Climate and Reproduction in the Early English Atlantic

Abstract

hile scholars have written about early modern European colonizers ’ anx-ieties about how to maintain their bodily health and identities when they relocated to hotter colonial climates or consumed unfamiliar foods, in this project I consider the questions that English colonists raised about the relationship between the habitability of colonial environments and women ’ s reproductive health during a period of imperial expansion and reorganization in the late seventeenth century. 1 If some feared the effects of new airs or foods on women ’ s health, there were also many authors who praised how “ Nature ” in “ hot Climates ” was “ always pregnant and teeming ” and claimed colonizers ’ bodies