James Almeida

Assistant Professor of History

Office: Lindquist  Hall 256
Phone: 801-626-6706

jamesalmeida1@weber.edu

Research & Teaching Areas 

  • Latin American and the Atlantic World
  • Social and Economic History
  • History of Slavery and Human Difference

Degrees

  • PhD in Latin American History, Harvard University (2022)
  • MA in History, Florida International University (2015)
  • BBA in International Business, Boise State University (2009)

Courses

  • HIST 1500 World History to 1500
  • HIST 1510 World History 1500 to Present
  • HIST 4630 Ancient & Colonial Latin America
  • HIST 4650 Modern Latin America
  • HIST 4670 History of Mexico

Biography

James Almeida is a scholar of Latin America with a focus on understandings of human difference. His current book project—"Minting Slavery, Coining Race: Human Difference, Discipline, and Labor in Colonial Potosí"—explores the development of racial ideologies associated with forced labor practices in Potosí’s colonial mint. Located near the world’s richest silver mine in what is today Bolivia, this institution was the site of a series of overlapping, ambiguous, and coercive labor projects that employed diverse groups of indigenous Andeans, Africans, Europeans, and their descendants.

He is currently working on publishing comparative research about protoindustrial slavery in the Lima mint (in today’s Peru) and pursuing a new research project on the regulation of sexual behavior in Peru. Prof. Almeida has conducted research in archives and libraries in Bolivia, Peru, Spain, the United States, and the United Kingdom. His work has been supported by the American Historical Association, Casa de Velazquez, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, and the John Carter Brown Library. Prior to arriving at Weber State, Prof. Almeida taught at Oberlin College.

Publications

  • “Suspicious Possession: Policing Silver and Making Race in Colonial Potosí,” Colonial Latin American Review 30, no. 4 (2021): 545-564. DOI: 10.1080/10609164.2021.1996991
  • “The Market of Small Freedoms: Labor Negotiation in 17th-Century Potosí.” In Rossana Barragán R. and Paula C. Zagalsky, editors. Potosí in the Global Silver Age (16th—19th Centuries), 210-242. Leiden: Brill, 2023.

Full CV