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Rebecca Scott at TLHS, Feb. 24

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The next meeting of the Triangle Legal History Seminar will be this Friday, February 24, at the National Humanities Center from 4-6 pm.  Our presenter will be Rebecca Scott, Charles Gibson Distinguished University Professor of History and Professor of Law at the University of Michigan and John Hope Franklin Visiting Professor of Law at Duke University for spring 2017.

Her paper is entitled "Luisa Coleta and the Capuchin Friar: Slavery, Salvation, and the Legal Adjudication of Status":

This essay explores the adjudication of status, asking to what extent the exercise of authority under slavery was constrained by law. Was the Caribbean war refugee named Coleta a slave, or was she a free woman? When a Capuchin friar prepared to administer the last rites at Coleta’s deathbed in Havana in December of 1816, she refused absolution, instead obliging the friar on pain of conscience to transcribe her final confession and submit her words to a judge in order to initiate a suit for freedom for her children. The record thus created reveals the deep indeterminacy of status, the entanglement of the law of property with the law of persons, and the limits of legal process in a slave society.

Please find the paper here.  Contact Ashton Merck if you have questions or need access to the paper.

We look forward to seeing you on Friday!

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