Lecture: “The Influence of the Colonists' Relations with American Indians on American History and Identity”

Welcome to the lecture on colonial American history by Margaret Ellen Newell, Professor of the Department of History at the Ohio State University.

Native Americans shaped the colonial project in many ways. Indians made European colonization possible by supplying food, trade, technology, labor, and other resources --sometimes voluntarily, and sometimes involuntarily-- that powered the North American economy. Indians incorporated Europeans into trade and military alliance networks that became essential to imperial power in North America. Indian affairs and wars dominated the affairs of colonial states and, later, of the U.S. government, for centuries. Indigenous actions influenced milestone events like the American Revolution, the Mexican-American War and the U.S. Civil War. Intercultural exchange was part of this story, and we will discuss mutual influences and cultural clashes.

Speaker’s bio:

Margaret Ellen Newell received her A.B. in History and Spanish from Brown University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Early American History from the University of Virginia. Her research and teaching interests include colonial and Revolutionary America, Native American History, economic history, material culture, and comparative colonial American/Latin American History. Her most recent book, Brethren by Nature: New England Indians, Colonists, and the Origins of American Slavery won the 2016 James A. Rawley prize for the best book on the history of race relations in the U.S., awarded by the Organization of American Historians and also received the Peter J. Gomes Memorial Prize for 2016 from the Massachusetts Historical Society.  Professor Newell’s teaching interests include the use of technology in the classroom. She has given presentations on teaching and multimedia and on electronic publishing at the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, and has published an article on her experiences "Subterranean Digital Blues; or, How a former Technophobe Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Multimedia," Journal of American History, 84 (March 1997).

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