Jane Landers

Last updated

Jane Gilmer Landers (born January 1, 1947) [1] is an historian of colonial Latin America and the Atlantic World who specializes in the history of Africans and their descendants. She is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of History at Vanderbilt University, director of the Center for Latin American and Iberian Studies, and former associate dean of the college of arts & science. [2]

Contents

Early life and education

Landers was born in Pittsburgh and raised in the Dominican Republic, where her father was a naval officer attached to the United States diplomatic mission at Santo Domingo. [3]

n 1968 Landers graduated cum laude from the University of Miami with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Hispanic American Studies, and in 1974 earned a Master of Arts there in Inter-American Studies. In 1988 she obtained her PhD in Latin American Colonial History at the University of Florida.

Career

From 1988 to 1991, she taught as Adjunct Assistant Professor at the UF Department of History. In 1992 she moved to Vanderbilt University, where she taught in the department of history from 1992 to 1999 as assistant professor, from 1999 to 2010 as associate professor and since 2010 as professor. She has been Vanderbilt's Gertrude Conaway Professor of History since 2011. From 2000 to 2002, and again from 2011 to 2012, she served as the director of the University's Center for Latin American and Iberian Studies, and as associate dean of the University's College of Arts & Science from 2001 to 2004. [4]

In 2001, Lander's monograph, Black Society in Spanish Florida, was awarded the Frances B. Simkins Prize for Distinguished First Book in Southern History by the Southern Historical Association. She is the author of Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions [5] which won the Florida Historical Society's 2010 Rembert Patrick Book Award. [6]

Landers is a member of the American Society for Ethnohistory, the American Historical Association, the Association of Caribbean Historians, the Brazilian Studies Association, the Conference on Latin American History, the Forum on European Expansion and Global Interaction, and the Southern Historical Association. She has been a member of UNESCO's International Scientific Committee of the Slave Route Project since 2015. [7]

In 2013, [8] Landers was named a Guggenheim Fellow and an American Council of Learned Societies Fellow; both fellowships were accompanied by grants to fund her project, "African Kingdoms, Black Republics, and Free Black Towns across the Iberian Atlantic". [9]

While she was a graduate student doing research in the archives of Spanish Florida, Landers became aware of the existence of an early “underground railroad” of enslaved Africans who escaped bondage in the colony of Carolina to find refuge in Spanish Florida. In 1738, these runaways settled at Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, a town established by Governor Manuel de Montiano for free blacks. She had planned to do research in Brazilian history, but coming across records of the role blacks played in the history of Spain's New World possessions pointed her research in a new direction and changed the course of her career. She continued her research in Spain, then followed the documentary trail of the Mose settlers who had evacuated to Cuba with the Spanish Floridanos when Great Britain acquired Florida in 1763. [10] [11] She found many of them in 18th-century Catholic parish registers of Havana, Matanzas, Regla, Guanabacoa and San Miguel del Padrón. These records, along with many others, are preserved digitally in the Slave Societies Digital Archive (formerly Ecclesiastical and Secular Sources for Slave Societies), which she founded in 2003; it now holds approximately 600,000 images dating from the 16th to the 19th centuries. [12]

Selected works

Books

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St. Augustine, Florida</span> City in Florida, United States

St. Augustine is a city in and the county seat of St. Johns County located 40 miles south of downtown Jacksonville. The city is on the Atlantic coast of northeastern Florida. Founded in 1565 by Spanish explorers, it is the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement in what is now the contiguous United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slavery in the colonial history of the United States</span> Slavery in colonies that became the United States

Slavery in the colonial history of the United States refers to the institution of slavery as it existed in the European colonies which eventually became part of the United States. In these colonies, slavery developed due to a combination of factors, primarily the labour demands for establishing and maintaining European colonies, which had resulted in the Atlantic slave trade. Slavery existed in every European colony in the Americas during the early modern period, and both Africans and indigenous peoples were victims of enslavement by European colonizers during the era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greater Antilles</span> Region of the Caribbean

The Greater Antilles is a grouping of the larger islands in the Caribbean Sea, including Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Navassa Island and the Cayman Islands. Six island states share the region of the Greater Antilles, with Haiti and the Dominican Republic sharing the island of Hispaniola. Together with the Lesser Antilles, they make up the Antilles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Georges Biassou</span>

George Biassou was an early leader of the 1791 slave rising in Saint-Domingue that began the Haitian Revolution. With Jean-François and Jeannot, he was prophesied by the vodou priest, Dutty Boukman, to lead the revolution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slavery in colonial Spanish America</span> Economic and social institution central to the operation of the Spanish Empire

Slavery in the Spanish American colonies was an economic and social institution which existed throughout the Spanish Empire including Spain itself. In its American territories, early Spanish monarchs put forth laws against enslaving Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Queen Isabella outlawed the enslavement of Native Americans in the Spanish colonies of the New World because she viewed the natives as subjects of the Spanish monarchy. While Spain displayed an early abolitionist stance towards the Indigenous, some instances of illegal Native American slavery continued to be practiced by rogue individuals, particularly until the New Laws of 1543 which expressly prohibited it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black Seminoles</span> Ethnic group

The Black Seminoles, or Afro-Seminoles, are an ethnic group of mixed Native American and African origin associated with the Seminole people in Florida and Oklahoma. They are mostly blood descendants of the Seminole people, free Africans, and escaped former slaves, who allied with Seminole groups in Spanish Florida. Many have Seminole lineage, but due to the stigma of having mixed origin, they have all been categorized as slaves or freedmen in the past.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spanish Florida</span> Former Spanish possession in North America (1513–1763; 1783–1821)

Spanish Florida was the first major European land claim and attempted settlement in North America during the European Age of Discovery. La Florida formed part of the Captaincy General of Cuba, the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and the Spanish Empire during Spanish colonization of the Americas. While its boundaries were never clearly or formally defined, the territory was initially much larger than the present-day state of Florida, extending over much of what is now the southeastern United States, including all of present-day Florida plus portions of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and the Florida Parishes of Louisiana. Spain's claim to this vast area was based on several wide-ranging expeditions mounted during the 16th century. A number of missions, settlements, and small forts existed in the 16th and to a lesser extent in the 17th century; they were eventually abandoned due to pressure from the expanding English and French colonial settlements, the collapse of the native populations, and the general difficulty in becoming agriculturally or economically self-sufficient. By the 18th century, Spain's control over La Florida did not extend much beyond a handful of forts near St. Augustine, St. Marks, and Pensacola, all within the boundaries of present-day Florida.

Ida Louise Altman is an American historian of early modern Spain and Latin America. Her book Emigrants and Society: Extremadura and Spanish America in the Sixteenth Century received the 1990 Herbert E. Bolton Prize of the Conference on Latin American History. She is Professor Emerita of History at the University of Florida and served as Department Chair.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louisiana Creole people</span> Ethnic group of Louisiana, USA

Louisiana Creoles are people descended from the inhabitants of colonial Louisiana before it became a part of the United States during the period of both French and Spanish rule. As an ethnic group, their ancestry is mainly of Louisiana French, Central African, West African, Spanish and Native American origin. Louisiana Creoles share cultural ties such as the traditional use of the French, Spanish, and Creole languages and predominant practice of Catholicism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criollo people</span> Latin Americans of Spanish descent

In Hispanic America, criollo is a term used originally to describe people of full Spanish descent born in the viceroyalties. In different Latin American countries the word has come to have different meanings, mostly referring to the local-born majority.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Mose</span> United States historic place

Fort Mose, originally known as Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, and later as Fort Mose, or alternatively, Fort Moosa or Fort Mossa, is a former Spanish fort in St. Augustine, Florida. In 1738, the governor of Spanish Florida, Manuel de Montiano, had the fort established as a free black settlement, the first to be legally sanctioned in what would become the territory of the United States. It was designated a US National Historic Landmark on October 12, 1994.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atlantic Creole</span> Ethnic group

Atlantic Creole is a cultural identifier of those with origins in the transatlantic settlement of the Americas via Europe and Africa.

Francisco Menéndez was a notable free Black militiaman who served the Spanish Empire in Florida during the 18th-century. He was leader of Fort Mose, the first free Black settlement in North America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gwendolyn Midlo Hall</span> American historian (1929–2022)

Gwendolyn Midlo Hall was an American historian who focused on the history of slavery in the Caribbean, Latin America, Louisiana, Africa, and the African Diaspora in the Americas. Discovering extensive French and Spanish colonial documents related to the slave trade in Louisiana, she wrote Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century (1992), studied the ethnic origins of enslaved Africans brought to Louisiana, as well as the process of creolization, which created new cultures. She changed the way in which several related disciplines are researched and taught, adding to scholarly understanding of the diverse origins of cultures throughout the Americas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Siege of Fort Mose</span> 26 June 1740 action of the War of Jenkins Ear

The Battle of Fort Mose was a significant action of the War of Jenkins' Ear that took place on June 14, 1740 in Spanish Florida. Captain Antonio Salgado commanded a Spanish column of 300 regular troops, backed by the free black militia under Francisco Menéndez and allied Seminole warriors consisting of Indian auxiliaries. They stormed Fort Mose, a strategically crucial position newly held by 170 British soldiers under Colonel John Palmer. Palmer and his garrison had taken the fort from the Spanish as part of James Oglethorpe's offensive to capture St. Augustine.

Melchor Feliú (?-1766) was the last governor in the First Spanish Period of Florida's history, governing from March 20, 1762 to July 27, 1763. Feliú oversaw the cession of Florida to Great Britain by the Treaty of Paris on July 21, 1763 and the subsequent immigration of most of the province's Spanish and African inhabitants to Cuba. Some of the Native Americans living in the Spanish Catholic missions also moved away from Florida at this time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slavery in Latin America</span> Economic and social institution that existed in Latin America

Slavery in Latin America was an economic and social institution that existed in Latin America before the colonial era until its legal abolition in the newly independent states during the 19th century. However, it continued illegally in some regions into the 20th century. Slavery in Latin America began in the pre-colonial period when indigenous civilizations, including the Maya and Aztec, enslaved captives taken in war. After the conquest of Latin America by the Spanish and Portuguese, of the nearly 12 million slaves that were shipped across the Atlantic, over 4 million enslaved Africans were brought to Latin America. Roughly 3.5 million of those slaves were brought to Brazil.

St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European origin in the continental United States, was founded in 1565 by Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. The Spanish Crown issued an asiento to Menéndez, signed by King Philip II on March 20, 1565, granting him various titles, including that of adelantado of Florida, and expansive privileges to exploit the lands in the vast territory of Spanish Florida, called La Florida by the Spaniards. This contract directed Menéndez to explore the region's Atlantic coast and report on its features, with the object of finding a suitable location to establish a permanent colony from which the Spanish treasure fleet could be defended and Spain's claimed territories in North America protected against incursions by other European powers.

Kathleen A. Deagan is an American archaeologist who primarily focuses on excavations in Florida and the Caribbean. Known for her historic archaeology which uncovered the colonial past of La Florida, and work in St. Augustine, she has received multiple awards and honors, including the Award of Merit in 1992 and the J. C. Harrington Award in 2004, both bestowed by the Society for Historical Archaeology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Floridanos</span>

Floridanos is a term for colonial residents of Spanish Florida, as well as for the modern descendants of the earliest Spanish settlers who lived in St. Augustine between 1565 and 1763 and Hispanic Immigrants coming from Hispanic nations like Cuba. It also refers to those of Spanish descent who lived in East and West Florida after 1781, when Bernardo de Gálvez took back Mobile and Pensacola in West Florida from British hands. Some Floridanos can trace their ancestry in Florida back twelve or more generations. Descendants of the original Floridanos can be found throughout the state, especially in St. Augustine, as well as in Miami, Tampa, and Orlando.

References

  1. ↑ "LC Linked Data Service: Authorities and Vocabularies (Library of Congress)". id.loc.gov. The Library of Congress. 2019. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  2. ↑ Staff (2019). "People: Jane Landers Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of History". Department of History. Vanderbilt University. Archived from the original on July 7, 2019. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
  3. ↑ Marcia Lane (October 22, 2019). "Fort Mose featured on PBS tonight". The St. Augustine Record. Gatehouse Media. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
  4. ↑ Staff (2017). "Jane Landers, Ph.D. - Flagler College". www.flagler.edu. Flagler College. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
  5. ↑ Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions. Harvard University Press. 1 June 2010. ISBN   978-0-674-05416-5.
  6. ↑ "Jane Landers Curriculum Vitae". vanderbilt.academia.edu. Academia. 2019. p. 1. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
  7. ↑ Erin Facer (May 22, 2019). "Fort Negley receives international recognition thanks to the work of Vanderbilt scholars". Vanderbilt News. Archived from the original on May 23, 2019. Retrieved August 19, 2019.
  8. ↑ "John Simon Guggenheim Foundation | Jane Landers" . Retrieved Aug 19, 2019.
  9. ↑ "Jane Landers, Ph.D. Description of Research - Flagler College". www.flagler.edu. Archived from the original on August 13, 2019. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  10. ↑ Jane Landers (1 January 1996). "An eighteenth-century community in exile: the 'floridanos' in Cuba". New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids. 70 (1–2): 39. doi: 10.1163/13822373-90002628 . ISSN   2213-4360.
  11. ↑ Suasan R. Parker (May 23, 2010). "Identifying los floridanos was important task". The St. Augustine Record. GateHouse Media. Archived from the original on August 19, 2019. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  12. ↑ Jane Landers (December 2018). "I dig through archives to unearth hidden stories from African-American history". The Conversation. The Conversation US. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.