Becoming Jack Tar: The Vessel as a Center for the Construction of Identity

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "From the Bottom Up: Socioeconomic Archaeology of the French Maritime Empire" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Vessels during the Age of Sail in the French maritime empire served multiple vital functions, both economical and cultural, and were the nexus of multiple important historical narratives, including wars, the peak of Atlantic piracy, and the transatlantic slave trade. However, the vessel did not simply serve as a static backdrop for these events, and individuals on board did not come to the vessel in possession of their new identity - slaves, sailors, and pirates took on these identities, or had these identities forced upon them, once on board. The experience of the disparate groups of people on board French vessels during the Age of Sail created a consciousness of kind through the shared experiences and formative processes to such an extent that the vessel in question in a strong sense created their identity, and this paper will explore the role of the vessel in this process of identity creation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• From the Bottom Up: Socioeconomic Archaeology of the French Maritime Empire   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 1011