All at Sea: The Prize Papers as a Source for a Global Microhistory

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All at Sea: The Prize Papers as a Source for a Global Microhistory

Organizer
Prof. Dr. Dagmar Freist (University of Oldenburg, Germany), Caroline Kimbell (National Archives, London), Prof. Dr. Lex Heerma van Voss (Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands, The Hague)
Venue
National Archives London
Location
London
Country
United Kingdom
From - Until
06.10.2014 - 08.10.2014
Website
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/events/all-at-sea-conference.htm
By
Freist, Dagmar

During the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries, the navies of maritime powers and privately owned fighting ships competed in the race for the spoils of war. Ships that became prizes often carried, besides passengers and cargo, mail that was to be delivered at the ship's destination. All ships' papers, including this private mail, were seized and made part of the dossier kept by the British High Court of Admiralty. Intercepted mail and legal documents of the British High Court of Admiralty were kept in the court's archives stores. There they were forgotten for many years. They finally ended up as the 'Prize Papers', part of the High Court of Admiralty archives as record series HCA 30 and 32 in The National Archives.

Rediscovery of the letters
After the rediscovery of the value of these letters by Dutch researchers in the 1980s, the Prize Papers have given new perspectives on the early modern global world. The European Prize Papers Network is an informal network of researchers who work on the Prize Papers, and it has organised this conference.

This international conference aims to bring together scholars who have worked on the Prize Papers (or related materials) to discuss their research and to think about ways of using the source material for future research. This is one of several steps towards establishing a wider European research network on the Prize Papers.

The conference is organized around the following themes:
- Politics and Economy
- Seafaring
- Language and Literacy
- Family, Friends and Private Lives
- Colonial Cross-overs and Confrontations
- Practices, Artefacts, Spaces and Body

Registration starts at 11.00 on Monday 6 October, and the conference will finish on Wednesday 8 October at 14.00.
For further information and registration please visit http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/events/all-at-sea-conference.htm or contact: sarah.leggett@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk

Programm

Mon 6 October 2014

12:00-13:00 Conference Registration

13:00-13:15 Welcome by Jeff James, CEO and Keeper of the Public Records, National Archives London and Lisa Jardine (Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in the Humanities at University College London/Director of the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters/Non-executive director of the National Archives London)

13:15 Chair: Dagmar Freist (University of Oldenburg)

13:15-15:15 Provenance of the Prize Papers Collection, Caroline Kimbell (Head of Licensing, The National Archives, London)
Challenges of Conservation and Re-housing the Prize Papers, Catt Baum (Head of Digitisation Conservation, The National Archives, London)
Cataloguing the Prize Papers, Amanda Bevan (The National Archives, London)
“How long have you known the Captain of your ship?” - Past, Present and Future of the Prize Papers Online 1650-1815, Dual presentation by Perry Moree (Brill Publishers, Leiden) and Els van Eijck van Heslinga (National Library of the Netherlands, The Hague)
Recovered Records of Dutch Slave Forts in West-Africa, 1793-1803. A Metamorfoze Project for Preservation and Presentation, Erik van der Doe (National Library of the Netherlands, The Hague)

15:15-15:30 Tea and Coffee

15:30 Politics & Economy

15:30-15:45 Chair: Pierrick Pourchasse (University of Brest)

15:45-16:15 Prizes and Prisoners in the Caribbean in the eighteenth century, Renaud Morieux (University of Cambridge)

16:15-16:45 Studying commercial credit in the Spanish Atlantic through the HCA intercepted mail, 1760-1820, Xabier Lamikiz (University of the Basque Country/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea)

16:45-17:15 Against all Odds: German Merchants, their Letters & a Glimmer of Hope, Lucas Haasis (University of Oldenburg)

17:15-17:30 Comment: Pierrick Pourchasse (University of Brest) and Discussion

18:00-18.30 Key note: New Perspectives on a Global Micro-History, Dagmar Freist (University of Oldenburg)

Tue 7 October 2014

09:00-09:30 Registration, Tea, Coffee and Pastries

09:30 Seafaring

09:30-09:45 Chair: Thomas M. Truxes (Clinical Associate Professor of Irish Studies and History Glucksman Ireland House, New York University)

09:45-10:15 Neutral Shipping c. 1650-1800, Leos Müller (Centre for Maritime Studies Stockholm) and Steve Murdoch (University of St. Andrews)

10:15-10:45 Predators and Opportunists: English Seafarers as Prize Takers, 1739-1783,
David J. Starkey (University of Hull)

10:45-11:15 Frisian Seafaring on the Baltic and European coasts (ca. 1750-1785), Hanno Brand (Fryske Akademy Leeuwarden)

11:15-11:30 Comment: John McCusker (Trinity University, San Antonio) and Discussion

11:30-11:45 Tea and Coffee

11:45 Language & Literacy

11:45-12:00 Chair: Rik Vosters (University of Brussels)

12:00-12.30 "ich bit eich in got willen sich mir doch gelt das ich kann leben". German letters in the prize papers corpus - preliminary linguistic analyses, Stephan Elspaß (University of Salzburg) and Doris Stolberg (IDS Mannheim)

12:30-13:00 Language, literacy and the "lower orders": Dutch private letters of the 17th and 18th centuries, Gijsbert Rutten (Leiden University)

13:00-13:30 Late 18th-c. and Early 19th-c. mercantile correspondence within the Jewish trade networks of the Cairo Geniza, Esther-Miriam Wagner (T-S Genizah Research Unit, University of Cambridge)

13:30-13:45 Comment: Marijke v.d. Wal (Leiden University) and Discussion

13:45-14:30 Lunch

14:30 Family, Friends and Private Lives

14:30-14:45 Chair: Els van Eijck van Heslinga (National Library of the Netherlands, The Hague)

14:45-15:15 Foreign crew on Dutch ships during wartime, Andrew Ross Little (free-lance researcher)

15:15-15:45 Remembered, Imagined, lived. Early modern family ties in absence, Christina Beckers (University of Oldenburg)

15:45-16:15 Great need for signs of life in the Year of Disaster 1672, Judith Brouwer (University of Groningen)

16:15-16:30 Comment: TBA and Discussion

16:30-16:45 Tea and Coffee

16:45-17:15 Key-note: Floating Emotions, Lex Heerma van Voss (Huygens Institute)

18:00 Wine, juice, nibbles

Wednesday 8 October 2014

09:00-09:30 Registration, Tea, Coffee and Pastries

09:30 Colonial Cross-overs and Confrontations

09:30-09:45 Chair: Susanne Lachenicht (University of Bayreuth)

09:45-10:15 Contested Knowledges and Ambivalent Practices in the Everyday Life of the Suriname Herrnhut Mission (1735-1810), Jessica Cronshagen (University of Oldenburg)

10:15-10:45 A view from Asia - the Prize Papers as a source for global histories, Matthias van Rossum (University of Leiden)

10:45-11:00 Comment: Joost Schokkenbroek (University of Amsterdam) and Discussion

11:00-11:30 Tea and Coffee

11:30 Practices, Artefacts, Spaces and Body

11:30-11.45 Chair: Michael Schaich (GHI London)

11:45-12:15 The Final Voyage of the Santa Catharina: Notes towards a Global Microhistory of the Early Modern Indian Ocean, Sebouh David Aslanian (University of California, Los Angeles)

12:15-12:45 A Serious Man. An 'enlightened' male body's fight against yellow fever in 1802 Martinique, Annika Raapke (University of Oldenburg)

12:45-13:15 Eating the New World, Rebecca Earle (University of Warwick)

13:15-13:30 Comment: Giorgio Riello (University of Warwick) and Discussion

13.30-14:30 Final Discussion and wrap up of conference

14:30-15:00 Foundation of EU-Prize Papers Network

15:30 Departure

Contact (announcement)

Prof. Dr. Dagmar Freist
Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg
Fakultät IV, Institut für Geschichte
D-26111 Oldenburg
dagmar.freist@uni-oldenburg.de

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/events/all-at-sea-conference.htm