The previous chapter has demonstrated how merchants belonging to international diasporas tried to find a place in a new host society. The human interaction that resulted from this brought about change and led to reflections on identity, both from the point of view of the merchants in question and from individuals and groups from the host society. An important aspect of this negotiation was the fact that the foreigners in question were traders. Globally dispersed but religiously and culturally united to some extent, diasporas have proven to be useful stones in the construction of a global historical space and hence in any hypothesis regarding forms of early modern globalization, by challenging other criteria for space-building such as the national state: ‘Jews allow us to see how a focus on nation-based Atlantics can sometimes obscure the actual experience of life in the early modern Atlantic.’

In working on a set of merchants active in international trade, David Hancock has attributed a number of characteristics to them. One of the adjectives he used was ‘integrative’. This is a key element when analysing the influence of people on the cohesion of the place where they live and work. Atlantic history has been defined as ‘the powerful “covering idea” that the entire Atlantic world was integrated’.