New guest researcher - Teresa Göltl
A glimpse into the archival records Teresa is examining. The Affaire Jaham (1845-47) is for example such a trial involving enslavers. The brothers Charles and Octave de Jaham, slaveholders in Martinique, were accused of mistreating and torturing several of their enslaved. These sources can be found at the Archives Nationales d'Outre-Mer in Aix-en-Provence.
Teresa Göltl is a PhD student in History at the University of Heidelberg and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. She currently works as a research assistant at the Chair of Early Modern History in Heidelberg and is part of the Centre Internationale de Recherche sur l'Esclavage et Post-Esclavage. Her research focus lies on the former French colonies of Guadeloupe and Martinique. She is especially interested in the entanglements of law and slavery as her PhD project focuses on trials of enslavers in the 18th and 19th century.
As a visiting researcher in the In the Same Sea project, Teresa aims to enhance her expertise on the French colonies by exploring other parts of the Caribbean, particularly the former Dutch colonies. Her objective is to investigate whether similar trials occurred in these colonial contexts and, if so, to comprehend their unfolding. She has already come across instances in trial records where accused enslavers attempted to avoid conviction by fleeing to other islands in the Caribbean, providing evidence of intricate and interconnected relationships.
In addition to her research findings, she is eager to explore possibilities for visualizing and integrating cases like those she has uncovered in the French Archives into a database, similar to the one being developed by In the Same Sea. This initiative aims to broaden accessibility to these valuable resources for a wider research community.
Teresa is funded by Erasmus Teaching Mobility and 4EU+.