Migrations and Diasporas (Atlantic History(

Introduction

Between 1492 and 1866 millions of people crossed the Atlantic—from Africa’s west coast (from 1500 to 1866, an estimated 12 million people) and from western and central Europe (from 1500 to 1783, an estimated 1.4 million people)—in order to resettle (or be resettled) in the so-called New World. The age of mass migrations of Europeans only started in the 18th century, followed by the immigration of Asians and eastern Europeans, mostly from the 19th century onward. The literature on Atlantic migrations and diasporas is vast. This bibliography is and has to be selective and will provide more recently published materials on Atlantic migrations and diasporas for the early modern period and for the northern Atlantic. More recent research on so-called religious diasporas or the migrations of specific ethnic groups makes evident that attributions such as “religious diaspora” or “German” or “French” can be problematic, as most of these migrating groups were more heterogenous than previous scholarship might have suggested. Nonetheless, this bibliography includes specific sections on various “religious diasporas” in the Atlantic world, German migrations (even if they included Swiss or French people), and the “Black Atlantic” (despite the many creoles among slaves being deported from Africa to the Americas).

General Overviews

The following selection of titles provides an overview of migrations from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. This section should enable students and established scholars to embrace different academic and national perspectives on migrations. Altman and Horn 1991 focuses on various European migrations to the Americas. Bailyn 1986 examines, from an American/British viewpoint, mostly migrations from Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries but also looks at German immigrants in British North America. Bailyn and Morgan 1991 analyzes interethnic relationships between European immigrants, Native Americans, and African Americans during the first British Empire. The perspective of Canny 1994 is western European, whereas Bade, et al. 2007 deals with migrations and well-known diasporic movements from a continental European perspective. Cohen 1995 only touches on pre-1945 Atlantic migrations, whereas Hoerder 2002 has a rather cosmopolitan view of migrations at large. Page-Moch 2003 provides an American perspective on migrations (mostly) within Europe; Wokeck 1999 instead offers a German-American perspective on Atlantic migrations. The authors’ varying viewpoints highlight different perceptions of the importance of different migratory movements for both the countries the immigrants came from and where they went.

Altman, Ida, and James Horn, eds. “To Make America”: European Emigration in the Early Modern Period. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
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Anthology of essays on 16th and 18th century migrations from western and central Europe to the Americas—for example, from Extremadura to Spanish America, (indentured servants) from France to French Canada, from Germany to British North America, and English free migration to the Chesapeake.
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Bailyn, Bernard. The Peopling of British North America: An Introduction. New York: Knopf, 1986.
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Groundbreaking piece on early modern Atlantic migrations. Excellent book to start with when studying Atlantic migrations. Volume 1 of a series of publications on migrations to North America between 1500 and the Industrial Revolution.
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Bailyn, Bernard, and Phillip D. Morgan, eds. Strangers within the Realm: Cultural Margins of the First British Empire. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.
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Pioneering volume on relations of British and non-British peoples during the first British Empire and their effects on warfare, interimperial relations, colonialism, religion, and law.
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Bade, Klaus J., Pieter C. Emmer, Leo Lucassen, and Jochen Oltmer, eds. Enzyklopädie Migration in Europa:Vom 17. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart. Paderborn, Germany: Schöningh, 2007.
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Massive compilation of migration movements in and from Europe, with a stark focus on the 19th and 20th centuries. Some entries are problematic, as authors overlooked more recent publications.
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Canny, Nicholas, ed. Europeans on the Move: Studies on European Migration, 1500–1800. Oxford and New York: Clarendon, 1994.
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Collection of essays on western European migrations in the Atlantic world: Spanish, Dutch, Irish, German, Scottish, English, and Welsh.
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Cohen, Robin, ed. The Cambridge Survey of World Migration. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
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Only four of the fourteen sections on world migrations deal with the periods prior to 1945. Slightly too “modern” for early modern Atlanticists.
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Hoerder, Dirk. Cultures in Contact: World Migrations in the Second Millennium. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002.
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Seminal and comprehensive overview of world migrations since the Crusades. Must-read for all scholars concerned with migration studies.
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Moch, Leslie Page. Moving Europeans: Migration in Western Europe since 1650. 2d ed. Interdisciplinary Studies in History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003.
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Slightly outdated overview of most important European migrations since 1650. Mainly deals with migrations within Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries.
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Wokeck, Marianne. Trade in Strangers: The Beginnings of Mass Migration to North America. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999.
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Analysis of merchants’ networks, labor systems, and patterns of trade with migrants, predominantly from German-speaking lands, with the last chapter comparing her findings with migrations from Ireland.
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Data Sources

Quantifying migrations in the prestatistics, early modern period is a difficult and tricky endeavor. Some scholars have tried, though: whereas Historical Statistics of the United States only provides first insights into immigration to British North America, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database is far more comprehensive in its survey of the peoples crossing the Black Atlantic; this is also true of Midlo Hall 2000.

Midlo Hall, Gwendolyn, ed. Databases for the Study of Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy, 1699–1860: Computerized Information from Original Manuscript Sources. CD-ROM. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000.
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Database on slaves of African descent in Louisiana from 1699 to 1860. Created on the basis of courthouse records and historical archives in Louisiana, Cuba, Spain, and France.
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Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database.
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Emory University’s long-term project involves contributors from a wide range of countries and fields of research in order to identify 67,000 of the estimated 12,000,000 Africans who crossed the Atlantic between 1500 and 1866. Useful for casual readers and scholars of the Black Atlantic alike.
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US Census Bureau. Bicentennial Edition: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970.
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The census for “Colonial Times” (immigration and the population of the English/British colonies) is far from comprehensive. However, it provides first insights in what migrations to British North America in colonial times could have been in size and diversity of peoples.
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Theorizing Diasporas

What is a diaspora? Diasporas have often been identified with well-known victim diasporas, such as the Jewish and Armenian diasporas, as Chaliand and Rageau 1991 makes evident. Since the 1970s, sociologists such as Robin Cohen (Cohen 1997) and James Clifford (Clifford 1994) have tended to identify as a diaspora any group abroad for which the notion and the dream of the homeland become strong uniting elements for construction of group identity. More recent work on Sephardi Jews and the Huguenots shows that clearly separating trade diasporas from victim or religious diasporas does not necessarily cause a better understanding of how these diasporas acted and interacted in the Atlantic world. Lachenicht and Heinsohn 2009 makes evident that understanding diasporas means to look at how their identities form and how they change according to the needs of the entire diaspora and its individual members. Diasporas tend to be cosmopolitan and exclusive.

Chaliand, Gérard, and Jean-Pierre Rageau. Atlas des Diasporas. Paris: O. Jacob, 1991.
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Useful but slightly outdated overview of the best-known world diasporas: Jews, Africans, Chinese, Indians, Armenians, and others.
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Clifford, James. “Diasporas.” Current Anthropology 9.3 (1994): 302–338.
DOI: 10.1525/can.1994.9.3.02a00040Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Innovative attempt at theorizing and understanding the character and effects of “spaces” between peoples.
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Cohen, Robin. Global Diasporas. An Introduction. Global Diasporas. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997.
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Sociological approach to history and patterns of diasporas. Useful overview of genesis of the term. Identifies victim, trade, imperial, labor, and cultural diasporas. Excellent definition of diverse “fibres of the diasporic rope.”
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Lachenicht, Susanne, and Kirsten Heinsohn, eds. Diaspora Identities: Exile, Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in Past and Present. Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus Verlag, 2009.
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Collection of essays on constructions of diaspora identities and the interrelatedness of cosmopolitanism(s) and nationalism(s) in situations of exile.
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Theorizing Migrations

Can migrations be compared? Is there a sample of questions and tools that help us systemize research on migrations? Whereas Lucassen and Lucassen 1997 offers theoretical reflections on migrations and migration studies, Ostergren 1982 deals with one important aspect relevant for the reconstruction of migratory movements: networks and network analysis.

Lucassen, Jan, and Leo Lucassen, eds. Migration, Migration History, History: Old Paradigms and New Perspectives. International and Comparative Social History 4. Bern, Switzerland, and New York: Peter Lang, 1997.
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Excellent and useful essays on theories and methodology of migration studies (Part 1). Parts 2 and 3 offer examples of migrations from the 14th to the 20th centuries, some in an Atlantic perspective. Must-read for all scholars concerned with migration studies.
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Ostergren, Robert C. “Kinship Networks and Migration: A Nineteenth-Century Swedish Example.” Social Science History 6 (1982): 293–320.
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Useful approach to the problems of network analysis and the reconstruction of kinship networks for migrations.
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Atlantic Migrations

The following sections provide an overview of the most important North Atlantic migrations between, approximately, 1492 and 1800: migrations from the British Isles, Germany, France, and the Netherlands; (forced) migrations from Africa; and migrations of specific religious groups, such as Huguenots, Moravians, Quakers, Salzburgers, and Sephardi Jews. Another section is devoted to trade diasporas in the Atlantic world.

British Isles and Ireland

For the peopling of colonial North America, migration from the British Isles has long been considered the most important element. This section presents a selection of different migration periods and peoples from the British Isles: Bailyn 1986 investigates late-18th-century migrations, whereas Cressy 1987 focuses on migrations and settlements in New England in the 17th century. Dickson 1966 specializes in 18th-century migrations from Ulster; Games 1999 is an analysis of English migrations to the Chesapeake and the Caribbean. Fischer 1989 is interested in the effects of immigration from the British Isles in America. Vigne and Littleton 2001 provides essays that deal with mobility from and to the British Isles from 1550 to 1750. Finally, Yungblut 1996 exhibits English concepts of asylum and integration for the late 16th century.

Bailyn, Bernard. Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution. New York: Knopf, 1986.
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Thorough analysis of British migrants settling in the British Colonies in North America before the onset of the American Revolution.
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Cressy, David. Coming Over: Migration and Communication between England and New England in the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
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Migration to and settlement of New England from a British historian’s perspective. What looks like a marginal phenomenon from an English perspective has long been considered by American historians a major step in the peopling of North America.
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Dickson, R. J. Ulster Emigration to Colonial America, 1718–1775. London: Routledge and Kegan and Paul, 1966.
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Thorough analysis of reasons behind migrations from Ulster to colonial North America.
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Games, Alison. Migration and the Origins of the English Atlantic World. Harvard Historical Studies 133. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.
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Analysis of the social background of 1,360 English individuals migrating in the 1630s to New England, the Chesapeake, Providence/Barbados, and Bermuda. Neglects possible non-English networks of these migrants. The notion of “English Atlantic world” can be problematic, as it suggests too hermetic a world.
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Fischer, David Hacket. Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America. America, a Cultural History 1. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
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Purports to explain the origins of American culture and diversity of English accents in America while focusing on immigration of English Puritans, Quakers, English Royalists, and settlers from the British borderlands and Ireland. Neglects influence of other immigrants and their cultures in North America.
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Vigne, Randolph, and Charles Littleton, eds. From Strangers to Citizens: The Integration of Immigrant Communities in Britain, Ireland, and Colonial America, 1550–1750. Proceedings of a conference convened in London on 5–7 April 2000 by the Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Brighton, UK, and Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press, 2001.
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Edited volume on migrations to Britain, Ireland. and the English/British colonies in North America. Reflects early-21st-century state of the art on diverse groups of migrants, such as Sephardi Jews, the Palatines, the Huguenots, and others.
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Yungblut, Laura Hunt. Strangers Settled Here amongst Us: Policies, Perceptions and the Presence of Aliens in Elizabethan England. London: Routledge, 1996.
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Important book on asylum and the integration of “aliens” in English state and society. Covers migration policies and policies for accommodation during the first English Empire.
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Dutch Migrations

Many publications on the Dutch colonial empire, such as Israel 1989, seem to focus on trade and commerce less than on the migratory movements themselves—this, despite that New Netherland was one of two Dutch overseas settlement colonies. Bachmann 1969 introduces the Dutch West India Company as the driving force for the foundation of the Dutch overseas empire, whereas Emmer 1998 also draws—marginally, however—on Dutch migrations in its investigation of their role in the Atlantic economy. Goodfriend 1992 is a study of the “integration” of the Dutch colonialists in New York City, whereas Jacobs 2009 studies the New Netherland experience at large.

Bachmann, Van Cleaf. Peltries or Plantations: The Economic Policies of the Dutch West India Company in New Netherland, 1623–1639. Johns Hopkins Studies in Historical and Political Science 87. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969.
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Strong focus on the economy, less so on the peoples in the Dutch overseas empire.
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Emmer, Piet. The Dutch in the Atlantic Economy, 1580–1880: Trade, Slavery and Emancipation. Variorum Collected Studies series. Aldershot, UK, and Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1998.
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Focuses on importance of the Dutch West India Company within the Atlantic slave trade from the early 17th to the 19th century.
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Goodfriend, Joyce D. Before the Melting Pot: Society and Culture in Colonial New York City, 1664–1730. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992.
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Excellent study of ethnic factors in early colonial New York. Emphasizes the importance of the Dutch element even after English conquest.
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Israel, Jonathan I. Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585–1740. Oxford: Clarendon, 1989.
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Excellent study of the role of Dutch entrepreneurship and mobility in early modern trade, linking Atlantic and Pacific history.
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Jacobs, Jaap. The colony of New Netherland: A Dutch Settlement in Seventeenth-Century America. Cornell Paperbacks. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009.
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Thorough, sometimes too Dutch-centered study of New Netherland and how it developed from a trading post to one of the two Dutch settlement colonies overseas.
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French Migrations

French migrations to North America only became successful on a larger scale from the 1660s onward despite earlier attempts to colonize Florida (in the mid-16th century) and the Caribbean. The following works provide an overview of various aspects of migrations to the French colonies in North America. Choquette 1997 analyzes the social background and transformations of French settlers in Canada. Eccles 1998 gives an overview of immigration, settlements, and the history of New France from the early 16th to the 18th century. Hodson 2007 deals with the Acadiens, an early example for the deportation of a religious and ethnic minority. Lachenicht 2008 is an analysis of identity formation in French Canada as being a result of migrations and métissage. Lancry 1990 is a demographic study of French attempts at boosting Canada’s population through “importing” young women from France; Trudel 1973 is the classic study of the early French attempts at colonizing New France.

Choquette, Leslie. Frenchmen into Peasants: Modernity and Tradition in the Peopling of French Canada. Harvard Historical Studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.
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Important revision of views on French migration to and settlement in la Nouvelle France.
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Eccles, William J. The French in North America 1500–1765. Rev. ed. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 1998.
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Slightly outdated narrative of the arrival of the French in North America and the colonization (and loss) of French Canada.
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Hodson, Christopher. “Idlers and Idolaters: Acadian Exiles and the Labour Regimes of British North America, 1755–1763.” In Religious Refugees in Europe, Asia and North America: (6th–21st Century). Edited by Susanne Lachenicht, 197–215. Atlantic Cultural Studies 4. Hamburg, Germany: Lit, 2007.
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Accounts of the deportations of French Acadians in the 1750s and anti-French and anti-Catholic politics in their new “homelands.”
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Lachenicht, Susanne. “À la découverte de l’Européen? Perceptions de l’Autre et identités au Canada et en Acadie (XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles).” Francia 35.2 (2008): 551–563.
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Analysis of the formation of creole identities in the French Canadian context.
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Lancry, Yves. “Les filles du roi en Nouvelle France: Étude de démographie historique,” PhD diss., École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, 1990.
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Study of the demographic politics of early modern France in the peopling of its colonies on the American continent.
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Trudel, Marcel. The Beginnings of New France, 1524–1663. Translated by Patricia Claxton. The Canadian Centenary series 2. Toronto: MacLelland and Stuart, 1973.
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Slightly outdated but still the most comprehensive study of French colonial ventures and the establishment of a French colonial empire in North America.
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German Migrations

Continental European research has often emphasized that the migration of Germans to British North America prior to the 19th century has been underestimated by scholars of the British Atlantic. This might be because, as the following citations show, a large number of publications in this field are only available in German. German migration to British North America was already important in terms of numbers from the early 18th century onward. Fogleman 1996, an English-language monograph, emphasizes—from an American perspective—the large number of German settlers in the 18th century, whereas Häberlein 1993 focuses on southern Rhinelanders in Pennsylvania. Heerwart and Schnurmann 2007 is an edited collection essays dealing with various aspects of German migrations to North America between the 18th and 19th centuries: push-pull factors, kinship networks, consequences for the people left behind in Germany, and integration patterns of different regional and social groups of Germans in British North America. Lehmann, et al. 2000 makes evident that Atlantic migrations not only of Germans, but also of Europeans in general, have to be understood in the context of 18th-century mobility within both Europe and the Atlantic world, leaving Germans with a possible choice of different destinations: North America, Russia, Transylvania, and others. Trommler and McVeigh 1985 is an early work covering several aspects of German migrations to British North America from the 18th to the 20th century. Otterness 2004 studies Palatine migration to New York; Roeber 1993 examines German Lutherans in a larger perspective. Tappert and Doberstein 1942–1958 and Wellenreuther 2002 offer editions of one of the most important Lutheran pastor’s journals in North America.

Fogleman, Aaron S. Hopeful Journeys. German Immigration, Settlement, and Political Culture in Colonial North America, 1717–1775. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996.
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English-language study of German migrations to— and particularly settlements in—North America in the 18th century. Emphasizes that the peopling of North America was far from being dominantly a British venture.
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Häberlein, Mark. Vom Oberrhein zum Susquehanna: Studien zur badischen Auswanderung nach Pennsylvania im 18. Jahrhundert. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer Verlag, 1993.
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Analysis of 1732 to 1754 migrations from the Marggraviat of Baden-Durlach (southwest Germany) to North America. Excellent account of change and continuities in migrants’ everyday lives.
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Heerwart, Sabine, and Claudia Schnurmann, eds. Atlantic Migrations: Regions and Movements in Germany and North America/USA during the 18th and 19th Century. Atlantic Cultural Studies 3. Hamburg, Germany: Lit, 2007.
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Collection of essays investigating the reasons behind German migrations, the accommodation of German migrants in North America, and the effects of emigration on former home countries.
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Lehmann, Hartmut, Hermann Wellenreuther, and Renate Wilson, eds. In Search of Peace and Prosperity: New German Settlements in Eighteenth-Century Europe and America. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press 2000.
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Collection of essays providing an excellent overview of German migrations within Europe and the Atlantic world. Emphasizes the German element in the peopling of the Americas.
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Otterness, Philip. Becoming German: The 1709 Palatine Migration to New York. Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 2004.
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Narrative account of the 1709 to 1712 migration of 15,000 Palatines to England, Ireland, and the British colonies in North America. Problematic assessment of the formation of “German” identities in North America.
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Roeber, G. A. Palatines, Liberty, and Property: German Lutherans in Colonial British America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
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Useful and thorough investigation of the major cultural transformations caused by German Lutheran settlers in Georgia, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia. Includes an excellent analysis of the cultural “baggage” brought by these German settlers.
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Tappert, Theodore G., and John W. Doberstein, trans. The Journals of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg. 3 vols. Philadelphia: Evangelical Lutheran Ministerium of Pennsylvania and Adjacent States, 1942–1958.
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English translation of one of the most important sources on early German migrants and the Lutheran Church in North America. Also useful for ethnic studies, studies on Native Americans, and intercultural contacts in early America.
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Trommler, Frank, and Joseph McVeigh, eds. America and the Germans. An Assessment of a Three-Hundred-Year History. 2 vols. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 1985.
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Collection of essays (written by Marianne Wokeck, Georg Moltmann, Hermann Wellenreuther, Kathleen Neils Conzen, Hartmut Keil, J. Fishman, A. Ritter, and others) on German migrations to North America from the 18th to the 20th century. Considers the process of immigration, the Pennsylvania Germans, language, literature, and the foundations of a German-American ethnic identity.
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Wellenreuther, Hermann, ed. Die Korrespondenz Heinrich Melchior Mühlenbergs. Aus der Anfangszeit des deutschen Luthertums in Nordamerika. Vol. 5. Berlin, New York: Walter De Gruyter, 2002.
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Thorough German edition of Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg’s journals.
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Iberian Migrations

Contrary to the English/British Empire, the Spanish and Portuguese overseas empires were less populated by large groups of migrants from the Iberian peninsula or other parts of Europe and more built on the conversion and “assimilation” of native populations and on African slavery, as Alden 1996 and Elliott 2006 emphasize. Kamen 2004 shows where Europeans moved across the Atlantic to serve the Spanish overseas; Otte 1996 is a source book for the study of Iberian immigrants in Spain’s overseas territories and their views of the “New World.” For Sephardi migrations, see Sephardi Jews.

Alden, Dauril. The Making of an Enterprise: The Society of Jesus in Portugal, Its Empire, and Beyond, 1540–1750. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996.
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Comprehensive study of the rise of the Jesuit order and its expansion in Portugal and beyond. Chapter 9 deals with Jesuit enterprises in Brazil, and chapter 20 with migrations within the Portuguese Atlantic motivated or forced by the Society of Jesus.
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Elliott, J. H. Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492–1830. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006.
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Eminent comparison of Spanish and British colonial ventures. A few paragraphs are devoted to the migrations of people.
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Kamen, Henry. Empire: How Spain Became a World Power. New York: Perennial, 2004.
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Originally published in 2002 as Spain’s Road to Empire (London: Allen Lane). In his study of the making of the Spanish empire, Kamen also addresses the migration and integration of the Spanish and other Europeans serving as soldiers, administrators, and merchants within Spain’s overseas territories.
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Otte, Enrique. Cartas privadas de emigrantes a Indias, 1540–1616. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1996.
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Collection of private letters of Spanish immigrants in Spain’s overseas empire.
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Black Atlantic

The “Black Atlantic” has been and still is a large “zone of interest” inspiring many scholars to further investigation. The following entries aim at presenting some of the more important aspects of the Black Atlantic, from Berlin’s study of early patterns of slavery and creolization in the Atlantic world (Berlin 1996), to his overview of African and African-American slavery (Berlin 2003), to Gilroy’s “intellectual history” of the Black Atlantic (Gilroy 1993). The field also provides studies that analyze systematically the slave trade system (Eltis 2000). Heywood and Thornton 2007 focuses on the African side of the slave trade. Klein, et al. 2001 is an important revision of Atlantic mortality. Smallwood 2007 investigates the different “chapters of captivity” as they were experienced by the captives themselves. Finally, Gomez 2005 is a comprehensive study of the entire African diaspora contextualizing the Black Atlantic within older European perceptions of the African and Africa.

Berlin, Ira. “From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and the Origin of African-American Society in Mainland North America.” William and Mary Quarterly 53.2 (1996): 251–288.
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Seminal piece on earliest patterns of African slavery in the Atlantic world and on importance of “Atlantic Creoles” as cultural brokers. Available online through purchase.
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Berlin, Ira. Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.
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Excellent overview of the history of African slavery and Afro-Americans in North America from the 16th to the 19th century.
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Eltis, David. The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
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Analysis of the European-African-American slave system, how it developed, and why it became so successful.
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Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. London: Verso, 1993.
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Intellectual history of the Black Atlantic. Intelligent rereading of W. E. B. DuBois, Richard Wright, Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass, and others.
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Gomez, Michael A. Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora. New Approaches to African History. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
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Excellent synthesis of the history of the Black Atlantic and introduction to this field of research.
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Heywood, Linda M., and John K. Thornton. Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Foundation of the Americas, 1585–1660. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
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Focusing on the African side of the Black Atlantic, this book strengthens the idea of an early Creole culture as a product of intense contacts with the Portuguese and Dutch in Africa.
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Klein, Herbert S., Stanley L. Engerman, Robin Haines, and Ralph Shlomowitz. “Transoceanic Mortality: The Slave Trade in Comparative Perspective.” William and Mary Quarterly 53.1 (2001): 93–118.
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Survey and important revision of mortality rates on slave trade vessels, as it compares findings from the DuBois Institute dataset with findings from vessels with European migrants.
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Smallwood, Stephanie E. Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007.
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Sensitive account of practices of capture, imprisonment, embarkation, shipboard passage, disembarkation, sale, and slavery in the Americas based on extensive reading of the private correspondence between officials in London and agents in Africa and the Americas.
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Religious Diasporas

Comparative and comprehensive studies of religious migrations are scarce. Most religious diasporas have been studied so far in a more narrow perspective, often neglecting the many links and networks between different diaspora peoples. First attempts at comparing and systemizing aspects of religious migrations have been made in a long-term and highly selective perspective by Lachenicht 2007, whereas Lehmann 2005 offers a selection of essays on religious migrations within Europe that are useful for the understanding of religious migrations in the Atlantic as well.

Lachenicht, Susanne, ed. Religious Refugees in Europe, Asia and North America: (6th–21st Century). Atlantic Cultural Studies 4. Hamburg, Germany: Lit, 2007.
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Collection of essays on so-called religious migrations. Discusses questions of the accommodation of religious migrants, negotiations of privileges for settlements, and integration patterns in a comparative perspective. Includes essays on Acadians, Anabaptists, Moravians, Huguenots, and Quakers from an Atlantic perspective.
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Lehmann, Hartmut, ed. Migration und Religion im Zeitalter der Globalisierung. Göttingen, Germany: Wallstein, 2005.
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Collection of essays on religious motives behind migrations within Europe (17th to 20th centuries) and religious settlements in diaspora.
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Huguenots

Huguenots started settling in North America long before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685. From the mid-16th century, Huguenots, such as Admiral Coligny, were involved in colonizing efforts (first in the service of the French, then of the English king) in the Atlantic world. The literature on Huguenot migrations is vast. The following citations offer some older and more recent work on Huguenot migrations to North America. Baird 1885 is the first comprehensive study of Huguenots in North America. Birnstiel and Bernat 2001 offers in its overview of Huguenot migration worldwide a chapter on Huguenots in North America. Butler 1983 is the most cited work on Huguenots in North America, emphasizing the quick vanishing of Huguenot communities as early as the beginning of the 18th century. Van Ruymbeke 2006 and Carlo 2005 revise Butler’s quick assimilation paradigm for South Carolina and New York (State), whereas Lachenicht 2010 offers a comparative analysis of Huguenot immigration and integration processes in Brandenburg, England, Ireland, and British North America.

Baird, Charles W. History of the Huguenot Migration to America. 2 vols. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1885.
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First monograph on Huguenots in North America. Hagiographic in style, it provides a grand narrative that has been challenged by more recent monographs, such as Van Ruymbeke 2006 and Carlo 2005. A more accessible microfilm edition is available.
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Birnstiel, Eckart, and Chrystel Bernat, eds. La Diaspora des Huguenots: Les réfugiés protestants de France et leur dispersion dans le monde, XVIe–XVIIIe siècles. Vie des Huguenots. Paris: Champion, 2001.
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Collection of essays on the Huguenot refugee. The essays on Huguenots in the Atlantic world are outdated.
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Butler, Jon. The Huguenots in America: A Refugee People in New World Society. Harvard Historical Monographs 72. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983.
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Comprehensive analysis of Huguenot migration and integration of Huguenots in North America. Promotes the idea of quick assimilation and “vanishing” of Huguenots in American society.
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Carlo, Paula Wheeler. Huguenot Refugees in Colonial New York: Becoming American in the Hudson Valley. Brighton, UK, and Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press, 2005.
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Differentiated analysis of Huguenot settlements and patterns of “creolization” in New Paltz and New Rochelle, New York (Hudson Valley).
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Lachenicht, Susanne. Hugenotten in Europa und Nordamerika: Migration und Integration in der Frühen Neuzeit. Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus Verlag, 2010.
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Comparative analysis of Huguenot migration and the integration of French Protestant refugees in Brandenburg, England, Ireland, and the English colonies. Challenges some of the national master narratives of Huguenot integration in Europe and the Atlantic world.
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Van Ruymbeke, Bertrand. From New Babylon to Eden: The Huguenots and Their Migration to Colonial South Carolina. Carolina Lowcountry and the Atlantic World. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2006.
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Reassessment of migration of the Huguenots to South Carolina, their admission, and integration patterns. Challenges Jon Butler’s quick assimilation paradigm. Suggests a slow process of creolization of French Calvinist refugees in South Carolina.
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Moravians

Herrnhuters (as they tend to be called in Europe), or Moravians, have drawn much attention as a distinct religious minority in Pennsylvania since the late 20th century. Founded in 1722 by Nikolaus Ludwig, Graf von Zinzendorf, the Herrnhuters were expelled from several of their settlements in Saxony, the Wetterau, and the Netherlands from the 1730s onward. The Moravians nonetheless established one of the largest missionary networks worldwide. Atwood 2004 introduces the Moravians’ theology in an American perspective. Faull 1997 offers an edition of Moravian women’s diaries, whereas Fogleman 2007 focuses on Moravian migrations and their missions in the British colonies. Wellenreuther 2007 is a concise overview of Herrnhuter migrations within Europe and, from there, to British North America. Wellenreuther and Wessel 2005 makes available an English language translation and edition of one of the most important sources, not only for studies of Moravians but also for early America at large: David Zeisberger’s mission diaries.

Atwood, Craig D. Community of the Cross. Max Kade German-American Research Institute series. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004.
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Excellent analysis of the theology of the Moravian Church in North America.
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Faull, Katherine M., ed and trans. Moravian Women’s Memoirs: Their Related Lives, 1750–1820. Women and Gender in North American Religions. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997.
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Useful edition and translation of Moravian women’s autobiographical writings, providing insight into life in early Pennsylvania.
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Fogleman, Aaron Spencer. Jesus Is Female: Moravians and the Challenge of Radical Religion in Early America. Early American Studies. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007.
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Synthetic account of Herrnhuter/Moravian migrations, their missions in the British colonies, and local conflicts. However, problematic approach to gender debates among Moravians, as selected primary sources do not support Fogleman’s thesis.
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Wellenreuther, Hermann. “The Herrnhuters in Europe and the British Colonies (1735–1776).” In Religious Refugees in Europe, Asia and North America: (6th–21st Century). Edited by Susanne Lachenicht, 171–195. Atlantic Cultural Studies 4. Hamburg, Germany: Lit, 2007.
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Great summary of Herrnhuter/Moravian migrations and group identity in Europe and the Atlantic world.
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Wellenreuther, Hermann, and Carola Wessel, eds. The Moravian Mission Diaries of David Zeisberger, 1772–1781. Translated by Julie Tomberlin Weber. Max Kade German-American Research Institute series. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005.
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Carefully edited and thoroughly annotated translation of one of the most important primary sources of Moravian missions in North America. Equally valuable primary source for North American ethnohistory, church and mission history, and the history of the American Revolution.
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Quakers

Founded in 1681, William Penn’s Quaker Colony attracted members of the “Society of Friends” (founded in England in the 1650s) from the very beginning. Being the only “Quaker-State” ever, more recent studies on its early phase are rather scarce. Hamm 2003 offers a study of contemporary Quakerism in America, whereas Levy 1988 deals with Quaker settlements in the late 17th and early 18th centuries in a social history perspective. Tolles 1948 analyzes Quaker merchants and piety in 17th- and 18th-century Pennsylvania.

Hamm, Thomas D. The Quakers in America. Columbia Contemporary Religion series. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003.
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Overview of the Society of Friends in America, mostly focusing on contemporary Quakerism.
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Levy, Barry. Quakers and the American Family: British Settlement in the Delaware Valley. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
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Study of Quaker family life in an Atlantic perspective.
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Tolles, Frederick B. Meeting House and Counting House: The Quaker Merchants of Colonial Philadelphia, 1682–1763. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1948.
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Slightly outdated study of early Quaker merchant and religious networks.
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Salzburgers

As with many other religious diasporas, the Salzburgers’ history—their expulsion from the bishopric of Salzburg (from 1731) and their arrival in Brandenburg-Preußen and Georgia (mostly in the 1730s)—can be written from many perspectives: a European and a North American, an internal Salzburger and an outward governmental. The following works aim at providing a multidimensional approach. Jones 1997 is a study of Salzburgers’ lives in Georgia, whereas Walker 1992 analyzes the reasons behind the expulsion from Salzburg. Melton 2008 scrutinizes one individual migrant’s experiences; Urlsperger 1968–1995 constitutes one of the most important primary sources on the Salzburgers’ lives in Georgia.

Jones, George Fenwick. The Salzburger Saga: Religious Exiles and Other Germans along the Savannah. Camden, ME: Picton, 1997.
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Study of the Salzburgers’ arrival in Georgia after 1734, after having been expelled from the bishopric. Detailed accounts of settlers’ lives, with appendices listing the names of settlers and ships on which they came.
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Melton, James Van Horn. “From Alpine Miner to Low-Country Yeoman: The Transatlantic Worlds of a Georgia Salzburger, 1693–1761.” Past and Present 201.1 (2008): 97–140.
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Narrates the migration and resettlement experiences of one Salzburger, Thomas Geschwandel. Available online by subscription.
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Urlsperger, Samuel, ed. Detailed Reports on the Salzburger Emigrants Who Settled in America. 18 vol. Edited by George Fenwick Jones. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1968–1995.
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Valuable edition of important primary source on Salzburg migrations to Georgia, cultural contacts, and early American history in general.
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Walker, Mack. The Salzburg Transaction: Expulsion and Redemption in Eighteenth-Century Germany. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992.
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Important reassessment of older narratives of Salzuburgers’ migrations to Georgia. Focuses on reasons behind expulsion.
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Sephardi Jews

The expulsion of Sephardi Jews from the territories of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon in 1492 (and then from Portugal in 1580) make this group one of the best-studied diasporas of the Atlantic world. Kagan and Morgan 2009 provides essays that make evident the manifold networks of Spanish Jews and conversos and their impact on the making of the Atlantic world. Brettell 2003 is a study of this diaspora from within, whereas Israel 2002 provides a study of both Sephardi and Ashkenazi networks and their impact on the Atlantic world. Kerem 2001 provides insights into English settlement policies and privileges granted to Sephardi Jews in the British Atlantic, whereas Schorsch 2004 makes evident the importance of Jews for the Atlantic slave trade. Studnicki-Gizbert 2007 is one of the most thorough studies of the Sephardi and converso diaspora in the Atlantic world.

Brettell, Caroline. Anthropology and Migration. Essays on Transnationalism, Ethnicity, and Identity. Walnut Creek, CA, and Oxford: AltaMira, 2003.
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Anthropological study of Portuguese migration to North America in 19th and 20th centuries. Includes chapters on Portuguese politics and migration, individual migration stories, return migration and transmigrants, ethnic identities of the Portuguese in North America, and gender and migration.
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Israel, Jonathan I. Diasporas within a Diaspora: Jews, Crypto-Jews and the World Maritime Empires (1540–1740). Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill, 2002.
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Holistic analysis of Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jewish diasporas in the Atlantic world. Establishes links between both diasporas’ trade, religious, and intellectual networks and their impact on developments within the Atlantic.
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Kagan, Richard L., and Philip D. Morgan, eds. Atlantic Diasporas. Jews, Conversos, and Crypto-Jews in the Age of Mercantilism, 1500–1800. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.
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Anthology that emphasizes the necessary intersection of early modern cultural studies, economic history, diaspora studies, and Atlantic studies in the analysis of so-called religious migrations and of the converso and Sephardi Jewish Atlantic communities especially.
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Kerem, Yitzchak. “Sephardic Settlement in the British Colonies of the Americas in the 17th and 18th Centuries.” In From Strangers to Citizens. The Integration of Immigrant Communities in Britain, Ireland and Colonial America, 1550–1750. Edited by Randolph Vigne and Charles Littleton, 285–295. Brighton, UK, and Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press, 2001.
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Very useful overview of Sephardi settlements in the British Atlantic world.
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Schorsch, Jonathan. Jews and Blacks in the Early Modern World. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
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Analysis of interrelatedness of the Jewish and Black Atlantic and the role of Jewish merchants in Mediterranean and Atlantic slave trade.
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Studnicki-Gizbert, Daviken. A Nation upon the Ocean Sea: Portugal’s Atlantic Diaspora and the Crisis of the Spanish Empire, 1492–1640. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
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Excellent analysis of converso and Sephardi Jewish merchant empires in the Atlantic world. Emphasizes the interconnectedness of internal and external networks and the entangledness of trade and religious diasporas.
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Trade Diasporas

Can we speak of migrant groups or diasporas in the Atlantic world other than in terms of ethnic, religious or “national” markers? Bailyn 1955 designs a specific, sub-British Atlantic migrant group: that of New England merchants. Hancock 1995 looks at London merchants as a specific group that is indispensible for the making of the British Atlantic world. But was there any such purely British Atlantic world? Schnurmann 1998 invites us to think of the Atlantic world, its making and “makers,” in a more cosmopolitan way with its investigation of international trade diasporas and their networks in the 17th and early 18th centuries.

Bailyn, Bernard. The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century. Studies in Entrepreneurial History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955.
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Classic study of the development and growth of the British merchant empire in Massachusetts Bay.
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Hancock, David. Citizens of the World: London Merchants and the Integration of the British Atlantic Community, 1735–1785. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
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Prosopographical study of the British “trade diaspora” in the Atlantic world.
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Schnurmann, Claudia. Atlantische Welten. Engländer und Niederländer im amerikanisch-atlantischen Raum, 1648–1713. Wirtschafts und sozialhistorische Studien 9. Cologne: Böhlau, 1998.
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Excellent analysis of networks of “Dutch” and “English” trade diasporas in the Atlantic world. Provides insights into contacts and information exchange of governors, settlers, merchants, and shipowners looking at North American and European materials.
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