J.M.H. Clark is Assistant Professor of History at University of Kentucky. His current book project, titled "Veracruz and the Caribbean in the Seventeenth Century," examines Afro-descended communities in the Mexican port city of Veracruz and their relationship to diasporic populations in the larger Caribbean. Focusing on trade, migration, and environmental networks, he demonstrates how transimperial relationships influenced local conceptions of race, ethnicity, and status.