Justin P. Jones is a PhD candidate at Vanderbilt University studying Atlantic World History. His dissertation, entitled “America’s Most Wanted: Revolutionary Privateers and the Illegal Slave Trade in the Early Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World,” examines the convergence of revolutionary privateering, illegal slave trading, and the failure of abolitionist efforts in the early 19th-century Atlantic World. It focuses on the role of privateers aligned with short-lived Latin American republics in perpetuating the slave trade despite its legal prohibition. His research highlights how environmental and legal pluralism shaped the actions of privateers, traders, and African captives. It challenges deterministic views of environmental factors by emphasizing human agency within specific ecological and legal contexts. Utilizing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and historical cartography, the study reconstructs maritime routes and territorial boundaries, offering insights into the interdependence between Cuban and American slave economies.

Jones makes two key arguments: First, revolutionary privateering sustained an illegal slave trading network linking the American South and Cuba during the early 19th century. Second, concepts of freedom and slavery were fluid, influenced by changing ecological and jurisdictional conditions.