Originally published on May 27, 2020 (Episode 160)
Introduction
On October 22, 1685, King Louis XIV of France revoked the Edict of Nantes, the decree promulgated by his grandfather Henri IV which had provided French Protestants with a degree of limited toleration.
The choices facing those approximately 700,000 French Protestants were stark: they could renounce their beliefs and convert to Catholicism; resist, which could lead to imprisonment or death; or leave France, which was itself an illegal act. Ultimately, some 150,000 made new homes across Europe, from Switzerland to Berlin, and from Rotterdam to Ireland. Others went even farther abroad, to Virginia, the Carolinas, the West Indies—even as far as the Cape of Good Hope.
With me to discuss the Huguenot diaspora, and how it changed the society, culture, and politics of the Atlantic World, is Owen Stanwood, author of The Global Refuge: Huguenots in an Age of Empire.
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About the Guest
Owen Stanwood is Professor of History at Boston College. He specializes in the history of early America, the Atlantic World, and migration. He is also the author of The Empire Reformed: English America in the Age of the Glorious Revolution (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).
For Further Investigation
Owen Stanwood, The Global Refuge: Huguenots in an Age of Empire (Oxford University Press, 2020)
Owen Stanwood, The Empire Reformed: English America in the Age of the Glorious Revolution (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011)
Oxford, Massachusetts: The Huguenot Fort and the Oxford Colony
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