This collection of compact biographies puts a human face on the sweeping historical processes that shaped contemporary societies throughout the Atlantic world. Focusing on life stories that represented movement across or around the Atlantic Ocean from 1500 to 1850, The Human Tradition in the Atlantic World, 1500–1850 explores transatlantic connections by following individuals whose experience took them far beyond their local communities to new and unfamiliar places. A formidable barrier, the Atlantic Ocean profoundly influenced the lives it touched. For some brave or desperate souls, it offered an escape, a source of adventure or romance. For countless others, it provided a steady source of income. For those who voluntarily undertook the voyage, crossing the Atlantic meant hope for a better, happier life; for the millions of less-fortunate others who relocated because they had been enslaved, tricked, or banished, the Atlantic was a sea of sorrow and loss.

Yet, whatever the reason, tremendous creativity and dynamism resulted from contact between people of different cultures, classes, races, ideas, and systems in Africa, Europe, and the Americas. At its most fundamental level, the syncretic nature of Atlantic world societies was created and re-created on a daily basis by myriad choices made by hundreds of thousands of individuals. By emphasizing movement and circulation in its choice of life stories, this readable and engaging volume presents a broad cross-section of people—both famous and everyday—whose lives and livelihoods took them across the Atlantic and brought disparate cultures into contact.

Contributions by: Robert D. Aguirre, Troy Bickham, Olwyn M. Blouet, Sarah Cline, Andrew B. Fisher, John Garrigus, Noah L. Gelfand, Mark Hinchman, Charlene Boyer Lewis, Gail Danvers MacLeitch, Beatriz G. Mamigonian, Mark Meuwese, Joan Meznar, John Navin, Jeff Pardue, Magnus Roberto de Mello Pereira, Cassandra Pybus, and Karen Racine.