In December 1776, a Lenape leader named White Eyes traveled to Philadelphia and stood before the Second Continental Congress. He had not come to declare himself a revolutionary, and he had not come to pledge loyalty to King George III. He came to...
When we think of early American champions of religious liberty, one name often rises above the rest: Roger Williams. Williams is widely remembered as the founder of Rhode Island and a strong advocate for the separation of church and state. But what...
Early North America was a diverse place. It was a place that contained hundreds of distinct Indigenous nations and peoples who spoke at least 2,000 distinct languages prior to European contact. Then, in the early sixteenth century, Spain began to...
Long before European arrival in the Americas, Indigenous people and nations practiced enslavement. Their version of enslavement looked different from the version Christopher Columbus and his fellow Europeans practiced, but Indigenous slavery also...
The Brafferton Indian School has a long and complicated legacy. Chartered with the College of William & Mary in 1693, the Brafferton Indian School’s purpose was to educate young Indigenous boys in the ways of English religion, language, and...
In 1693, King William III and Queen Mary II of England granted a royal charter for two institutions of higher education in the Colony of Virginia. The first institution was the College of William & Mary. The second institution was the Indian...
2020 commemorated the 300th anniversary of French presence on Prince Edward Island. Like much of North America, the Canadian Maritime provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island, and Prince Edward Island were highly contested...
Did you know that small Native American nations had the power to dictate the terms of French colonization in the Gulf South region? Elizabeth Ellis, an Assistant Professor of History at Princeton University and a citizen of the Peoria Tribe of...
In the Treaty of Paris, 1783, Great Britain ceded to the United States all lands east of the Mississippi River and between the southern borders of Canada and Georgia. How would the United States take advantage of its new boundaries and incorporate...
Have you ever considered early American cities as places where Native Americans lived, worked, and visited? Native Americans often visited early American cities and port towns, especially the towns and cities that dotted the Atlantic seaboard of...