Ships from around the world met their end in the Graveyard of the Atlantic due to piracy, the geography of the area, weather, war, and human error – sunken vessels are underwater repositories of history that teach us about past technology, people, and places. Global and domestic trade ships sailed the quickly moving Gulf Stream to save time on their voyages bringing traffic to the tar heel’s coast. In the 1700s, pirates skulked the coast looking for ships to plunder. A jockeying for world power saw the English arriving by ship to Roanoke Island in 1584 with the first English child born here three years later. Our inlets were passages from the sea to the first explorers to the region. North Carolina maritime history is essentially a history with national and global contributors beginning with Paleoindian exploration and settlement. Add in international relations, literature, art and communication to the field as well as transportation, social and intercultural relations, labor and recreation and you begin to understand its many facets. This is just a tip of the iceberg when it comes to studies related to maritime history and culture.
This water-based history offers a unique perspective on global trade, war, and exploration, the harvesting of food, oil, and natural gas, economics, the impact people have on seas, oceans, and the marine environment and the impact those natural forces have on us, industry, and shipbuilding and marine-related technology and science. When you open the porthole into maritime history you find how the sea, seafaring, and coastal life affected and connected people, places, and things near and far since time immemorial. As people are basically terrestrial beings, their relationship to the sea is an extension of the history of lands and their people. WHY STUDY MARITIME HISTORY AND CULTURE? Maritime: connected with the sea or seafaring living or found near the sea humankind’s relationship with seas and oceans The field of maritime history has a vast footprint with seven tenths of the world’s surface covered with water.