Category Archives: Research

A new project – the Environmental History of Ballast Water Science and Policy in Australia

Ballast water is broadly understood today to be an important driver of marine and aquatic introductions worldwide, and it is thus subject to multiple regional, national, and international regulations. In the mid-1980s, however, marine “bioinvasion” science was nascent and management nearly non-existent. A series of dramatic and consequential introductions in the mid to late 1980s catalyzed this change, including the discovery of novel algae species (called dinoflagellates) in Australian waters. Several species produce toxins that, when filtered through shellfish and ingested by consumers, can result in “paralytic shellfish poisoning.” One such species (Gymnodinium catenatum) was discovered by chance in 1985/6 after it bloomed into a red tide near the marine research station in Hobart, Tasmania. Its proximity to nearby shellfish aquaculture farms, was enough to spark a short lived public health scare. More importantly, it generated sustained interest and resources into the source of the scare. Where had these algae, which had never been detected in the Southern Hemisphere, come from?

Gymnodinium catenatum – Census of Marine Life E&O

Scientists quickly suspected that the species was introduced in the ballast water of bulk carriers that shipped woodchips from Tasmania to markets in Japan. Like aquaculture, woodchip exports were growing during the 1970s and 1980s, the latter to feed Japan’s postwar boom in pulp and paper manufacturing. The resulting trade simultaneously exported Australia’s forest and marine resources abroad, invited unanticipated species introductions in return, and transformed phytoplankton into a public health hazard. This discovery catalyzed new scientific studies and focused public policy on ballast water management. By 1990, the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service produced ballast water guidelines, which provided a template for later international ballast water management strategies – among the most significant global tools to limit the unintentional transfer of species.

This, in a nutshell, is the story I’m working to flesh out and explore for the next three months while on sabbatical at the National Library of Australia in Canberra. Some of it is already well known, especially among marine scientists, but virtually nobody has tackled this subject from the perspective of environmental history, or the history of science. And like every good story, it provokes as many questions as it seems to resolve.

  • Why Tasmania? Toxic dinoflagellates were merely the first in a long list of problematic “invasives” to affect marine and aquatic habitats in the 1980s and 1990s. Was this region uniquely susceptible? If so, was it due to environmental or social reasons? Or was it merely observer bias? (CSIRO has a Marine Research laboratory in Hobart and aquaculture and fishing are primary industries)
  • Why woodchips? Woodchip ships seem to have been implicated in ballast water introductions in a number of locations around the world in the 1980s. Was this yet another artifact of observer bias (scientists just happened to be studying the places where woodchip ships frequented), was it an aspect of ship design? Something else?
  • Why Australia? Australia quickly vaulted to world leadership in ballast water science and management in the 1980s and 1990s. They were certainly not the only state facing novel marine challenges during this period. What conditions promoted scientific and policy innovation?
  • What about the public? How much influence did the broader public play in any of these changes? How did they respond to public health warnings of toxic shellfish. Were they concerned about economic impacts? Australia seems to have avoided some of the worst impacts of Red Tides/PSP experienced elsewhere (mass sickness/death, consumer fear and industry losses) – what generated the political will?
  • What about the environmentalists? Tasmania was a hotbed of environmental activism in the 1980s, and much of their attention focused on woodchipping and the possible environmental impacts of pulp and paper processing on the island. Their concerns mostly focused on pollutants like dioxin, but the linking of ballast water mediated introductions to woodchip ships from Japan would seem to be an easy supplement to their list of harms. Did they grab this low hanging fruit?
The National Library of Australia. My office for the next three months

The library hosts a wonderful collection of primary and secondary sources, including ecological baseline studies, ballast water studies, historical newspapers, environmental impact statements, and more. I’ll also be interviewing scientists and policymakers who participated in the development of ballast water science and management.

This is a new direction for my research program. My first book investigated European natural disasters, including marine bioinvasions. My second book project explores the history of maritime expansion, species introductions, and their relationship to emerging global environmental ideas since 1600. My work at the NLA will form the basis of its final section, which covers the environmental history of postwar biotic “disasters”, the influence of science and industry in ballast policies, and their connection to global environmentalism.

Returning to the Flood

Why do some communities rebound quickly from natural disasters while others do not? This question has been fundamental to modern disaster studies since its development in the postwar period. Scholars today broadly recognize that catastrophic events impact societies unevenly and natural hazards themselves are only partly responsible for this variability. Each society’s vulnerability prior to the disaster and their capacity to respond in its aftermath is contingent upon social, economic, and political conditions. Comparing the impact and response to disasters in regions with shared exposure to hazards, but different social contexts has become, therefore, a fundamental strategy to explore this important question. The social construction of “natural” disasters is particularly exposed by the power of political borders to affect vulnerability to hazards. Flooding hazards may disregard political borders, but vulnerabilities are often sharply different.

I am exploring this question as part of a article-length project that considers the divergent histories of East Frisia and Groningen following the 1717 flood. In Groningen, communities rebuilt their dikes with two years of the flood, in many cases expanding them in size and strength. In East Frisia, dikes remained open for eight and the region suffered subsequent catastophes in the interim, includling a new years storm in 1718. What caused such a wide divergence in response?

When pinpointing crucial differences, it helps that Groningen and East Frisia are in many respects similar. They shared environmental conditions. Both lie on the Waddenzee, free landholders farmed the sea clay coastal zones, and both shared an exposure to storm surges. They employed similar dike technologies and dike engineers often worked on both sides of the border. Flooding played a significant role in both region’s cultural memory and similar dike management institutions had developed over previous centuries, both responsive to outside pressures to communalize. (see Van Tielhof, “Forced Solidarity,” 2015)  One might even argue that they formed a unified coastal culture of disaster with communities stretching from Flanders to Denmark. Groningen and East Frisia. A large, transnational region shared cultural interpretations of flooding due to language and (in Groningen and Emden) religious commonalities. Emden, East Frisia’s largest and wealthiest city in the early eighteenth century, was a near vassal state to the Dutch Republic. State authorities in Emden  spoke Dutch and practiced Calvinism, as did many in the agricultural communities along the coast.

On a surface level, East Frisia and Groningen’s responses to the Christmas Flood of 1717 had also seemed mirror images of one another. The flood devastated to both regions, killing thousands. Interestingly, it provoked farmer uprisings in both areas, each a reaction to the imposition of new dike taxes by a distant central state. I argued in my recent presentation that the primary reason East Frisia remained open to the sea far longer than Groningen was the strength of their resistance, itself a product of communal solidarity between landowners and officials in Emden. The city of Groningen, by contrast, capitalized on divisions between and among affected rural landholders and quickly quelled farmer resistance.

The Koninklijk Huisarchief is tucked into the back of the Paleis Noordeinde and accessible through the palace gardens with a special appointment.

If this seems like a familiar project, it’s because I presented on the subject during last summer’s ESEH conference in Zagreb. I have since written a short article in the Dutch periodical Historisch Jaerboek Groningen featuring many of the maps featured in an earlier blog. This article considers the case of Groningen exclusively. I plan to add the comparative element including East Frisia for an English-language publication this year. Several outstanding questions still remain, however. In Groningen, the short-lived farmer uprising manifested in the town of Aduard and directed itself against the wealthy jonker and member of the Estates General, Evert Joost Lewe van Aduard. Why? Did Lewe play some outstanding part in the deliberations about financial responsibility for dike reconstruction? Was he a symbol of the city’s power? Why was he held culpable? Two days ago I visited the Koninklijk Huisarchief to find some clues. Lewe kept up a correspondence with the then Prince William IV. In a letter from 1731, he included his recollections of the events. While not the smoking gun I was hoping for, it nevertheless gives voice to Lewe’s perspective on the events and will be a useful source moving forward with this project.

Interestingly, in the same letter, Lewe also comments on a separate, contemporaneous issue: the sodomy trials of 1731. Beginning in 1730, the Dutch Republic experienced an epidemic of sodomy trials with the most brutal single episode taking place in the Groningen village Faan. More on this subject in the next post.

Terug in Nederland

Today begins my seventh summer research trip to Holland, but this year will be quite unlike previous seasons. Whereas travels to archives, libraries, and trips through the Dutch countryside or to the coasts had occupied the majority of my time previously, this will be a summer of writing. Whereas in years past a set of research questions dictated my schedule and organized my activities, pages completed will mark my progress.

Naturally, the research is never done, and especially when your research subject lays so far afield requiring long-distance travel, the writing process proceeds much more smoothly with

Morning during my first day in Den Haag

potential resources at hand. For my work, no place is more suitable than Holland. I will split my time between The Hague and Amsterdam, The centrality of these cities and the density of archives and libraries means that books that would take weeks to interlibrary loan are only a train ride (or if I’m lucky a bike ride) away. After seven years of work on this project, I have largely everything I need, but a few unexplored corners of that work require illumination, and a few side projects stand extra attention as well.

So, in keeping with past summers’ research strategy, mildly adapted to present needs, what follows are my research/writing goals.

  1. Writing. Specifically, finishing chapter 4 of my book manuscript Floods, Worms, and Cattle Plague: Natural Disaster at the Closing of the Dutch Golden Age. Chapter four explores the famous shipworm epidemic of the 1730s when a species of (likely invasive) wood-boring mollusks gnawed a path of destruction across much of the coastal Netherlands, inciting widespread panic, dike adaptation, and a providential condemnation of Dutch moral character. (more on my progress to come).
  2. Writing. Beginning chapter 5 on the second outbreak of rinderpest in the Netherlands. Lasting roughly 20 years, repeated plagues swept across much of the Dutch Republic, killing more than a million cattle. Contemporaries described the plague like a fire burning its way through meadows, from Germany and Flanders to the sea.
  3. Writing. Grant writing to be exact. As part of a collaborative digital history project between Creighton University and Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha (NE), Dr. Simon Appleford and I are submitting a grant to the National Endowment for the Humanities. The project, called “The Natural Face of America” merges the transcribed, translated journals of German scientist Maximilian von Wied with restored, digitized images of Swiss artist Karl Bodmer’s watercolors and sketches of his two year journey. When completed, it will be the most comprehensive resource of primary source material covering this important journey. Our grant would support a two years of work on the project. Last summer’s efforts resulted in an impressive pilot website (kudos to Dr. Appleford for the design) and made effective use of student research, but the grant would take us to the finish line.
  4. Writing. Conference proposals. ESEH, WCEH, and a few other interesting opportunities await.
  5. Writing. Book proposals. The proposal has enjoyed favorable reviews from editors so far, but I want to cast as broad a net as possible. I plan, as a result, to submit two further proposals, one perhaps while abroad.
  6. Design. Course design to be specific. This goal is the odd one out. It may even require the most amount of “research” during this trip. I will teach the Critical Issues course “A History of (Un)natural Disasters” for the first time this fall and I have significant prep work ahead of me. The course is both a thematic history of global disasters, but also a part of the Creighton Core, which necessitates integration of course material covering the social justice implications of disasters. In addition to significant background research on disasters, I plan to write at least the first two lectures.

It has not escaped my attention that I have more trip goals than in years past and this will be my shortest trip by a couple of weeks. I also plan to do less interprovincial traveling (during which I’ve written most of my past blog posts). I hope to find time for updates nevertheless. These posts have been very useful sounding boards for early thoughts on research subjects and a helpful record of my productivity. For these reasons alone, the blog could be considered a seventh major goal. I’m also curious how a writing-oriented trip will change my expectations and need for this type of writing. When the primary goals have been research, this short-form writing provided a venue to “chew” on some of the hardy and complex ideas that I would further refine later on. I didn’t realize this heading into my first summer, however. Perhaps blogging will once again offer new, unforeseen benefits.

Final Post – History & Memory

Another summer research trip come and gone. I’m flying back tomorrow and after a final day that will be spent organizing my belongings and finding room in my pack for the books, conference swag, (and yes, gifts) I’ll be back to Omaha. It’s helpful at this point to step back and take a look at what I’ve learned. Did I complete the goals that I laid out in my first post this summer?

First and foremost were my writing goals. I now have a revised first chapter of my manuscript and have A healthy start on the second. (goals 1 and 3). This was by far the most difficult goal to accomplish, however. Finding time to write on the road was much more difficult than in years past. In comparison, last year’s trip was relatively static. I spent weeks-on-end in one location, usually The Hague. This was ideal because the material I needed was always close at hand. Sadly, this was not the case this year. I spent equal time in The Hague and Amsterdam for research, but also planned work trips abroad. My biggest regret about my planning for this summer was trying to do too much in too many places. I had an inkling this would be the case already in my first few days abroad. I tried to combine my trip to Croatia for ESEH with a good amount of writing. To my surprise and (later) dismay, this would be the most productive writing phase of the trip. Later brief visits to Antwerp and London, while useful in terms of meeting colleagues and visiting archives, were far shorter and not conducive to producing written work. Had I the chance to rework my schedule, I would have clustered all of these trips near the beginning or end of my summer travels, leaving larger chunks of time in the middle.

Completing the first chapter required careful thought and significant reading of new material related to the subject of Dutch decline. I’m consistently surprised how little is written about the subject, especially outside the realm of economic history. An exception, however, is the work of cultural historian Wijnand Mijnhardt. Mijnhardt is one of the few working cultural historians that has focused on the subject of decline, particularly in how it relates to the Dutch Enlightenment. The Enlightenment will not be a primary focus of my book project, but the attention I pay to technological and medical change necessitates greater attention than I paid in the dissertation. Peter Gay’s assertion that the Enlightenment can be characterized as a

Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, 1966.

recovery of nerve,” I think, works in the Dutch context, especially in the early eighteenth century. During the Enlightenment, Gay asserts, fear of change gave way to “fear of stagnation” and that “the word innovation…became a word of praise”. This fits the Dutch experience of decline quite neatly. “Recovery,” however, may not be the most apt choice of terms in the Dutch context. The Dutch seventeenth century, as has often been demonstrated, was relatively anomalous compared to its European neighbors. While much of Europe struggled to weather the tribulations that took place during the “crisis of the seventeenth century,” Dutch culture and power flourished. Part of this success must be laid at the feet of Dutch innovation in shipping, maritime technology, hydro-technology, and economic organization. “Tradition,” however, was also respected and we see even in the early eighteenth century a balance being sought between the power of innovation as rhetoric justifying change and the power of custom and tradition when seeking to maintain those gains. I have already expanded on this subject in a 2015 article on the Christmas Flood of 1717, but intend to elaborate on this much more in later chapters as well. Is it accurate to call this balance-seeking a “recovery” of nerve, or was it a “negotiation”? I’m inclined to promote the latter interpretation.

 

Not all of my time was spent writing, however. I visited archives in London (related to a completely separate project), The Hague, and Groningen. In the process, I found the documents needed to plug a few of the more glaring holes in my documentation. I met with colleagues in academic and social contexts, whether at their weddings, at ESEH in Zagreb, or canoeing through the web of canals and lakes extending northeast of Leiden. Each experience deepened the relationships and friendships I’ve developed with these scholars. Every year, it seems, brings new opportunities to discover new parts of the Low Countries and it’s a joy to share those experiences with friends.

The Netherlands by Canoe. I had the opportunity to explore the interlinking canals, lakes, and polder landscapes near Leiden with Petra van Dam

2017 was also the 300 year anniversary of the Christmas Flood. To commemorate the event, the province of Groningen, the Groninger Archieven, and several local and regional associations put together a series of events about the flood. The most prominent (and longest in duration) was a collaborative art project that featured Dutch and foreign artists developing and installing public art along roadsides and bike paths in the affected rural landscapes of Groninge

One of the many posters in Groningen advertising the “art route” commemorating the Christmas Flood

n. I took one of my final days to travel up to Groningen to see this installation. This was my first visit to this part of Groningen. I biked through towns and villages I’d only heard of from 18th century documents, and only in the context of disaster. This was a living landscape landscape, however, dotted with church steeples and omnipresent farms, far from the desolate disaster-scape I often depict in my work. My immediate reaction was confusion. Almost immediately after I stepped off the train in Winsum to rent my bike, I found it difficult to envision this region as a site of catastrophe. Biking toward the coast, however, my impression changed. North of the town of Pieterburen (now a tourist attraction because of its seal rehabilitation center), the landscape empties. The open fields filled with crops and flowers were both beautiful as well as a potent reminder of how flat and vulnerable this region was (and potentially still is) to flooding. The village of Pieterburen was heavily impacted by flood of 1717. They lost 172 people, dozens of houses, and hundreds of livestock. Little evidence of this vulnerability remains. There are no permanent markers to the flood and even the old sea dike (oude zeedijk), though still relatively large and solid, shrinks to insignificance when compared to the new, massive sea wall protecting the coast. Looking out beyond this permanent barrier, meadows scattered with cattle and sheep extend to the distance. The impression of this landscape is one of near total control. This landscape of recreation and Arcadian productivity is a monument, not to disaster and vulnerability, but the mastery of nature.

The landscape between Pieterburen and the old sea dike. The trees in a row in the distance are the old sea dike. Beyond that is a polder constructed in 1718 after the flood. Beyond that, the Wadden Sea tidal flats. The landscape is nearly completely flat with the exception of the new and remnant sea dikes and scattered housing mounds.

 

Roger Rigorth’s “Water Horizont” recalls the working history of the Wadden Sea as well as disaster. The nesting structures are made in a traditional weaving technique using the 17th century. Their height represents the highest level of water in 1717. For a description of the production of this work (and others along the Groninger coastline) see the Verhalen van Groningen. Video embedded below.

Of course, this is a dangerous interpretation and one which the many organizations that build and maintain these landscapes both foster and fight against. The memorialization of the Christmas Flood is an effort to temper this feeling of triumphal security. The art installations along the coast recall the Christmas Flood, but they also connect it to present-day insecurities. Some explicitly connected this historic landscape of disaster to modern climate change or instances of disasters like Katrina or Southeast Asia tsunamis. The message was clear. The most vulnerable populations are those without memory or history. Biking along the coast and back toward Groningen, it occurred to me that this is not a new challenge. In 1719, an anonymous pamphleteer described the flood and its consequences for his readers. His story was necessary, he argued, so that “eternal memory [of the flood] may be preserved.” Public art may be a novel approach, but in spirit, it captures the same mentality in evidence for centuries. Mind the next flood.

Tot volgende keer Nederland.

Exploring Colonial Records at Kew

The area currently called West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana is a relatively recent entity, but one with a long history of Euro-American settlement. Prior to 1824, when it was under American administration, the area had been one half of a larger territory simply referred to as Feliciana Parish, with the remainder of the parish extending eastward to the Amite River. Prior to American period, which began in 1810 (it was not included in the Louisiana Purchase), West Feliciana Parish had also been part of several colonial Empires. Between 1784-1810, it had been part of the Spanish Empire. Prior to that, it had been controlled by the British, who obtained it from the French at the conclusion of the French and Indian War. Although the imprint of French settlement was faint in the parish, one still sees the French colonial influence in place names and surnames of inhabitants. Each successive colonial administration governed the organization and sale of territory to settlers. As a result, land claim and land tenancy records of these early settlements exist in a number of locations, both in Louisiana and in Europe.

West Feliciana Parish is flanked by the southern edge of Mississippi, the Mississippi River to its west and East Feliciana Parish to its east. Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_Louisiana_highlighting_West_Feliciana_Parish.svg

The National Archives at Kew in the UK house some of the earliest records of British tenancy in the region. Under British colonial administration, West Feliciana Parish was part of a larger area known as the “Natchez District.” It was during the British period that West Feliciana Parish saw its earliest significant European settlement and the records for this movement of people now reside in Greater London. The National Archives contain a large collection of British land claims and exchanges. They also contain early surveys and other cartographic data related to the Natchez District. It was the chance to (digitally) obtain these maps that drew me to the UK this week. Ordinarily, this trip would be infeasible, especially for so short a visit. Since I was already in the Netherlands working on other research, however, the opportunity to visit the archives seemed too tempting to pass up. London is only a cheap and (relatively) quick train ride away from Amsterdam.

My interest in the property and cartographic history of West Feliciana Parish relates to a larger project I have been conducting with Dr. Sara Sundberg at the University of Central Missouri, which explores the social, gender, and environmental history of the region. West Feliciana was a borderland region during the Early Republic, recognized by settlers to be a location of significant economic potential due to its proximity to major trade routes along the Mississippi River and its fertile agricultural soils. Women and men settled the area in the 1780s under British rule and continued to expand their families and fortunes into the American period. The initial stage of this project was to map out the economic role of women during the transition from Spanish to American rule. We discovered that women played a disproportionately large role in the buying and building of family estates in the early 19th century, a fact made possible by legal and social rules facilitating this process. This part of Louisiana history has been explored by Dr. Sara Sundberg in her article “Women and Property in Early Louisiana: Legal Systems at Odds,” Journal of the Early Republic 32 (Winter 2012), 633-665 . Both Dr. Sundberg and myself expanded on this subject in a recent article in the journal Agricultural History that investigated the environmental and agricultural context of women’s land use decisions, entitled “Happy Land: Women Landowners in West Feliciana Parish Louisiana, 1813-1845” (2016). We have since expanded our scope to include the earliest settlement in the region. Who were the earliest settlers in the region and where did they site their plantations? What role did women play in the earliest settlement? Did people prioritize specific parts of the parish and why?

For a description, see: Hadden & Pearcy “1774 Map of the Mississippi, from Machac to the Yazous River” Source: Army Corps of Engineers – http://cdm16021.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16021coll10/id/8744

The first steps in resolving these questions were taken last summer with the help of my research assistant Miranda Lonsdale. Miranda, a graduating senior at Creighton University, cross referenced land title information she obtained from the American State Papers and with digitized documents available through the Louisiana Office of State Lands A summary of that early work can be found in an earlier blog post. As interesting as this information was in revealing the condition of settlement after 1819 when the Felicianas were officially incorporated into the Union, they gave only faint clues about early settlement. For this information, we are now turning to colonial records, in particular early maps.

Prior to the American period, the most thorough surveys of the Felicianas had been conducted by Vicente Sebastián Pintado, the Spanish Surveyor General of Spanish West Florida. His work included both cadastral and topographic detail and his papers can be found in the library at LSU and at the Library of Congress. Several dozen of his surveys can be found online in publicly available, digitized form through the Library of Congress website. An undergraduate researcher at Creighton, Cole Fournier, is currently georeferencing several of his maps that cover our study area. His work will help extend our scope back to the Spanish era. Although the Spanish had officially claimed the region since the 16th century, true settlement only began under the French in the 18th century and the British were the first to actively settle the Felicianas. One of the most significant early British maps of the Felicianas (indeed, the entire Natchez district) can also be found online courtesy of the US Army Corps of Engineers. This “William Wilton map” (1774) is a large, beautiful cadastral survey of this entire region. It gives a clear, though by no means comprehensive, overview of early British settlement, including the area of West Feliciana Parish. This was not the official map produced for the British government, however. Those maps were produced by surveyor Elias Durnbar and are available at Kew. They lack the topographic detail of Pintado’s later production and the scope of the Wilton maps, but provide additional information about the location and names of early settlers. Light Townsend Cummins has already traced the lineage of early British settlers using primary Spanish and American archives to established the enduring presence of about 30% of these settlers in the Parish. His work did not explore the geographic or demographic character of this settlement, however. These maps give us the first clue about the important connections between geography, gender and the environment in Colonial Louisiana.

The facade of the National Archives at Kew and the retaining ponds in the front of the building

The National Archives at Kew are not picturesque, not particularly accessible, nor are they the tourist draw that you see in the US or in other European countries. That said, they are incredibly well-used and thoughtfully organized. Constructed in the early twentieth century in an area that has witnessed numerous floods preceding and following their construction, the sole visually impressive feature of its exterior are a series of ponds. They are home to a family of swans and other waterfowl, but they double as a reservoir. Inside the building, the archive runs like a well-oiled machine. The combination of an online “discovery” portal and self-service monitors that allow you to request material and check on the status of your orders meant that much of the work of “getting to know” the archive was streamlined and I was easily able to explore the collections with little assistance. To make my work easier still, all of the material I was interested in were housed in two related repositories, both within the Records of the Colonial Office, Commonwealth and Foreign and Commonwealth Offices, Empire Marketing Board, and related bodies.

This example of a Durnbar survey required an entire oversized table to read. It listed the names of each grantee and depicted their location along the Mississippi (or near it)

All of the maps arrived in rolls and because of the nature of settlement (“vertically” up the Mississippi), they were typically several feet in height. Four of the five maps I requested yielded useful information about the original British land grants. Receiving “grants” from the British government did not mean that claimants actually resided in these areas. Indeed a number received grants in locations as far away as Pensacola Florida. Others received multiple grants in the same general area. An example of this latter category was Frederick Haldimand who was granted two, non-adjoining sections. The grants themselves listed a number of requirements of grantees that needed to be fulfilled within three years (including bringing land into cultivation and building a house). Even so, land grants were subject to land speculation. Grantees could lease their lands. Looking over the grantee rolls, one sees a number of familiar names, not the least of which were Elias Dunbar (the surveyor), William Wilton (mapper), and Peter Chester (Governor of West Florida). Government service apparently paid. It certainly did for veterans for the recent French and Indian War who were also allotted land in West Florida as payment for services rendered during the war.

All of the grantees with an “R.O” beside their name were officers who fought in the Seven Years War.

The map notes the presence of Tunica Indians in the bend of the Mississippi in the southwest corner of the Parish.

The relationship between land grants and later residence is a subject that warrants further investigation, as is the spatial organization of early settlement. Even a cursory analysis of the maps reveals some clear patterns. Early arpents were granted along major watercourses. Naturally, the Mississippi River was prime real estate, although the swamp on the east bank of river in the southwest of the Parish appears to have been reserved for the Tunica tribe. Settlement even extends to the bluffs of what are now the Tunica Hills. “Clark Creek,” or what is called Bayou Sara today is another nexus of settlement, as is Thompson’s Creek. This creek would eventually divide East from West Feliciana, and already in the 1770s, it saw numerous grants on both sides of the river. The triangular area between the Mississippi and Thompson Creek appears to have the greatest density of early grants. It is somewhat surprising how widespread the grants are across the parish at this early date. Long lots appear in a number of physical regions, from the alluvial swamps in the southwest, to the oak, pine, beech uplands and lowlands that clustered around Thompson Creek. The single unifying factor was access to water-based transportation. This may be an indication of the limited familiarity grantees had with the area.

These and other conclusions remain, however, tentative. I still need to georeference the surveys and add this British grant data to the master map. This data did not provide complete answers to my initial set of questions either. Much of the Parish remained unclaimed (and certainly unsettled) by the time the British administration ended. Large expanses of the interior of the parish would later by granted and settled under the Spanish, a problem and project for another day. Now, however, its time to hop the train for the Low Countries, on my way to The Hague and a return to Dutch disasters.

Disparity and Solidarity: Reflections on the Christmas Flood of 1717 – Part II

The following is the second part in a series exploring themes related to the Christmas Flood of 1717. These maps and reflections are works in progress and reflect the status of the project at the time of the European Society for Environmental History’s Biennial conference in Zagreb, Croatia, 2017.

In the limited time available during conference presentations, it is often difficult to explore the full scope of the subjects discussed in accompanying papers. This was the case with the presentation I briefly outlined in my previous post about the Christmas Flood of 1717. The paper introduced a side-project I have been working on related to a chapter from my manuscript on eighteenth-century Dutch disasters. My motivation to explore this flood in comparative perspective grew from my desire to understand how the Dutch (specifically the Groninger) experience of disaster compared with that of its neighbors. As bad as natural disasters in the early part of the 18th century were for the Dutch Republic, they were far worse in East Frisia. But how to explore and visualize this difference? The experience of the Christmas Flood in East Frisia was a far more devastating, long-lasting affair than in Groningen. Did the divergence begin with the onset of the flood? One of the early strategies I used to explore these questions was to map the flood losses by municipality in Groningen and East Frisia. To my knowledge, this hasn’t been attempted and it revealed some striking geographic differences (and similarities).

Chief among these were the ways that flood victimhood had been distributed across the province and the principality respectively. Much of this information (and the maps) had to be left on the chopping block for the conference, so I will add a few final images for reflection.

Christmas Flood fatalities by municipality. Sources: Register, Van Geleden Verlies in de Provincie van Stadt En Lande – 1718 ; – Mortality information obtained from Jakubowski-Tiessen, Manfred. Sturmflut 1717: Die Bewältigung Einer Naturkatastrophe in Der Frühen Neuzeit. Oldenbourg: Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 1992; Meyer, T. Von Fischern, Kriegsschrecken Und Tagelöhnern: Historisches Aus Ostfriesland. Sutton, 2008. Territorial boundaries modified from 1830 provincial data. Dr. O.W.A. Boonstra (2007): NLGis shapefiles. DANS. https://doi.org/10.17026/dans-xb9-t677; . German territories modified from 1815 provincial data, MPIDR [Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research] and CGG [Chair for Geodesy and Geoinformatics, University of Rostock] 2011: MPIDR Population History GIS Collection (partly based on Hubatsch and Klein 1975 ff.) – Rostock. Hubatsch, W. and T. Klein (eds.) 1975 ff.: Grundriß der deutschen Verwaltungsgeschichte – Marburg. http://www.censusmosaic.org/data/historical-gis-files

The first set of maps compare human fatalities. The underlying boundary shapefiles are loose approximations of actual administrative boundaries (less loose in the case of Groningen), but they give a general sense of the geographic distribution of victims. Most are concentrated along the Wadden Sea coast, less along the Dollard. This data is taken from a variety of secondary and primary sources. Areas near dike breaches naturally experienced the greatest fatalities. There is little surprising about this map, although they might be improved with accurate municipal population figures to give a clearer sense of the relative severity of the flood (something I haven’t been able to find so I’m relying on raw data). The takeaway from this map is that the experience of disaster on a provincial level is surprisingly similar between East Frisia and Groningen. In both areas, we see highly variable impacts, though in both cases, they are concentrated along the Wadden Sea coastline, largely centered on sea clay landscapes, populated by (relatively) well-off farmers.

Livestock losses during the Christmas Flood. Size of dots are proportional to the total number of livestock lost per municipality. Pie charts depict the percentage of livestock type lost by municipality. The key visual difference between Groningen and East Frisia is the losses of sheep (in Groningen) vs that of East Frisia, where the losses of cattle were heaviest. Sources: see figure I

Property loses show a subtly different spatial pattern to that of human fatalities. In Groningen, losses were heavier for property in the low lying reclaimed areas to the north and east of the city of Groningen, in the center of the province. Sources: see Figure

Compare this map to a similar series showing loss of housing and livestock. Subtle differences appear between human fatalities and property loss maps. Although the coasts remain hardest hit, the flood washed away a significant amount of property in the interior of the province as well. In Groningen in particular you see this trend develop. Why the difference? The areas to the north and east of the city of Groningen had been drained and were slowly subsiding, leaving the interior of Groningen bowl-shaped. In addition to the “young” and “old” sea clay polders (blue and green respectively), we see heavy losses in the reclaimed peat bog areas to the north and east of the city of Groningen (burnt orange). A notable exception is in the Western Quarter of the province which experience minimal losses (a subject explored in the previous post and full conference presentation.

Source: Historical landscape information derived from HISTLAND (Historisch landschappelijk informatiesysteem). Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed. http://www.nationaalgeoregister.nl/geonetwork/srv/dut/catalog.search#/metadata/19d90f62-5db9-4478-9773-c977c5652d2b?tab=contact

The difference between human and property losses was probably partly the result of their location and the nature of the storm surge on Christmas Eve 1717. Drained bog landscapes were slowly subsiding and were significantly lower in elevation than the coastlines. However, the initial impact of the flood along the coasts would have come without warning. Contemporary accounts are unanimous in their description of the early moments of the flood, coming late at night, catching people leaving near the dikes unaware. In contrast, people residing inland would have had more warning. This is described in numerous local sources. The church book from the Groninger town of Woltersum, for instance, describes the event.

“In the day and time of trouble, people saw a white cloth flying on some of the low-lying houses of our polder as a sign of the urgent emergency! The somber sound of the clocks was heard, as distressing as they were insistent!”

“In dien Dagh en tijd der benaeuwtheid sagh men op sommige der lage Huijsen van ons carspel een wit doek waeijen, tot een teeken der dringende nood! Het nare geluijd der aangeroerde klokken, ellende gelijk als uijtroepende, wierde gehoort!”

Source: Doop, Trouw en Begraaf (DTB), Kerkelijke Gemeente Woltersum Kerkeboek 1638-1764 [online] fol. 178, 1717.

Presumably, there would have been less time to protect houses and livestock than human lives. At the same time, the bowl shaped interior would have held water in, preventing easy drainage.

With limited cultural landscape source material for this part of Germany, it is difficult to make an adequate comparison. It would interesting to see if this dynamic played out in both areas. Property damage seems to be more broadly distributed, indicating that other processes were at work. What they are, and how they related (if at all) to land use, is one area of the development this project could take.

One key difference, immediately apparent when we look to livestock losses, however, is their divergent specialization. Both regions had had a long history of intensive cattle production. By the early eighteenth century, cattle rearing and pasturing had become heavily commercialized and connected to the long-distance cattle trades stretching from Denmark to the markets in Amsterdam. Groningen and East Frisia were both centers of transshipment and cattle were raised and fattened on their fertile coastal meadows. The maps of flood losses, however, show a different picture of rural agriculture in 1717. East Frisia shows what one might expect. The majority of livestock lost are cattle, followed by sheep, goats, and horses. In contrast, Groningen appears to have been invaded by sheep! The livestock data reveals much heavier concentration of sheep losses than cattle. Without livestock censuses or other ways to measure this change (short of the tabulations of flood losses), it is difficult to tell when or why this transition occurred, but it cannot be coincidence that a massive cattle plague was ravaging herds between 1713-20 in the region. Is the predominance of sheep in Groningen indicative of an adaptation to rinderpest? In Holland, heavily capitalized farmers tended to restock herds, partly made possible by the increase in the price of beef and milk. Was this also possible in Groningen? If so, this would be particularly valuable evidence of an intersection between multiple disastrous events and confirmation of one of the key theses of my manuscript. It is also possible, however, that this is a dead end. Perhaps more sheep simply died in the flood, and the figures give a false sense of total livestock before the flood. Like the maps on property damage more broadly, these maps open up as many questions as they provide clues to the consequences of the Christmas Flood of 1717.

Disparity and Solidarity: Reflections on the Christmas Flood of 1717

The following are additional thoughts (and maps) that could not be included in my presentation during ESEH 2017. The paper as well as the powerpoint presentation, entitled “Boundless Water, Bordered Lands” can be found on my academia.com site for download.

Disasters are always disproportionate. They affect some people, some environments, and some social systems far more than others. Teasing out the reasons for these disparities and exploring their consequences and origins have been some of the more significant and consistent threads of natural disaster research over the past several decades. The social science of disaster often focuses on these questions and the way in which they challenge or reinforce existing social disparities. How do issues of gender, race, religion, or class affect the outcomes of disasters? Economically and socially disadvantaged groups, or groups without access to the political power necessary to mediate recovery, tend to lose most in the wake of disaster. These observations have taken on the importance of near-truisms, particularly in the realm of vulnerability studies. Historians of natural disaster have an important role to play in this dialogue. History provides a wealth of additional examples to test assumptions about the interplay between social and natural systems that create vulnerabilities and moderate social resilience (Van Bavel & Curtis) Just as importantly, as Greg Bankoff has previously asserted, vulnerability itself is an historical construct. (Bankoff, Time is of the Essence) The social hazards of living in low-lying areas, building wooden houses unable to withstand earthquakes or fires, or organizing communities without access to centralized disaster relief are products of far deeper histories of disenfranchisement and vulnerability.

In the context of the Christmas Flood of 1717, we see the truism of disaster disparity starkly reified. Although the flood is often considered a true “North Sea Flood,” affecting a huge area of its southern coastline, in reality, its impact was far from homogeneous.

Figure 3- The size of red circles represents the proportion of total losses during the Christmas Flood as reported in Jan Buisman, Duizend Jaar Weer, Wind En Water in de Lage Landen. Deel 5: 1675-1750. Franeker: Van Wijnen, 2006. It should be noted that the spatial extent of the Christmas Flood has been a source of consistent debate and extensive analysis. Already in 1720, G. Outhof criticized the accuracy of Homann’s map, from which this layer is derived. The most extensive critical analysis of this map can be found in D. Hagen Die jämmerliche Flut von 1717; Untersuchungen zu einer Karte des frühen 18. Jahrhunderts, Oldenburg 2005. Sources: Inundated regions derived from Homann, Geographische Vorstellung der jämmerlichen Wasser-Flutt in Nieder-Teutschland, 1718. Territorial boundaries modified from 1830 provincial data. Dr. O.W.A. Boonstra (2007): NLGis shapefiles. DANS. https://doi.org/10.17026/dans-xb9-t677. German territories modified from 1815 provincial data, MPIDR [Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research] and CGG [Chair for Geodesy and Geoinformatics, University of Rostock] 2011: MPIDR Population History GIS Collection (partly based on Hubatsch and Klein 1975 ff.) – Rostock. Hubatsch, W. and T. Klein (eds.) 1975 ff.: Grundriß der deutschen Verwaltungsgeschichte – Marburg. http://www.censusmosaic.org/data/historical-gis-files

The degree to which this was the case is rarely the subject of research. In his book Sturmflut 1717, now a classic of the new disaster history, Manfred Jakubowski-Tiessen examines the flood and its impacts with a broad comparative lens. Although he wrote the book before the recent upswing in vulnerability studies, one could make the argument that the concept was central to his interests. The flood, as he describes it, catalyzed a strong and protracted economic and demographic decline in key areas, particularly the Butjadiger coast of Oldenburg, the Dithmarschen and East Frisia. He explores each as part of a larger flood disaster narrative that focuses on themes of cultural, social, and economic significance. Jakubowski-Tiessen limits himself, however, to German-speaking lands and as a result, the full power of his argument is difficult to conceptualize. How did the impact of the flood in East Frisia, for instance, compare with non-German-speaking areas affected by the flood?

Jakubowski-Tiessen’s book remains the seminal work on the Christmas Flood, though it does not cover the consequences in the Dutch Republic.

I explored this question in my conference paper, called “Boundless Water, Bordered Lands,” for the European Society of Environmental History Biennial Conference in Zagreb, Croatia in July 2017. I choose for my comparison the Dutch Province of Groningen and the “German” province of East Frisia. On paper, they appear complementary. They experienced roughly equivalent losses in human lives and property in the immediate aftermath of the flood. Almost immediately, however, their experiences diverged. Groningen quickly rebounded, whereas East Frisia proved far less resilient. Why was this the case?

Explanations might be sought in the type of dikes or their management. Both regions, however, constructed roughly similar coastal defenses maintained and financed by similar dike institutions (dijkrechten in Groningen, deichachten in East Frisia). Less proximate similarities run deeper still. Groningen and East Frisia were (and are) part of the Frisian cultural zone bordering the Wadden Sea, a thin intertidal space sandwiched between the mainland and an archipelago of barrier islands. For centuries, people living along the coast exploited the rich sea clay and interior peat soils and developed communities that shared numerous cultural, linguistic, and economic conditions. The similarities between dikes and dike institutions in East Frisia and Groningen were partly derivative of this deeper history and more recently, historians have explored their underlying unity in the context of shared vulnerabilities, adaptation, and resilience to coastal flooding. Variously termed a “coastal culture of disaster,” “hydrographic society,” or “amphibious society,” these concepts have been applied to communities along the entire North Sea coast, but tend to highlight particular relationships in coastal Germany and Holland.

Figure 1- The sea clay coastline of the North Sea was hardest hit, with the majority of fatalities located here. Sources: Inundated regions derived from Homann, Geographische Vorstellung der jämmerlichen Wasser-Flutt in Nieder-Teutschland, 1718. Territorial boundaries modified from 1830 provincial data. Dr. O.W.A. Boonstra (2007): NLGis shapefiles. DANS. https://doi.org/10.17026/dans-xb9-t677. German territories modified from 1815 provincial data, MPIDR [Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research] and CGG [Chair for Geodesy and Geoinformatics, University of Rostock] 2011: MPIDR Population History GIS Collection (partly based on Hubatsch and Klein 1975 ff.) – Rostock. Hubatsch, W. and T. Klein (eds.) 1975 ff.: Grundriß der deutschen Verwaltungsgeschichte – Marburg. http://www.censusmosaic.org/data/historical-gis-files; The European Soil Database distribution version 2.0, European Commission and the European Soil Bureau Network, CD-ROM, EUR 19945 EN, 2004.

East Frisia and Groningen are an ideal region for comparative analysis because of these and other connections. East Frisia, for instance, can be thought of as a near satellite of the Dutch Republic during the seventeenth and early eighteenth century. The largest city in the state, Emden, was arguably politically (and certainly culturally) closer to the neighboring Netherlands than the court of Aurich in the interior of the region. These East Frisians spoke Dutch, practiced Calvisinism, and were united in their antipathy for the Lutheran Princes of the Cirksena family that claimed sovereignty over the principality. The surface similarities between the two regions, however, were also the sources of subsequent tensions that would push Groningen and East Frisia onto diverging paths of recovery.

In the conference paper, I argued that the conflict between Prince Georg Albrecht and his Calvinist subjects along the sea clay coasts was a significant contributor to the divergent path East Frisia would take from Groningen in the aftermath of the Christmas Flood. The flood created severe financial difficulties and sparked social unrest in both regions (the Aduard uprising in 1718 in Groningen, and the Appelle Krieg of 1726 in East Frisia). In contrast to the Aduard uprising, which was highly localized to the lightly affected Western Quarter of Groningen, the East Frisian resistance exhibited far greater solidarity and power in the face of their Lutheran Prince. The indirect (and unintended) consequence of this solidarity was inaction in rebuilding their own dikes. Financial troubles were compounded by regional resistance to state-directed rebuilding efforts, which inhabitants viewed as a breach of their traditional rights. Subsequent floods in 1718 and 1720 destroyed what little repairs could be completed. Ultimately, it would take over 6 years to rebuild the dikes, during which time the landscape had remained susceptible to inundation, harvest failure, and continual out-migration. We should be very careful to contextualize historical interpretations of solidarity, particularly after floods. Communities could rely on multiple avenues to achieve solidarity, but they weren’t necessarily productive and didn’t always involve a recognition of shared risk to natural hazards (the presence of which disaster culture historiography depends on to a great extent).

During the question and answer period, Richard Unger asked what distinction should be made between “communities” and people with “shared interests” – an important distinction to be sure, but one that is often taken for granted in the historiography of “disaster cultures.” Most scholars who have weighed in on the subject, I think, would argue that shared interest in the face of natural hazard partly defined those communities’ cultures. These understandings were constantly contested and ever-changing, just as the broader cultures themselves evolved. Whether we can then transcend key differences and negotiate the shifting landscape of these relationships to find a “model” representative of all Wadden Sea cultures of coping with disaster remains an open question. The solidarity expressed by coastal communities in East Frisia in the aftermath of the Christmas Flood sharply contrasted with those in Groningen. This example demonstrates how issues of post-disaster solidarity, interest, and community were contingent on the underlying political and social issues at play in the wake of single disastrous events.

Next post: exploring the geography of vulnerability and the potential intersection of multiple disastrous events.

ESEH 2017 – Borders, Animals, and Nature

Conference themes don’t always (or even typically) define their content. Whereas keynotes and panels organized by program committees generally adhere to them, other sessions and events or just as likely to ignore the themes entirely. This is part of the reason that I rarely remember them. Conference “character” is more often defined by location, socializing, and/or interesting papers. In some exceptional circumstances, conferences can even be defined by their weather (such as the extreme heat of ESEH in Versailles). Effective themes, however, can provide a backbone of connectedness and dialogue between and amongst the disparate sessions, events, and meetings throughout the conference. ESEH 2017 in Zagreb adhered to this second model. Although not always fluidly executed, the conference as a whole nevertheless consistently explored its theme of “Natures in Between: Environments in areas of contacts among states, economic systems, and religions.”

The two most explicit connections to these themes were drawn from the opening address and plenary roundtable about migration. Andrew Baldwin’s opening lecture provided a provocative (or to use his own word: uncomfortable) introduction to the theme. Ostensibly about climate migration, Baldwin’s talk became more of an anthropology of whiteness and the hypocrisy of post-racial narratives of migration. Baldwin had the fortune (or perhaps misfortune) of speaking on the first, and hottest day of the conference, in the gorgeous Croatian State Archives. Baldwin’s talk received mixed reviews. On the one hand, environmental historians found little of “environmental” significance in his talk (which was possibly the real source of people discomfort, rather than its racial subject matter). On the other hand, I, and I imagine others, appreciated Baldwin’s sort of iconoclasm and rejection of what has come to define “European” environmental history. European environmental history is heavily invested in theory, but far less in discourse and narrative analysis, both of which Baldwin drew heavily upon. As his talk revolved around forced movement of peoples, it absolutely fit the theme of the conference.

The opening lecture took place in the stately central hall of the Croatian State Archives.

In retrospect, it shouldn’t have been surprising how migration and movement became the watchwords of the conference. Between refugee crises and their consequences in Europe and apprehensions about the devolving state of immigration in the US, historians already interested in borders and their transgression found plenty of material for contemporary comparison. In addition to Baldwin’s talk, the plenary roundtable on migrations was another case in point. Also like Baldwin’s talk, it received mixed reviews. Starting off the discussion, Marco Armeiro’s first pitch to the panelists was an (intentional?) softball, asking each to react to his provocation – that environmental historians have largely ignored migration as a subject. Naturally they disagreed, and all for valid reasons, though most also emphasized the need for greater emphasis in the future. Shen Hou’s comments were particularly well put, drawing primarily from the “classics” of EH literature (Dust Bowl, Changes in the Land), but leaving plenty of room for future contributions. The discussion only truly took off, however, when the mic was offered to the audience. Although the quality of answers were mixed, thoughtful, challenging questions redirected the discussion into new and arguably more productive and innovative directions. Thinking about migration across borders as a normative condition, for instance, and sedentism as the questions requiring an answer, or substituting corporations for nation states in our dialogue of migration pushed the audience and panelists to rethink their assuptions. Naturally, this discussion could have gone on far longer. Peter Coates, for example, was brought into the discussion largely based on his expertise on historic invasive species, and I would have loved to hear his take on the limits to the animal-human analogies he was encouraged to make. Likewise, the consequences of language and labeling of “refugees,” “migrants,” and “invasives.” Regardless of its shortcomings, the plenary was a useful thematic bookend that recalled topics and themes related to “contact” areas from the previous days’ sessions.

Toon Bosch, Erik Mostert and I answer questions following our presentations (photo: Annka Liepold)

The most surprising development of the conference, however, was the “animistic turn” European environmental history seems to have taken over the last few years. Histories of animals (wolves, whales, cattle), animal movement (epizootics, bio-migrations) and non-human nature more broadly were conspicuous for the number of sessions devoted to them as well as their attendance. The experimental session on “more-than-human” storytelling had a packed house. It was an exercise in unstructured, team-brainstorming. Session leaders challenged groups of scholars to think through key methodological and epistemological questions about the nature of narrative storytelling, anthropomorphism/centrism, and agency. Although the intention was to de-center (at least temporarily) the human from historical thinking, it ultimately did the opposite. Thinking about “beyond-human” agency casts the significance of human action into even sharper relief. Its absence is clearly felt and significance expressed. This may be the single most useful contribution of this type of exercise.

In a certain sense, focusing on animals during the conference, in particular this exercise in non-human storytelling, were surprisingly appropriate subjects for this conference about borders and contact. Plenty of papers (my own included) dealt with historical subjects across state, economic, and religious borders. I found that the most interesting moments of the conference came when people crossed disciplinary borders (Baldwin), narrative borders (more-than-human panel) and made contact with the “Natures in Between” those spaces.

The plenary roundtable took place in the main university building adjacent the archives.

Travel & Familiarity – Research Blog Summer 2017

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The Amsterdam Canals seen from the north. (this was actually the first time I’ve flown over the city on a clear enough day for this view).

Flying back to the Netherlands for another summer of research, conferences, and writing, I had expected the transition to occur awkwardly after about a year away. Eleven months is a long time to be gone. You’re in a different place with your work, friends and colleagues move their lives and interests, and the cities you’ve grown familiar with evolve. I find that I have to completely shift into a different head space come summer because so much of my time and energy during the year is spent teaching or working on other projects. The shift to research and writing full time is a welcome change, but one that has to take place quickly and deliberately. I have similar apprehensions every year, but I’m beginning to realize I shouldn’t. As much as people and places change and as much as I become engrossed in other projects after I leave, the underlying familiarity and warmth (well not literal warmth) of the Holland welcomes me back every year.

This was a nice realization and a starting point for my month-long stay in Europe this summer. It’s Tuesday June 27th and I’ve now been in Holland about a week. This is the first post of summer 2017 in a series detailing my research and time spent in Holland and abroad. It will be a busier than average summer, largely because I’m only here for 30 days (a short stay compared to last year), but also because so much of my time will be spent in transit. As in years past, I’m beginning the summer with a conference outside the Netherlands. The European Society for Environmental History (ESEH) is hosting their biennial conference in Zagreb, Croatia this year and I’ll be presenting on an old theme for the first time in years, coastal flooding! (More on this to come) I also have trips planned to Rome, Antwerp, and London. The latter will be short, a two-day stay near the National Archives at Kew. It will be my first time in British collections and a necessary next step in a slowly expanding project on West Feliciana, Louisiana. In later posts, I will detail my objectives and findings, but suffice to say, I will be doing a lot of writing on planes and trains.Logo_ESEH_2017

I also plan to take a weekend to visit Groningen. Groningen is a beautiful northern province, well worth a visit on any occasion. 2017 is perhaps the most ideal year to visit, however. This is the 300th anniversary of the Christmas Flood! In commemoration of this near-forgotten event, the province, the Groninger Archieven, and a number of cultural organizations have put together a summer-long program of lectures, excursions, and exhibits related to its history. They also have a fantastic website that links to primary and secondary sources (including one by yours truly) on the history and significance of the flood. Coincidentally, my conference paper for ESEH also explores the history of the Christmas Flood, so it was a completely natural decision to plan a visit. It also hasn’t escaped my attention that, with the exception of a couple Wadlopen excursions (and none since 2014), I’ve been a really poor visitor to the province (hardly ever leaving the center of Groningen). Time to remedy that.

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You can hike (or Wadloop) to the barrier islands at low tide from Groningen’s mainland. (2014 en route to Schiermonnikoog)

Somewhere amidst this travel, I will also have to find time to research and write. In contrast to last year’s narrow set of research goals, this year will be spent largely writing and wrapping up loose ends for my book manuscript, Floods, Worms, and Cattle Plague: Natural Disaster at the Closing of the Dutch Golden Age. With the exception of a few books and archival documents I need to find in The Hague, Groningen, and Amsterdam, the research is largely complete (or at least as complete as it will be). My time will be largely spent writing and editing the manuscript and my goals for the summer are consequently related to that process.

Goals:

  1. Complete a draft of chapter one. This chapter frames the core issues of the book. It explores the meaning of disaster in the early modern era and how it tied in to the eighteenth-century decline of the Dutch Republic. In contrast to later chapters that address individual disasters and more defined and limited themes and time periods, this chapter performs a balancing act between narrative explanation of themes and questions (often in the longue durée) and the narrative specificity of my hook, the famous disaster year (rampjaar) of 1672.
  2. Writing the first chapter requires dealing with a theme that has received far less scholarly attention than I would have expected– the decline of the Dutch Republic. Although decline has enjoyed substantial attention from economic historians since the publication of Joh. de Vries Economische achteruitgang der Republiek in de achittiende eeuw (1968), far fewer scholars investigate the subject from its cultural or social perspectives, much less environmental. This peculiar historiographic oversight will be a subject for a later post, but suffice to say for now that I will be able to investigate the topic more effectively in such close proximity to the archives and especially libraries of the Netherlands.
  3. Begin revision of Christmas Flood chapter. It is not the second chapter, but I may as well turn to it next since so much of this summer revolves around the disaster anyway. This is easily one of the more polished chapters already, but there are a few documents I need to find in the Groningen archive.

Next post, from Zagreb!