Rebecca Scott

Rebecca J. Scott, the Charles Gibson Distinguished University Professor of History and Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, studies slavery, emancipation, law, and the boundaries of citizenship in Latin America and the United States. In "María Coleta and the Capuchin Friar: Slavery, Salvation, and the Adjudication of Status" (William and Mary Quarterly, 2019), she and Carlos Venegas explored the dynamics of unlawful enslavement in late 18th century Havana. With Jean M. Hébrard, she co-authored Freedom Papers: An Atlantic Odyssey in the Age of Emancipation (Harvard University Press, 2012), which traces five generations of a family from West Africa to the Caribbean and the United States and then to Europe. She is currently finishing a book manuscript titled "No Safe Harbor: Three Women between Freedom and Enslavement," which draws upon archives in France, Cuba, and the United States.