"A World Embracing Sea:" The Oceans as Highway, 1604-1815

• Main Author: Janzen, Olaf U.
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Liverpool University Press 2013
• Subjects: Newfoundland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.5949/liverpool/9781927869024.003.0002

This chapter is a study of maritime trade during the ‘mercantilism’ period of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It explores the way oceans functioned as highways for ships, people, and commodities, and briefly introduces the Newfoundland fish trade in the eighteenth century - the framework through which the rest of the journal approaches the subject of maritime trade. It offers an overview of the developments in commodity trade in the period, primarily in the Atlantic community; the environment factors such as wind or current patterns that plagued sailing vessels; the risks inherent to ocean voyages during the period; the way family and kinship influenced maritime commerce; the types of trade undertaken; the safeguarding of investments; and the increase in both the military and government presence in maritime trade affairs. It concludes that in order to fully understand the importance of oceanic highways the intricacies of the land-sea relationship must be considered in detail.