BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//wordpress//historikertag-2023//DE
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://www.historikertag.de/Leipzig2023/en/programm/sektionen/fragile-neutralities-practices-of-maritime-trading-as-neutrals-during-the-early-modern-period/
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:historikertag-2023-2531
DTSTAMP:20230403T081954Z
DTSTART:20230920T140000Z
DTEND:20230920T163000Z
SUMMARY:[Historikertag 2023] Fragile Neutralities. Practices of Maritime Trading as Neutrals During the Early Modern Period
DESCRIPTION:Maritime neutrality in trade was an active decision and meant that an economic power would neither involve itself in nor interfere with a current war. It was governed by treaties or implicit accords between the neutral nations and the belligerents. During the Early Modern period, however, maritime neutrality was often highly fragile. The open seas offered a rather high temptation for neutral ship-owners and merchants to transgress the implicit or explicit boundaries of their status. The windfall profits that beckoned in wartime (e.g. with regard to the transport of prohibited products to belligerents) were often too great a temptation for entrepreneurs and they not infrequently found support in this from their own governments.
However, the fragility of maritime neutrality did not only result from the problematic behavior of actors on the neutral side. Corsairs (privateers), a group that was difficult to control, also had substantial leeway to make decisions in the event of an encounter with a neutral ship on the high seas. Impounding a neutral ship and its cargo could be done on the flimsiest of grounds and afterwards the problem of restitution rested on the shoulders of the robbed ship- and cargo-owners, who had to try to win their case in the Admiralty courts.
Neutrality was thus in a state of constant renegotiation. Gray areas existed and, in many cases, the boundaries were shifting or open to interpretation. Definitions of what was permissible were hammered out in practice – and often ultimately decided in court. Archives of maritime courts – in Great Britain, France or Spain – are therefore vast treasure troves for uncovering commercial practices of alleged neutrality. They contain a plethora of borderline cases, fragile facts and instances of negotiable neutrality.
In this panel we will look at several case studies of commercial practices of merchants from Hamburg, France, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden from the 18th century, using them to explore early modern negotiations pertaining to the "fragile fact" of neutrality.
Der Beitrag Fragile Neutralities. Practices of Maritime Trading as Neutrals During the Early Modern Period erschien zuerst auf Historikertag 2023.
LOCATION:S102
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR