Undoubtedly one of the most studied and fruitful subjects of historical inquiry in recent years has been the field of Atlantic history. With origins in the attempt to capture the transoceanic nature of the Anglo-American experience in the eighteenth century, it has yielded a remarkable body of work that spans everything from the study of migration and the slave trade to the transnational history of revolution and political thought. Its center of gravity, however, has largely been the North Atlantic, with most attention paid to the ties and transferences between Britain and North America. Clearly the Atlantic world extended well beyond these northern climes. Indeed, it is at least arguable that the commerce and competition in the Caribbean basin and the South Atlantic between France, Britain, and Spain, as well as the more general traffic between Europe, Latin America, and North America, constituted one of the period's liveliest and most contentious arenas.