Scholars of English expansion have rightly located the roots of the English Atlantic world in the... more Scholars of English expansion have rightly located the roots of the English Atlantic world in the turmoil and transitions of the seventeenth century, but they have too often concentrated on the narrow and premature definition of early modern England as a Protestant nation and empire. While the seventeenth-century Anglo-Atlantic remained predominantly populated and ruled by Protestants, it was not a Protestant empire. This dissertation focuses on identifying individual Catholic inhabitants—broadly envisioned to encompass migrants from the British Isles, other European settlers, enslaved Africans, and American converts—to shed light on the diverse religious constitution of the English Atlantic world. It asks what happened to those migrants and settlers who contradicted the dominant religious and political identity of England and English global expansion and seeks to better understand how England and the English colonies became a Protestant world over the course of the seventeenth cent...
Scholars of English expansion have rightly located the roots of the English Atlantic world in the... more Scholars of English expansion have rightly located the roots of the English Atlantic world in the turmoil and transitions of the seventeenth century, but they have too often concentrated on the narrow and premature definition of early modern England as a Protestant nation and empire. While the seventeenth-century Anglo-Atlantic remained predominantly populated and ruled by Protestants, it was not a Protestant empire. This dissertation focuses on identifying individual Catholic inhabitants—broadly envisioned to encompass migrants from the British Isles, other European settlers, enslaved Africans, and American converts—to shed light on the diverse religious constitution of the English Atlantic world. It asks what happened to those migrants and settlers who contradicted the dominant religious and political identity of England and English global expansion and seeks to better understand how England and the English colonies became a Protestant world over the course of the seventeenth cent...
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Papers by Shona Johnston