Hannah Tweet

I am a historian of the early modern/colonial Americas with interests across legal, social, and spatial history. My dissertation “Prison Escape: Flight and Capture in the Spanish Empire, 1550-1640” brings together records of jailbreak across distinct regions and institutions of the Spanish empire from 1550 to 1640, with equal attention to their aftermaths. Through stories of escape I examine questions of jurisdiction, notions of reciprocity and exchange, and the physical and social infrastructures of both flight and capture.

Prior to beginning my PhD I earned a B.A. in History and Spanish at Whitworth University and an M.L.A. in Florida Studies at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg. My master’s thesis drew from Mexican Inquisition records and is titled “Marriage and Community in New Spain, 1550-1580: The Bigamy Cases of Gabriel Carrasco, Francisco González, and Luisa de Abrego”.