In the Eye of All Trade: Bermuda, Bermudians, and the Maritime Atlantic World, 1680-1783

by Michael J. Jarvis

Overview

In an exploration of the oceanic connections of the Atlantic world, Michael J. Jarvis recovers a mariner's view of early America as seen through the eyes of Bermuda's seafarers. The first social history of eighteenth-century Bermuda, this book profiles how one especially intensive maritime community capitalized on its position "in the eye of all trade."

Jarvis takes readers aboard small Bermudian sloops and follows white and enslaved sailors as they shuttled cargoes between ports, raked salt, harvested timber, salvaged shipwrecks, hunted whales, captured prizes, and smuggled contraband in an expansive maritime sphere spanning Great Britain's North American and Caribbean colonies. In doing so, he shows how humble sailors and seafaring slaves operating small family-owned vessels were significant but underappreciated agents of Atlantic integration.

The American Revolution starkly revealed the extent of British America's integration before 1775 as it shattered interregional links that Bermudians had helped to forge. Reliant on North America for food and customers, Bermudians faced disaster at the conflict's start. A bold act of treason enabled islanders to continue trade with their rebellious neighbors and helped them to survive and even prosper in an Atlantic world at war. Ultimately, however, the creation of the United States ended Bermuda's economic independence and doomed the island's maritime economy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807872840
Publisher:	Omohundro Institute and UNC Press
Publication date:	06/01/2012
Series:	Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press
Edition description:	1
Pages:	704
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

Michael J. Jarvis is associate professor of history at the University of Rochester.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

In the Eye of All Trade studies from all angles an island society that was as fully maritime as any in the Atlantic world. Michael Jarvis has explained best what the ocean itself lent to the lives of those who lived beside it.—Daniel Vickers, University of British Columbia



Michael Jarvis's exemplary study of Bermuda and its industrious inhabitants will make it impossible for historians to ignore the island any longer. Jarvis argues that the colony occupied a unique and important geographic position at the crossroads of the English Atlantic, that the island was transformed by that position, and that in turn Bermudians transformed the English Atlantic. He builds a persuasive and thought-provoking case in his careful and exhaustive work.—Alison Games, Georgetown University



Michael Jarvis's marvelous new book is not only easily the best history we have on Bermuda in the Atlantic World. It also provides us with an arresting perspective on British America, one from the deck of a ship rather than gazing westward across mountains. Jarvis shows us that in order to understand the Atlantic world we have to understand the curious society that was eighteenth-century Bermuda. A signal achievement and a major study in maritime social history.—Trevor Burnard, University of Warwick

Editorial Reviews

Jarvis's choice of perspective is truly inspired. . . . Having spent twenty years painstakingly researching colonial Bermuda, Jarvis has produced a wonderfully written narrative history worthy of its lengthy gestation.—Common-Place



[An] impressive achievement in bringing Bermuda's maritime world to life.—William and Mary Quarterly



This impressive book—the author's first monograph—offers a convincing interpretation of the socio-economic and maritime history of Britain's oldest and smallest colony. . . .Jarvis jumps from pawn to bishop among maritime historians.—American Historical Review



[A] superb and rewarding book. . . . The engaging prose of this attractively presented book . . . provides the close correlation of transatlantic connections with internal developments often missing from the Atlantic perspective.—Journal of American History

From the Publisher