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| Centro de Estudos de História Atlântica | |
|---|---|
| Name | Centro de Estudos de História Atlântica |
| Native name | Centro de Estudos de História Atlântica |
| Established | 1990s |
| Location | Lisbon, Portugal |
| Type | Research center |
| Director | Pedro Silva |
| Affiliation | Universidade Nova de Lisboa |
Centro de Estudos de História Atlântica is a Lisbon-based research institute dedicated to the study of Atlantic history linking Europe, Africa, and the Americas. It conducts archival research, publishes monographs and journals, and organizes conferences that connect scholars working on the Age of Discovery, transatlantic exchanges, and colonial and postcolonial dynamics. The center engages with archives, museums, and universities across Portugal, Spain, Brazil, Angola, and the United States.
Founded in the 1990s amid renewed interest in the Age of Discovery, the center emerged from collaborations among scholars associated with Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Universidade de Lisboa, Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical, Museu Nacional de Antropologia, and the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal. Early initiatives linked projects on the Treaty of Tordesillas, the Portuguese Empire, and the Iberian Union with research on the Atlantic slave trade, the Captaincy system (Brazil), and the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Key founding figures included historians who had worked on archives such as the Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo and the General Archive of the Indies, and who collaborated with scholars from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Universidade de São Paulo, Universidade Agostinho Neto, and Brown University.
The center expanded its remit in the 2000s to incorporate studies of maritime networks connecting Cape Verde, Madeira Islands, Azores, Senegal, Benin, Ghana, Cabo Verde (island), and Guinea-Bissau. Grants from institutions such as the European Research Council, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and bilateral programs with the Fulbright Program supported comparative work on the Atlantic World and the Enlightenment circulations between Lisbon, Paris, and London.
The center's mission centers on multidisciplinary analysis of Atlantic crossings involving the Portuguese Empire, the Spanish Empire, Dutch Republic, Kingdom of England, and the Kingdom of France. Research themes include the history of the transatlantic slave trade, maritime technology linked to the Caravel, plantation economies in Brazil, Cuba, and Saint-Domingue, indigenous experiences across the Caribbean, and intellectual networks connecting Lisbon, Madrid, Havana, Luanda, and Salvador, Bahia. Projects examine legal frameworks such as the Laws of the Indies and diplomatic arrangements like the Treaty of Zaragoza, alongside cultural histories of creolization studied through sources held at the Archivo General de Indias, Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, and the Museum of the Americas (Madrid).
Interdisciplinary work draws on methodologies used by scholars at Smithsonian Institution, The British Museum, Casa de las Américas, and Instituto Camões, integrating environmental history of the Gulf of Guinea, studies of shipwreck archaeology with teams from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and linguistic research on Afro-Portuguese creoles documented in collections from SOAS University of London.
Administratively attached to Universidade Nova de Lisboa and housed in partnership with the Instituto de História Contemporânea, the center is led by a director supported by a scientific board including professors from Universidade do Porto, Universidade de Coimbra, Universidade de Évora, King's College London, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, and University of California, Berkeley. Research groups focus on archives, maritime archaeology, digital humanities, and public history, collaborating with institutional partners such as the Direção-Geral do Património Cultural, the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, and the European University Institute.
The center supervises doctoral candidates registered at Universidade Nova de Lisboa and coordinates joint programs with the University of Lisbon, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, and the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. It maintains memoranda of understanding with the Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, and the Arquivo Histórico de Protocolos.
Major projects include digitization of maritime logs drawn from the Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, an edition of transatlantic correspondence involving merchant houses in Lisbon, Seville, and Antwerp, and archaeological surveys of wrecks near Ilha de Mozambique and Cape St. Augustine. Publications include a peer-reviewed series in collaboration with Imprensa Nacional‑Casa da Moeda, edited volumes featuring contributions from scholars affiliated with Harvard University, University of Oxford, Universidade de Salamanca, Universidade de Coimbra, and a journal that has published special issues on the Middle Passage, sugar economies tied to São Tomé and Príncipe, and cartographic exchanges between Dieppe and Lisbon.
The center's databases are used by historians researching the Atlantic slave trade alongside datasets compiled by the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database and archaeological reports coordinated with Museu de Marinha and the Institute of Nautical Archaeology.
The center offers postgraduate seminars, summer schools, and doctoral workshops in partnership with Universidade Nova de Lisboa and visiting scholars from Yale University, Columbia University, Universidade de Buenos Aires, and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Training emphasizes paleography for sources in Early Modern Spanish, Early Modern Portuguese, and Latin, guided by faculty who have worked in the Archivo General de la Nación (Mexico) and the Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino. Courses address methods used in maritime archaeology with technicians from Instituto Português de Arqueologia and in digital mapping using tools developed with the Harvard Map Collection.
Annual conferences draw participants from Universidade de Lisboa, Universidade do Porto, Brown University, Rutgers University, Universidade de São Paulo, Universidade Federal da Bahia, University of Edinburgh, and Trinity College Dublin. Public seminars are co-organized with the Fundação Oriente and the Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência, featuring talks on the Age of Discovery, the Atlantic Revolutions, and creole literatures from Cuba, Brazil, and Cape Verde. Outreach includes exhibitions developed with the Museu de Marinha, educational programs for schools in Lisbon, and documentary collaborations with producers at RTP.
Long-term collaborations include research networks with Universidade de Salamanca, Universidad de Sevilla, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Cape Town, the British Library, and the Library of Congress. The center participates in EU projects coordinated by the Horizon 2020 framework and bilateral initiatives funded by the Luso-American Development Foundation, working alongside conservation teams from the International Council on Monuments and Sites and archival specialists at the National Archives (UK).
Category:Research institutes in Portugal