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John K. Thornton

doi:10.1017/CBO9781139021722.012

7 - Contact

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2012

John K. Thornton

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John K. Thornton: Affiliation:
Boston University

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Summary

In some areas of the Atlantic world, there was no effective conquest or colonization of one region by another, or at least the processes were sufficiently drawn out that frontiers developed. Such situations took place when Europeans established stable trading relationships with existing polities, as they did all along the African coast, except the conquest of Angola and colonization of South Africa. In the Americas, contact situations developed where unconquered Native Americans defined a frontier with colonists or conquerors, and where at times the two groups interpenetrated each other fairly deeply. In these environments, there were fascinating possibilities for cultural and political exchange between equal partners.

The African Coast

On the coast of most of Atlantic Africa, Europeans and Africans came into extended contact, but there was no change of sovereignty. Europeans discovered in the fifteenth century that there was not going to be any conquest and what colonization there was would have to be restricted to the uninhabited offshore islands of the Cape Verde group or São Tomé. Elsewhere on the coast, Europeans came as transient visitors or perhaps as invited guests, tolerated and accepted as long as they conformed to local norms. This general situation was only violated in Angola after 1575 and South Africa after 1652, where Europeans were able to make limited conquests and establish colonies.

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Type: Chapter
Information: A Cultural History of the Atlantic World, 1250–1820 , pp. 248 - 312

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139021722.012 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2012

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