In 2016 Rebecca Scott and Cuban historian Carlos Venegas came upon a record of the “confession” of María Luisa Coleta, a refugee from the Haitian Revolution who had been unlawfully enslaved in 1796, as narrated to Friar Félix, who had been summoned to her deathbed in Havana. Coleta declined to accept last rites, however, unless the friar would return with a scribe to copy down her story and take the document to a judge to initiate a freedom suit on behalf of her daughters, so that they would not suffer what she had suffered. The many folios of that lawsuit form the basis for the present essay, complemented by documents from France, England, and the Dominican Republic that trace the Atlantic dimension to this story. Together they cast light on the complexities of discerning and documenting status in the Atlantic world in the aftermath of the Haitian Revolution.

A paper will be circulated in advance of the workshop; please contact Michael Gawlik (mrgawlik@umich.edu) if you would like a copy.