L’écriture de l’histoire et la compétition européenne outre-mer au tournant du xviie siècle

At the turn of the seventeenth century, the arrival of French, English and Dutch ships on three oceans and the breaking of the Iberian monopoly over the East and West Indies, was accompanied by a shift in the notion discovery. To understand the issues related to the appropriation of the concept by the European rivals of Portugal and Spain, this article focuses on the writings of the Huguenot historian Henry Lancelot Voisin de La Popeliniere (1541-1608). According to him, the idea of "discovery" should become the alpha and omega of a new writing of history, superior in all points from what historians, be they Ancient or Modern, had previously proposed. In the meantime, the notion was endowed with a significance that went far beyond the single issue of historical writing: the narratives of the discoveries would now play the role of guarantor for claiming possessions overseas.