Reflections on a Graduate's Career

May 5, 2026

As we bring the 2026 academic year to a close we celebrate with our most recent graduates and take time with Jeff Baron, PhD, and one of his co-advisors, Professor Laura Smoller to reflect on his time in the program.

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"Treasure Hunting in the Early Modern Hispanic World"

My time at the University of Rochester has been unforgettable, and it's wonderful looking back now to my first campus visit in April 2019. I remember the view from my hotel room at the Staybridge Suites, looking out over the bend in the Genesee River and the tower of Rush Rhees Library. I didn't know then all the great times I'd have on the River Campus, as the History Department, Robbins Library, and Humanities Center became home for the next seven years. URochester's faculty and staff, and my classmates, coworkers, and colleagues have since become family to me. I'm so grateful for everyone that I've met and been inspired and encouraged by here in Rochester.

Jeffrey W. Baron, PhD Class of 2026

I enrolled at URochester having recently heard this really bizarre fact that, back in the Middle Ages, a person could get a license from the king to go treasure hunting. I spent seven years researching that fact and my extraordinary mentors Professors Smoller, Devaney, Sierra, and Hahn helped me produce "Treasure Hunting in the Early Modern Hispanic World." It has been a captivating research project, one full of surprises and twists, and the subject still hasn't lost its enchantment for me. I plan to develop it into my first book project.

I am extremely fortunate to have received a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor of History at Austin College in Sherman, TX. I will be teaching Latin American History and World History to 1500, as well as my History of Treasure course designed at URochester. I'm thrilled to start my next chapter as an Austin College Kangaroo, but I'll always be a Yellowjacket!

Jeffrey W. Baron, PhD

Class of 2026

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What a joy it has been to work with Jeff!

A self-starter possessed of an extraordinarily creative historical mind, Jeff Baron has written a wide-ranging study of a topic that is virtually unexplored, yet one that has wide-reaching and important implications.  The project represents a tour de force of archival research on Baron’s part and shows him deeply engaged with a wide range of scholarly conversations.

Professor Laura Smoller Arthur R. Miller Professor of History

Baron’s dissertation focuses on treasure hunting in the late medieval and early modern Iberian world. He nicely illuminates a situation in which—unlike other areas of Europe, as he argues—Spanish treasure hunting was controlled by the crown through a tightly-regulated system of permits and taxation.  Inspired by a formative encounter with an article reproducing several medieval treasure-hunting permits, Baron doggedly tracked down at least sixty similar documents, as well as legal and inquisitorial cases for violations of the law of treasure hunting, ranging over hundreds of years and on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. 

The heart of his dissertation is based on the copious bureaucratic paper trail left as the Spanish monarchy and local officials pursued those who dared to explore for treasure without the proper legal permit—and thus without remitting a portion of their find to the royal fisc.  These records include a one-thousand-page legal case he found in the Spanish archives and whose intricacies he explores in one of his chapters.  These virtually unexplored manuscript sources have enabled Baron to investigate not just theoretical legal definitions of treasure and regulations regarding its disposal, but also the realities and practicalities of the hunt for buried treasure.

Baron has documented the ways in which treasure hunting involved persons of all ranks, ethnicities, and religions, and has come to important insights about the relationship between magic and the search for buried treasure in the Spanish world.  Through it all, Baron’s dissertation makes important contributions to the understanding of not simply the history of Spain’s Latin American empire, but also the emergence of the modern bureaucratic state.

Finally, Baron’s records lend themselves to the sort of microhistorical analysis that brings to light the stories of persons who rarely make their ways into the history books.  He is eloquent and moving in stressing the desperate poverty that led some of the rag-tag bands of treasure hunters he tracks through the archives, as well as the ruthless determination with which royal and local officials pursued them.

Baron’s thesis is a truly masterful piece of research and writing, one that has been a great delight to watch unfold and that was a genuine pleasure to read.  It is certain to have a major impact in the years to come. 

Laura Smoller, PhD

Arthur R. Miller Professor of History

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