Christine Mertens (1994) is a PhD candidate at the Institute for History at Leiden University and at the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies (RIAS) in Middelburg.

More information about Christine Mertens

Christine Mertens (1994) specializes in the entanglements of freedom, race, mobility, and the law in the early nineteenth century US South. Her PhD project examines the interactions of free people of African descent with and around legislation to surveil and control their mobility in post-Revolutionary Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia (1790-1830). Her research project forms part of the larger project “Racial Democracy: Challenges to Civic Democratic Ideals in American History,” sponsored by the Stichting Praesidium Libertatis I and supervised by Prof. dr. Damian Pargas, in conjunction with Leiden University. The project duration is four years, from 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2024. Christine received her BA History with a specialization in American History in 2016 and her MA North American Studies in 2019, both from Leiden University

Fields of interest

• US history
• Social history
• Legal history
• North American slavery and emancipation
• Migration in the Atlantic world
• Colonial America
• History of the American Revolution

Grants and Fellowships

• 2023-24 Barra Foundation International Research Fellowship in American History and Culture, Library Company of Philadelphia and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (2023)
• Mellon Research Fellowship, Virginia Museum of History & Culture (2023)
• Lapidus Fellowship for the study of Rare Early American Legal Texts, William & Mary University Law School & The Omohundro Institute for Early American History & Culture (2023)
• Short-Term Scientific Mission Mobility Grant, COST ACTION “Worlds of Related Coercions in Work” (WorcK) (2022)