Etched onto the ocean-battered surface of Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts, the year 1620 remains ingrained in the cultural and literary memories of over three centuries of American identity. As a collective imaginary, the cultural monolith of American national belonging partakes in a historical narrative that extends its roots far beyond the shores of the North American coast and into the fragmented, mobile histories of the eight-eenth-century Atlantic. The notions of Anglo-centricity in the dominant discourse of the En-lightenment are challenged by the existence of an extensive anthology of literatures that ech-oes many of the transnational experiences of the colonial legacy through storied portrayals of pivotal transatlantic figures. Published version