Following the 1655 invasion of Spanish Jamaica, English forces waged guerilla warfare on two fronts. The first was against a small Spanish resistance that maintained a toehold on the island despite the initial Spanish surrender. The defeat of that beleaguered resistance, however, depended on the outcome of the second front, a conflict waged between the English and several autonomous communities of African descent. Far deadlier and more threatening for the English, that front waged on until the leader of one of these communities, Juan Lubolo, switched sides, forcing the remaining Spanish resistance to abandon Jamaica and giving the English an invaluable ally in the continuing war against the palenques that continued to fight for autonomy on the island. In this presentation, I will trace the history of the Afro-descended captives seized by Lubolo and his forces. Securing Jamaica for English settlement depended on transforming these captive enemies into enslaved people through inter- and intra-imperial human trafficking. Africans and Afro-Jamaicans, the majority of Spanish Jamaica’s population on the eve of the invasion, proved too dangerous for the English to enslave, in part due to their knowledge of the topography, flora, and fauna of the island as well as their likely connections to armed, autonomous communities. In order to transform Lubolo’s prisoners of war into enslaved laborers, English officials in Jamaica used human traffickers to smuggle the Afro-Jamaican captives into neighboring Spanish colonies. The goal was to create wealth that English colonists, in turn, could use to purchase enslaved Africans from the transatlantic slave trade. And, by 1671, English Jamaican lawmakers codified this practice of trafficking “dangerous” captives “to foreign parts” into law, turning an illicit, wartime practice into a method of social control in Jamaica’s burgeoning slave society.

Professor Schmitt a historian of early America and the Caribbean, with particular interests in human trafficking, colonization, and illicit economies over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In her research and her teaching, she is interested in tracing individuals who crossed imperial boundaries—by choice and by coercion—in order to understand how processes like colonialism, imperialism, slavery, and trade functioned in the interstices of early modern empires. Professor Schmitt is currently at work on her book manuscript, tentatively titled The Predatory Sea: Human Trafficking, Colonization, and Trade in the Greater Caribbean, 1530-1690, which analyzes the ubiquity of human trafficking and captivity in the greater Caribbean and North America from the 1530s until the 1690s and what that meant for colonization, trade, and warfare in the region. At Cornell, she teaches classes on colonialism, imperialism, slavery, and corruption.

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program supports college graduates conducting research or teaching in any field in more than 150 countries. Applications are due in the fall; students who wish to begin the program immediately after graduation are encouraged to start the process in their junior year.

United States citizens in any field of study are eligible.

Contact: fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu, https://einaudi.cornell.edu/fulbright-us-student-program

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program supports college graduates conducting research or teaching in any field in more than 150 countries. Applications are due in the fall; students who wish to begin the program immediately after graduation are encouraged to start the process in their junior year.

United States citizens in any field of study are eligible.

Contact: fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu, https://einaudi.cornell.edu/fulbright-us-student-program

Take your learning to the next level with regional and thematic minors from the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and our programs. Whatever your major and career goals, our wide geographical reach and interdisciplinary focus provide opportunities for you to expand your global knowledge and broaden your approach to your studies and the world. Find out if an Einaudi Center minor is right for you and how to apply.

Co-sponsored by the Tatkon Center for First-Year Students

Contact: einaudi_center@einaudi.cornell.edu; https://einaudi.cornell.edu/learn/minors-and-academics

Explore options beyond academia and discover how to make informed decisions for career choices in government, non-profits and industry. Test-drive career opportunities through career panels, individual and group sessions, site visits and more. Visit website for more details.

Contact: sap@cornell.edu

Is the Einaudi Center's International Relations minor for you? Here's a chance to find out. Graduates go on to successful careers in fields like international law, economics, agriculture, trade, finance, journalism, education, and government service.

Contact: irm@einaudi.cornell.edu; https://einaudi.cornell.edu/academics/international-relations-minor

This LASP summer research grant provides funding for in-country research costs for graduate pre-dissertation work in Latin America or the Caribbean. (The grant does not cover international airfare; students should also apply for an Einaudi Center Travel Grant for airfare.) LASP will offer up to three research grants to qualified graduate students who need to conduct field research over the summer of 2021. Grant amounts may vary from $500 to $1,500. The graduate minor in Latin American (and Caribbean) studies allows students to acquire in-depth knowledge of the region, which will enhance their expertise for future research and professional advancement. The main requirement is to have a Latin American studies field faculty member as a member of a student’s committee.

Contact: lasp@cornell.edu, https://lasp.einaudi.cornell.edu/

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program provides full funding for graduate and professional students conducting research or teaching in any field in more than 150 countries. Open to U.S. citizens only.

The Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Program supports doctoral students conducting research in modern languages or area studies for six to 12 months. Open to U.S. citizens and permanent residents of the United States. Travel to Western European countries is not eligible.

Contact: fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu, https://einaudi.cornell.edu/fulbright-us-student-program

Existing work presents mixed findings on the impact of weather events on international mobility. Relying on fine-grained data over a long-time span (1980-2019) in the Mexico-U.S. setting, we turn to machine learning (ML) tools to first determine if weather events can predict migration choices of 150,000+ individuals. We use random-forest models which allow us to include a comprehensive list of weather indicators measured at various lags, and to consider complex interactions among the inputs. These models rely on data-driven model selection, optimize predictive performance, but often produce ‘black-box’ results. In our case, the results show that weather indicators offer at best a modest improvement in migration predictions. We then attempt to open the black box and model the linkages between select weather indicators and migration choices. We find the combination of precipitation and temperature extremes and their particular sequencing to be crucial to predicting weather-driven migration responses out of Mexico. We also show heterogeneity in these responses by household wealth status. Specifically, we find that wealthier households in rural communities migrate in the immediate aftermath of a negative weather shock (relative to the ‘normal’ weather in their community), while poorer households need to experience a positive weather event following a negative one in order to migrate to the United States. This pattern suggests that migration as an adaptation strategy might be available to select households in the developing world, and the most vulnerable might be excluded from resorting on an international trip unless they experience particular sequences of weather events that allow them to raise the necessary funds first.

Filiz Garip is Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Her research lies at the intersection of migration, economic sociology and inequality. Within this general area, she studies the mechanisms that enable or constrain mobility and lead to greater or lesser degrees of social and economic inequality. Her work has appeared in American Journal of Sociology, Demography, Population and Development Review. She is also the author of On the Move: Changing Mechanisms of Mexico-U.S. Migration (Princeton University Press, 2016).

The Migration Studies minor is a university-wide, interdisciplinary undergraduate minor that prepares students to understand the historical and contemporary contexts and factors that drive international migration and shape migrant experiences around the globe. This minor draws on the rich course offerings found across the humanities and social sciences at Cornell, and is designed to draw students outside of their major fields and to extend their knowledge beyond a single country.

Contact: migration-minor@einaudi.cornell.edu, https://einaudi.cornell.edu/migration-studies-minor