Becca AponteGraduate Student

Becca is a recent graduate of Stanford University, having received a Bachelor’s with Honors and Distinction in French and a minor in History. With a background in French literary studies, she started her work on West African history on the Senegal Liberations Project. In addition to translating and digitizing nineteenth-century liberation records, she has completed archival research in France and Senegal. Her undergraduate thesis, “‘Poor Souls’ and ‘Dangerous Vagabonds’: The Enslaved Pursuit of Liberation in Post-Abolition Senegal, 1848-1865,” received the Josephine Baker Undergraduate Honors Thesis Prize and the Robert M. Golden Medal for Excellence in the Humanities and Creative Arts. She continues to be a member and co-author on the Senegal Liberations Project.

As a first-year doctoral student, Becca is interested in slavery, abolition, and emancipatory trajectories in the nineteenth-century French Empire. In particular, she seeks to examine how individuals negotiated their livelihoods after emancipation through laws and customs. Her geographic areas of interest include Senegal, Réunion, French Guiana, and Guadeloupe.

Outside of her studies, Becca enjoys making lattes, thrifting for vintage clothing, listening to folk music, and discovering new culinary experiences.