Jaclyn Sumner

Jackie is an assistant professor of History at Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina. Her research explores the interactions between local, state, and national political actors in modern Mexico, as well as broader issues of race, development, and authoritarianism. Jackie is currently completing a monograph titled, Indigenous Autocracy: Race, Governance, and Power in Porfirian Tlaxcala, 1880-1915. The book explores the strategies that Governor Próspero Cahuantzi—a self-identified indigenous person and native of Tlaxcala—pursued in order to remain in power longer than any other governor during the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz (1876-1911). Her recent publication in Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos explains how Governor Cahuantzi exploited his indigenous heritage to ingratiate himself to national Mexican elites. It is titled “The Indigenous Governor of Tlaxcala and Acceptable Indigenousness during the Porfirian Regime,” MS/EM (Winter, 2019).

Jackie obtained her Ph.D. in Latin American history from the University of Chicago in 2014 and her B.A. in history and Spanish from Northwestern University in 2005.