Brett Rushforth – författare

A comprehensive collection of primary documents for students of early American and Atlantic history, Colonial North America and the Atlantic World gives voice to the men and women-Amerindian, African, and European-who together forged a new world.

A bold reinterpretation of French colonialism from its medieval roots to the early nineteenth centuryBetween 1400 and 1800, the people of Europe, Africa, and the Americas grew ever more connected by overseas trade and colonization. Histories of this transformative era have been dominated by Iberian and British experiences, overlooking the vast reach of the pre-Napoleonic French Empire. Yet by the mid-eighteenth century, France claimed nearly a third of North America, ruled over the Caribbean's most profitable and brutal plantations, and controlled a substantial proportion of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In Beyond the Ocean, Christopher Hodson and Brett Rushforth reveal the significant role that France played in the history of the Atlantic world and the ways the Atlantic shaped France in return. Drawing on expansive original research in multiple languages, they craft an unconventional history of empire that highlights the experiences, priorities, and influence of Native Americans and West Africans, both free and enslaved. French sailors, nuns, smugglers, and weavers also appear as dynamic historical actors who shaped the emerging empire as much as kings and bureaucrats.Driven by compelling individual stories woven into a sweeping chronological narrative, Beyond the Ocean offers a bold new interpretation of French colonialism that recovers the full complexity of a misunderstood empire and reveals its profound significance to the interconnected Atlantic basin and the early modern world.

A bold reinterpretation of French colonialism from its medieval roots to the early nineteenth centuryBetween 1400 and 1800, the people of Europe, Africa, and the Americas grew ever more connected by overseas trade and colonization. Histories of this transformative era have been dominated by Iberian and British experiences, overlooking the vast reach of the pre-Napoleonic French Empire. Yet by the mid-eighteenth century, France claimed nearly a third of North America, ruled over the Caribbean's most profitable and brutal plantations, and controlled a substantial proportion of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In Beyond the Ocean, Christopher Hodson and Brett Rushforth reveal the significant role that France played in the history of the Atlantic world and the ways the Atlantic shaped France in return. Drawing on expansive original research in multiple languages, they craft an unconventional history of empire that highlights the experiences, priorities, and influence of Native Americans and West Africans, both free and enslaved. French sailors, nuns, smugglers, and weavers also appear as dynamic historical actors who shaped the emerging empire as much as kings and bureaucrats. Driven by compelling individual stories woven into a sweeping chronological narrative, Beyond the Ocean offers a bold new interpretation of French colonialism that recovers the full complexity of a misunderstood empire and reveals its profound significance to the interconnected Atlantic basin and the early modern world.

A bold reinterpretation of French colonialism from its medieval roots to the early nineteenth centuryBetween 1400 and 1800, the people of Europe, Africa, and the Americas grew ever more connected by overseas trade and colonization. Histories of this transformative era have been dominated by Iberian and British experiences, overlooking the vast reach of the pre-Napoleonic French Empire. Yet by the mid-eighteenth century, France claimed nearly a third of North America, ruled over the Caribbean's most profitable and brutal plantations, and controlled a substantial proportion of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In Beyond the Ocean, Christopher Hodson and Brett Rushforth reveal the significant role that France played in the history of the Atlantic world and the ways the Atlantic shaped France in return. Drawing on expansive original research in multiple languages, they craft an unconventional history of empire that highlights the experiences, priorities, and influence of Native Americans and West Africans, both free and enslaved. French sailors, nuns, smugglers, and weavers also appear as dynamic historical actors who shaped the emerging empire as much as kings and bureaucrats.Driven by compelling individual stories woven into a sweeping chronological narrative, Beyond the Ocean offers a bold new interpretation of French colonialism that recovers the full complexity of a misunderstood empire and reveals its profound significance to the interconnected Atlantic basin and the early modern world.

A comprehensive collection of primary documents for students of early American and Atlantic history, Colonial North America and the Atlantic World gives voice to the men and women¿Amerindian, African, and European¿who together forged a new world.These compelling narratives address the major themes of early modern colonialism from the perspective of the people who lived at the time: Spanish priests and English farmers, Indian diplomats and Dutch governors, French explorers and African abolitionists. Evoking the remarkable complexity created by the bridging of the Atlantic Ocean, Colonial North America and the Atlantic World suggests that the challenges of globalization¿and the growing reality of American diversity¿are among the most important legacies of the colonial world.

A comprehensive collection of primary documents for students of early American and Atlantic history, Colonial North America and the Atlantic World gives voice to the men and women¿Amerindian, African, and European¿who together forged a new world.These compelling narratives address the major themes of early modern colonialism from the perspective of the people who lived at the time: Spanish priests and English farmers, Indian diplomats and Dutch governors, French explorers and African abolitionists. Evoking the remarkable complexity created by the bridging of the Atlantic Ocean, Colonial North America and the Atlantic World suggests that the challenges of globalization¿and the growing reality of American diversity¿are among the most important legacies of the colonial world.

A comprehensive collection of primary documents for students of early American and Atlantic history, Colonial North America and the Atlantic World gives voice to the men and women¿Amerindian, African, and European¿who together forged a new world.These compelling narratives address the major themes of early modern colonialism from the perspective of the people who lived at the time: Spanish priests and English farmers, Indian diplomats and Dutch governors, French explorers and African abolitionists. Evoking the remarkable complexity created by the bridging of the Atlantic Ocean, Colonial North America and the Atlantic World suggests that the challenges of globalization¿and the growing reality of American diversity¿are among the most important legacies of the colonial world.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, French colonists and their Native allies participated in a slave trade that spanned half of North America, carrying thousands of Native Americans into bondage in the Great Lakes, Canada, and the Caribbean. In Bonds of Alliance, Brett Rushforth reveals the dynamics of this system from its origins to the end of French colonial rule. Balancing a vast geographic and chronological scope with careful attention to the lives of enslaved individuals, this book gives voice to those who lived through the ordeal of slavery and, along the way, shaped French and Native societies. Rather than telling a simple story of colonial domination and Native victimisation, Rushforth argues that Indian slavery in New France emerged at the nexus of two very different forms of slavery: one indigenous to North America and the other rooted in the Atlantic world. The alliances that bound French and Natives together forced a century-long negotiation over the nature of slavery and its place in early American society. Neither fully Indian nor entirely French, slavery in New France drew upon and transformed indigenous and Atlantic cultures in complex and surprising ways. Based on thousands of French and Algonquian-language manuscripts archived in Canada, France, the United States and the Caribbean, Bonds of Alliance bridges the divide between continental and Atlantic approaches to early American history. By discovering unexpected connections between distant peoples and places, Rushforth sheds new light on a wide range of subjects, including intercultural diplomacy, colonial law, gender and sexuality, and the history of race. Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, USA.