Juan José Ponce Vázquez

Juan José Ponce Vázquez serves as Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of History at the University of Alabama, specializing in colonial Latin American history with emphasis on the Spanish Caribbean and Spanish Atlantic during the seventeenth century.

Educational background:

• PhD, University of Pennsylvania (2011)

His research centers on Spanish colonial societies in Caribbean peripheries, particularly Hispaniola, examining how local populations used smuggling to navigate imperial competition and assert socioeconomic autonomy. He investigates agency of colonial subjects in transforming imperial bureaucracies, Afro-descendant communities, plebeian travelers, and borderland dynamics. His work integrates social, political, and economic frameworks to analyze race, slavery, and cultural exchange in the Spanish Atlantic world.

Publications spanning 2011-2024 consistently explore borderlands, race, slavery, and imperial interactions in the Spanish Caribbean, demonstrating methodological rigor through primary source analysis and attention to marginalized perspectives including Afro-descendants and illiterate peasants.

Scientific recognition:

• Alfred B. Thomas Award (2021) for best Latin American studies book

Ponce Vázquez actively mentors graduate students as Director of Graduate Studies and has consulted for major media projects including PBS's Finding Your Roots and National Geographic's Conquistadors: Rise and Fall, bridging academic research with public history.