Description
Native Americans did not disappear from colonial history in the eighteenth century. On the contrary, throughout the 1700s, Native Americans exerted a decisive influence on the American colonies encroaching all around them. But how, why, and at what cost? How did Native people navigate the rapid changes to the balance of power between themselves and the surging numbers of European settlers now living on the American continent? What did life look like in the contact zones where Europeans and Natives interacted? Who were the intermediaries, the go-betweens, who greased the wheels of diplomacy and cooperation on the borderlands between English America and Indian Country? Why did they do that work, and why did so many of those go-betweens end up dead?
About Your Expert
Dr. Richard Bell is Professor of History at the University of Maryland. He holds a PhD from Harvard University and has won more than a dozen teaching awards, including the University System of Maryland Board of Regents Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching. He has held major research fellowships at Yale, Cambridge, the Library of Congress and is the recipient of the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship and the National Endowment of the Humanities Public Scholar Award. Professor Bell is author of the new book "Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and their Astonishing Odyssey Home," which was shortlisted for the George Washington Prize and the Harriet Tubman Prize.
Audience
This conversation is suitable for all ages.
Duration
90 minutes, including a 30 minute Q&A.