Assistant Professor

History

Miguel Durango joined Colorado College’s History Department in 2025 after completing his PhD in History at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his BA in Anthropology and his MA in History from Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá. He teaches courses on Latin America, the Caribbean, and the slavery and resistance of Indigenous and African peoples and their descendants.

His research focuses on Indigenous and Afro-Indigenous power, mobility, and diplomacy in the Caribbean and northern South America during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Drawing on archival research in Colombia, Spain, France, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US, and employing interdisciplinary methods, he highlights the voices of subaltern actors, including enslaved people, female leaders, and shamans within Guajiro society.

Miguel has published peer-reviewed articles in Fronteras de la Historia and Mundos do Trabalho, as well as chapters in edited volumes on the history of Colombia and the Caribbean. He is currently completing his first book manuscript, The Guajiro Caribbean: Indigenous Power and Transimperial Struggles, 1696–1808, which explores how Guajiro communities shaped the revolutionary Atlantic through trade, diplomacy, and resistance. The book highlights their interactions with Black sailors, Protestant and Jewish merchants, and revolutionaries from different backgrounds.