Sheri Ann Huerta

Huerta teaches courses that explore the history of enslavement; the constructs of race, gender and identity in American culture; and critical thinking about the role of the past in today's world. Her research uncovers the lived experiences of freed and enslaved people in Virginia. She is uncovering the life and legacy of Agness, a woman who resisted her enslavement to the Mason family and started a revolution in thought and actions. She also explores the degrees of freedoms and negotiated quasi-freedoms created and experienced by free and enslaved Virginians. Her research on the impact and opposition to Virginia's 1806 Removal / Expulsion Act continues to identify stories of Black political activism and the creation of a Black legal culture in early national Virginia. Her digital humanities work includes constructing a dataset identifying over 3,600 enslaved people found in Fauquier County, Virginia probate records created between 1799 and 1865 for the Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade project at Enslaved.org. Her work has received generous support from three National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grants. Huerta is a frequent public speaker on the history of enslavement and enslaved people. She serves as advisor and public speaker with two American Revolution 250th Commemoration groups (VA250) in northern Virginia. At George Mason she currently serves as a Faculty Writing Fellow for George Mason's Faculty Writing Community, hosting the Women's Accountability Writing Group on Friday mornings and organizing campus writing retreats. Since 2020 she has served as Treasurer on the Executive Council of the Southern Association for Women Historians.

Current Research

Dr. Huerta studies the lived experiences of freed and enslaved persons in northern Virginia. Her current projects include researching the life and legacy of Agnes, a woman who, despite her enslavement to the Mason family, resisted against the control of her labor and body. Dr. Huerta is also exploring the degrees of freedoms and negotiated quasi-freedoms created and experienced by free and enslaved persons in Virginia despite the presence of legal obstacles to residency and limited financial opportunities. This research is funded in part by an Omohundro Institute - National Endowment for the Humanities ARP Research Fellowship awarded in 2022.

Selected Publications

Review of Jan Ellen Lewis, Family, Slavery, and Love in the Early American Republic: The Essays of Jan Ellen Lewis. H-Early-America, H-Net Reviews. January, 2023.

Review of Kimberly M. Welch, Black Litigants in the Antebellum American South. The Historian December 2018, p. 809-810.

Review of H. G. Jones, with David Southern, Miss Mary's Money: Fortune and Misfortune in a Carolina Plantation Family, 1760-1924. North Carolina Historical Review, July 2015, p. 338-339.

Review of Heather Andrea Williams, Help Me to Find My People: The African American Search for Family Lost in Slavery. H-SAWH, H-Net Reviews. January, 2015. 

Review of Katy Simpson Smith, We Have Raised All of You: Motherhood in the South, 1750-1835. North Carolina Historical Review, July 2014, p. 360-361.

Grants and Fellowships

NEH Grant funding for producing the dataset "Valuing Enslaved Lives in Fauquier County, Virginia, 1799-1865" with Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade, 2023-2024

NEH Funded Summer Institute Selected Participant - Data-Informed Methods for Slavery Studies, Summer, 2023

Omohundro Institute - National Endowment for the Humanities ARP Research Fellowship, 2022

Inclusive Excellence Curriculum Revision Team Grant, George Mason University, 2022

Mason 4VA OER Grant Recipient for course redesign using Open Education Resources, 2018.

Provost Award, George Mason University, 2014-2015.

Provost Travel Award, George Mason University, 2014.

Andrew W. Mellon Fellow, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, VA, 2014.

Josephine Pacheco Award for Best Graduate Research Paper, George Mason University, 2010.

Randy Beth Clarke Fellowship, for studies in antebellum southern and women's history, George Mason University, 2010.

Courses Taught

HIST 615: Slavery in American History and Memory (CEHD)

HIST 499: Senior History Research Seminar - Slavery in the 19th Century US (CHSS)

HIST 300: Intro to Research Methods: Slavery and Resistance in Virginia (CHSS)

HIST 300: Intro to Research Methods: Slavery and Memory

HNRS 240: Reading the Past - Gender in American Culture (Honors College)

HNRS 240: Reading the Past - Slavery and Freedom in Virginia (Honors College)

HNRS 131: Race, Gender, and Culture in Disney's World (Honors College)

HNRS 130: Identity in Disney's World (Honors College)

HIST 125: Introduction to World History (CHSS)

INYO 501: Graduate Transition for International Students I

Education

PhD, History, George Mason University, Spring, 2017.

Master of Arts, U. S. History, George Mason University, 2011.

Master of Science, Education with Teaching License, Old Dominion University, 1996.

Bachelor of Arts, German, University of Northern Iowa, 1989.

Awards

Adjunct Teaching Excellence Award, Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning, GMU, (2022)

Adjunct Teacher of Distinction Award, Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning, GMU, (2019)

Recent Presentations

"Amplifying Indigenous Women’s Voices: Native American Slavery and Freedom in Loudoun County" co-presented with Rene' Locklear White, Oatlands, Loudoun County, Virginia, November 16, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/@Oatlands-Virginia.

"Valuing Enslaved Lives in Fauquier County, Virginia: Engaging Students and the Public with Dataset Applications," Digital Archives in the Commonwealth Summit, Richmond, Virginia, November 15, 2024.

"Finding Agness: Researching Slavery, Survival, and the Mason Family," Friends of Historic Huntley, Alexandria, Virginia, October 19, 2024.

"'To petition for redress of Grievances': Emancipation, Birthrights, and Black Political Activism in Virginia’s General Assembly and County Courts, 1806-1820," Society for Historians of the Early American Republic Conference, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 2023.

"'Whether the Letter of the Law shall be rigidly enforced': Virginia’s 1806 Expulsion Law and Resistance to the Criminalization of Free(d) Black Residency," Virginia Forum Conference, Shepherd University, Shepherdstown, West Virginia, March 17, 2023.

"Enslaved Resistance and Resilience in Fairfax County," Invited Speaker, Sully Historic Site Black History Month Lecture Series, Sully Historic Site, Fairfax County, Virginia, February 12, 2023.

"Co-Creating Belongingness: Affirming Student Voice and Ways of Knowing," with Tianna Cobb, PhD, Rose Cherubin, PhD, Sharon Doetsch-Kidder, PhD, and Jennifer R. Warren, PhD, Innovations in Teaching and Learning Conference, Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning, George Mason University, September 30, 2022.

“‘Without Lawful Permission to Remain’: Virginia’s 1806 Removal Act and Its Effects on Free(d) Black Residency,” British Group of Early American Historians Conference, Cardiff, Wales, UK, September 2, 2022.

“‘If we were compelled to leave the State’: Resistance to Black Residency Restrictions in Early Republic Virginia,” Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, New Orleans, July 24, 2022.

"Witnessing Resistance: Enslaved Women’s Narratives in Virginia Slave Court Records," Southern Association for Women Historians Triennial, University of Kentucky, June 10, 2022.

"'Pernicious Sentiments': Identity through Speech in Virginia's Northern Counties, 1830-1860," Virginia Forum, Virginia War Memorial, Richmond, Virginia, April 9, 2022.