Insular Illegal Trade: War and Nature in the North Atlantic World, 1760-1820

During the belligerent period 1760–1820, centres for illegal trade appeared in the High North Atlantic.

The purpose of this 3-year project is to explore the creation and repercussions of this illegal trade during times of upheaval. Crucially, this trade is analysed through the perspectives of environmental and war history.

While the political situation determined the reigning legal circumstances, the environment conditioned life for humans and animals in the area.

By centring on a neglected oceanic region and its connections, the project inverts historical geographies, shifting the focus away from port centres like London and Copenhagen.

The Faroe Islands, Greenland, Iceland, Shetland and Orkney all came to play a pivotal role in North Atlantic illegal trade.

Once united under the Norwegian crown, this immense space was by the 18th century a frontier between the British and Danish empires, strategically situated along maritime highways and bountiful with natural resources like whale blubber and hides.

This project explores the illegal trade that developed here, shaped at once by imperial aspirations and storms, ice, and darkness.

Drawing on archival sources ranging from whaling logbooks to tax records, I shed new light on the enduring interconnections between the islands, the fragility of the subarctic environment, the disordering effects of international upheaval, and the metamorphosing nature of illegal trade, filling a gap in our understanding of the North Atlantic world.