Bryan Nies received his B.A. in History from Cameron University in 2010. He completed his M.A. from the University of Oklahoma in 2014. His thesis, 'Taking the Mexican: Piracy, Slaving, and Smuggling in the U.S. Borderlands after 1820', examined the deep relationship between piracy and the illicit international slave trade in the years after British and American abolition. Now seeking a Ph.D., Bryan continues to work with Dr. Paul Gilje in the fields of maritime history and transatlantic slavery.