ABSTRACT
The Atlantic World had a long demise, as illustrated by the protracted battle to end slavery in the Americas. In 1823, the United States President James Monroe warned the nations of Europe not to interfere with the newly independent nations of Latin America. European imperialism did not end with the Atlantic World. Quite to the contrary, it became even more powerful as it shifted into Africa and Asia. The transoceanic migrations that shaped the Atlantic World also continued well after the decline of the Atlantic empires. In North America, European immigration prior to 1850 was dominated by Irish, German, and Scandinavian peoples; after 1880, Italians, Poles, and Russian Jews made the Atlantic crossing in large numbers. Alexander von Humboldt, a native of Germany, crossed the Atlantic in 1799 and spent five years in the Americas. In nineteenth-century Latin America, British and German merchants and investors rushed to fill the gap left by the destruction of Spanish imperial rule.
