As the exploitation of marine labour continued throughout the early modern and modern periods, so too did the environmental–economic exploitation of non-European resources. Sophia Haller explains the complexity, as well as the far-reaching economic and social consequences, of guano extraction in Atlantic Patagonia during the nineteenth century. She stresses the enduring impact on fauna, flora and Indigenous communities through a unique episode of maritime history that extends well beyond the borders of maritime communities, which we traditionally tend to prioritise.
Václav Horčička invites the reader into a deep analysis of the meaning of the Austro-Hungarian merchant shipping in the United States in the context of the First World War. He provides a balanced and well-reasoned account of the many challenges and solutions the institutions and individuals respectively braved and found throughout this impossible period of intense warfare on land and on sea.
While Austro-Hungarian merchant ships in the United States were faced with the consequences of the First World War, Spanish entrepreneurs and the Spanish government implemented several welfare provisions and fiscal projects to support the country’s fisheries, especially those in northwestern Spain. Maritime, rural and urban economies were profoundly entangled as a result of these interventions, whereby ships were mortgaged and land and urban properties were collateralised to secure the principal’s payments. The influence of these measures on the social and economic fabric of fishing communities has lasted well into the twenty-first century as illustrated by Jesus Giráldez Rivero.
Erik Odegard contributes to this issue with a research note that gives new insight into how to use sources produced by Europeans to tease out localised knowledge concerning non-European shipping and maritime engagement. The sources of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) are especially insightful to study the workings of trade beyond the direct purview of the company in the Indian subcontinent and the Indian Ocean in the eighteenth century. When compared and compiled together with data of other European companies, these serial sources may contribute to a broader, deeper and more complex understanding of maritime exchanges in Asia before 1800.
Following the challenges and difficulties posed by COVID-19, our book review section is growing again thanks to the continued support of our former book review editor, Martin Wilcox, and our current book review editor, Patrick van der Geest.
We would like to conclude this editorial on two notes. First, we wish to express our gratitude to our trustworthy peer reviewers for all their support and work for the journal, particularly during these last two years. We rely on their generosity, in terms of knowledge and time, and we are convinced that the quality of this journal depends as much on its contributing authors as on its peer reviewers.
On a final note, the editorial team is looking forward to meeting prospective authors at the 8th IMHA International Congress of Maritime History, set to take place in Porto, Portugal, from 28 June to 2 July. Cátia Antunes is attending the conference and will be available for direct and personal contact with prospective contributors – with special attention for PhD candidates, postdoctoral fellows and young career scholars. We look forward to receiving and considering your work, which may be either individual or collective proceedings resulting from scholarly discussions in Porto.