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2016 Contest:
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The 2016 Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr.
Prize will be awarded for the best
graduate student paper presented at
the St. Pete Beach, FL Meeting of the SHA
(November 2-5, 2016) in the fields of
Latin American, Caribbean, American
Borderlands and Frontiers, or
Atlantic World history. Students
must be or become LACS members at
the time of the meeting to be
considered from the prize. Students
will be asked to submit electronic
versions of their paper to the
committee members shortly after the
2016 meeting (the deadline will be
set by the committee).
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Committee memmbers will
be announced later.
The
(Un)lettered Frontier: Power and
Literacy on the Fringes of Empire"
Committee Citation:
Nathan Weaver Olson's paper "The
(Un)lettered Frontier: Power and
Literacy on the Fringes of Empire"
acknowledges the recognized
importance of escribanos who served
the Spanish colonial empire in
various capacities; as "secretaries
and scribes, they were paralegals,
and they were notaries—all at once.”
But Olson expands on our
understanding of colonial legal
culture and literacy by exploring
geographic spaces or zones that
sometimes lacked large numbers of
these "lettered people"-- these
important functionaries of Empire.
Following the work of Lauren Benton,
Olson's paper illustrates the
surprising extent and depth of
Spain's legal and literary culture
by looking at frontier regions
lacking in escribanos. Even without
the better-trained professionals,
these frontier spaces were “full of
law…brimming with potential
intellectual producers who were
quite capable of composing and
certifying legal documents that they
then used to their own advantage.”
Olson's work highlights the legal
and literary creativity of these
more informal legal thinkers. Olson
sees the frontier as “not a lawless
place,” but rather, a “competing
legal regime within Spain’s
empire”--a region in which people
lacking in more formal legal
training might still employ a
surprising level of popular legal
understanding to defend their
interests.
Past Winners
2013
Winner:
Julia Gaffield, Duke
University, 2012 "‘So Many Schemes in Agitation’:
The Haitian State and the Atlantic
World"
2012:
Elizabeth Neidenbach, College of William
and Mary: "Anciennes Habitantes de
Saint-Domingue: Migration and Social
Networks in Testaments of Refugee Free
Women of Color in New Orleans"
2011: Courtney Campbell, Vanderbilt University
"Inside Out: Intellectual Views on Northeastern Brazilian Regional Identity and Transnational Change, 1926-1952"
2010: Mark Fleszar, Georgia State University: “’To See How Happy the Human Race Can Be’: A Colonization Experiment on Haiti’s Northern Coast, 1835-1845”
2009: Sitela Alvarez, Florida International University: “Cuban Exiles’ Rejection of Imperialist Catholicism in Key West, 1870-1895”
2008: Leo B. Gorman, University of New Orleans: “Immigrant Labor Strife and Solidarity in Post-Katrina New Orleans”
2007: Tatiana Seijas, Yale University, “Indios Chinos in Colonial Mexico’s Republica de
Indios”
2006: Pablo Gomez, Vanderbilt University, “Slavery and Disability in Cartagena de Indias,
Nuevo Reino de Granada”
2005: Magdalena Gomez, Florida International University: "La primera campaña de vacunación contra la viruela y el impacto del establecimiento de las Juntas de Vacuna en la administración de la salud pública, en el Caribe Hispano y la Capitanía de Venezuela, a comienzos del siglo XIX"
2004: David Wheat, Vanderbilt University: “Black Society in Havana”
2003: Sophie Burton, Texas Christian University: “Free Blacks in Natchitoches”
2002: Barry Robinson, Vanderbilt University: “Treachery in Colotlán (Mexico): The Problem of Individual Agency in Regional Insurgency, 1810-1815”
2001: Matthew Smith, University of Florida: “Race, Resistance and Revolution in Post-Occupation Haiti, 1934-46”
