THE WOODEN WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN: NAVAL MUTINIES IN THE AGE OF ATLANTIC REVOLUTION
Niklas Frykman
Mutinies tore like wildfire through the wooden warships of the revolutionary era. While sans-culottes across Europe laid siege to the nobility and slaves put the torch to plantation islands overseas, out on the oceans naval seamen by the tens of thousands turned their guns on the quarterdeck, formed committees, elected delegates, and overthrew the absolute rule of captains. Never before or since have there been as many mutinies on both sides of the front, as well as among many of the neutral powers, as during the French Revolutionary Wars. This dissertation, based on research in British, Danish, Dutch, French, Swedish, and US archives, traces the development of the mutinous Atlantic from the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 to its crescendo in 1797.