Graduate Student, History
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
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Ida Altman
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About
I am a doctoral candidate in Latin American history at the University of Florida. My dissertation will examine social and demographic changes in Spanish St. Augustine between 1668 and 1763 in the context of the larger Spanish Caribbean. It argues that ethnic identity was flexible and highly contingent on the local and imperial politics of the moment, and influenced by the military character of the presidio. This study seeks to demonstrate that during this period, Florida was more closely tied to the Spanish empire in general, and the Caribbean in particular, than has been previously suggested. This work will also constitute a significant historiographical contribution by placing Florida in the context of the Spanish Caribbean rather than at the edges of American or Latin American history and by shedding light on the social history of the Spanish Caribbean during this understudied period.
