Consuls and Captives - (Changing Perspectives on Early Modern Europe) by Erica Heinsen-Roach (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Analyzes how negotiations between Dutch consuls and North African rulers over the liberation of Dutch sailors helped create a new diplomatic order in the western Mediterranean"--

Book Synopsis

This work offers a new perspective on the history of diplomacy in the western Mediterranean, examining how piracy and captivity at sea forced Protestant states from northwest Europe to develop complex relationships with Islamic North Africa. Tracing how Dutch diplomats and North African officials negotiated the liberation of Dutch sailors enslaved in the Maghrib, author Erica Heinsen-Roach argues that captivity and redemption helped shape (rather than undermine) a new diplomatic order in the western Mediterranean.

Making use of extensive archival research, Consuls and Captives shows how encounters with North African society led the Protestant North to adjust to the norms and practices of the western Mediterranean. Dutch consuls became state representatives, tasked with claiming the unconditional release of captives from the Netherlands. But caught between these directives and the realities of Maghribi politics, the diplomats consented to pay ransom, participated in what they considered lavish gift-giving practices, and began to pay tribute-all practices that were departures from the norms the Dutch States General upheld in "doing" diplomacy.

In analyzing these adjustments, Heinsen-Roach brings into question earlier interpretations of diplomacy as a progressively evolving institution anchored in the western modern tradition. Consuls and Captives shows instead that early modern diplomacy in the western Mediterranean developed in uneven ways as a product of cultural encounters. With its compelling argument and wide-ranging evidence, this book will have a strong appeal to scholars of early modern diplomacy, slavery, and Mediterranean history, as well as to specialists on the Dutch Republic.

Erica Heinsen-Roach is visiting assistant professor at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.

Review Quotes

An engaging, balanced, and accessible study, Consuls and Captives is well positioned to become a monograph of reference for anyone interested in the history of European-North African encounters.-- "Journal of Early Modern History"

Making use of an extensive archival research, Consuls and Captives shows the extent to which diplomatic relations in the western Mediterranean in the early modern period evolved over time as a result of cultural encounters and did not certainly originate in western modern traditions. This work is of great significance to scholars of the history of the Mediterranean, slavery, captivity, and diplomacy with a clear grasp of the early modern period.-- "African Studies Quarterly"

[T]his is a book that should be widely read, by maritime historians and diplomatic historians, IR specialists and anybody whose interests and research intersects with this topic. Erica Heinsen-Roach's argument that the existing concepts of Maghribi diplomacy must be overhauled is absolutely convincing.-- "Northern Mariner"

The new insights Consuls and Captives provides to the field of European captivity in Northern Africa are manifold.-- "LOW COUNTRIES HISTORICAL REVIEW"