The extraordinary life of Captain Francisco Menéndez stretched from the coasts of West Africa to South Carolina and the Caribbean. In this year's Carl Becker Lecture Series, Jane Landers will take the audience through his journeys in three lectures titled "Atlantic Transformations: The Many Lives of Captain Francisco Menendez and his 'Subjects.’"

The talks, which are free and open to the public, will be on April 25, 26, and 27 at 4:45 p.m. each day in the Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall on the Cornell campus.

The lectures will follow Menendez from his youth, when English slavers forcefully brought him from the Gambia to South Carolina, to his final years in Cuba as a homesteader. In the course of his mobile life, Menendez moved from one imperial jurisdiction to another, constantly changing his status and identity. He acquired the linguistic skills and cultural dexterity that made him a perfect example of the type of individuals historian Ira Berlin called “Atlantic Creoles,” according to Landers, the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of History at Vanderbilt University.

Read the full story on the College of Arts and Sciences website.