About

I am a historian of the revolutionary Atlantic world, with a particular focus on the impact of the Haitian Revolution on the early United States. My current book manuscript focuses on the Haitian revolutionary diaspora – the thousands of enslaved and formerly enslaved people who were forced by their enslavers to leave revolutionary Saint-Domingue for places where slavery remained legal – and the efforts of diaspora members to seek freedom in the early U.S. Focusing on this diaspora expands our geographies of the Haitian Revolution and develops our understanding of the intra-American slave trade; in particular, it reveals the centrality of struggles over mobility to struggles over freedom in the revolutionary Atlantic world.

My research stems from twin interests: a deep interest in histories of revolution and resistance to oppression; and a fascination with how people in the past experienced and moved through the material world. I look forward to bringing both of these interests into my teaching at Bates, as well as into my future research. My work has been supported by the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies, the Folger Institute, and the Omohundro Institute for Early American History and Culture.