Chapter 5 Deathbed Scenes in the Early Modern Atlantic World: Cross-Cultural Perspectives

In: The Moment of Death in Early Modern Europe, c. 1450–1800
Author:
Erik R. Seeman
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Type:
Chapter
Pages:
81–100
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004517745_006

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Abstract

Historians of early modern Europe helped create the academic field of death studies. More recently they have developed powerful analytical models for understanding deathbed scenes. This chapter applies some of those models to cross-cultural deathbed scenes in colonial North America and the Atlantic world. In doing so, the chapter demonstrates that analyses developed in one historical context may well apply to others, because deathbed scenes contain elements that cross religious and cultural boundaries. For example, Hillard von Thiessen’s concept of the “competition of norms” posits that deathbeds often illuminate the tensions between social and religious values. Originally formulated in the context of early modern German states, the concept also sheds light on cross-cultural deathbeds in the Americas. Likewise, Radmila Pavlícková argues that observers frequently weaponized their representations of dying moments in the name of confessional polemics. This dynamic was common when missionaries in the Americas described the deathbeds of Indians and Africans. The chapter concludes by suggesting that Europeanists have not paid adequate attention to the analytical models developed by Americanists. A truly transatlantic field will not emerge until they do so.

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The Moment of Death in Early Modern Europe, c. 1450–1800

Contested Ideals, Controversial Spaces, and Suspicious Objects

Series:  Intersections, Volume: 89
Cover The Moment of Death in Early Modern Europe, c. 1450–1800
E-Book ISBN:
9789004517745
Publisher:
Brill
Print Publication Date:
30 Apr 2024
Front Matter
Chapter 1 Introduction: the Moment(s) of Death in Early Modern Europe
Part 1 Approaching the Last Moments
Part 2 Ideal Deathbeds
Part 3 Objects and the Moments of Death
Part 4 Violence and Diseases
Back Matter

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