Please join the NYU History Dept. for Professor Michael McDonnell’s talk.

“Masters of Empire: Great Lakes Indians and the Making of America”

Date: Thursday, November 12, 2015

Time:  12:30 pm

Place: KJCC 701

Prof. McDonnell is the author of The Politics of War: Race, Class, and Conflict in Revolutionary Virginia (University of North Carolina Press, 2007) and Masters of Empire: Great Lakes Indians and the Making of America (Hill and Wang, 2015), and co-editor of Remembering the Revolution: Memory, History, and Nation Making from Independence to the Civil War (University of Massachusetts Press, 2013).

He will present his new work on the Anishinaabeg people and their part in shaping early America.  Settled on the straits between Lakes Michigan and Huron, a crucible of colonial culture and confrontation, the Anishinaabeg played a defining role in trade, diplomacy, and frontier settlement throughout the vast country west of Montreal known as the pays d’en haut. Tracing early conflicts, the French and Indian War, and the American Revolution, the talk will offer a new perspective on Indian nations, European empires, and the landscape of American history.

Sponsored by the NYU History Department

In Masters of Empire, the historian Michael A. McDonnell reveals the pivotal role played by the native peoples of the Great Lakes in the history of North America. Though less well known than the Iroquois or Sioux, the Anishinaabeg who lived along the shores of Lakes Michigan and Huron were equally influential. McDonnell charts the story of the Odawa who settled at the straits between those two lakes, a key center for trade and diplomacy throughout the vast country west of Montreal known as the pays d’en haut.

Highlighting the long-standing rivalries and relationships among the great Indian nations of North America, McDonnell shows how Europeans often played only a minor role in this history, and reminds us that it was native peoples who possessed intricate and far-reaching networks of commerce and kinship, of which the French and British knew little. As empire encroached upon their domain, the Anishinaabeg were often the ones doing the exploiting. By dictating terms at trading posts and frontier forts, they played a crucial part in the making of early America.

Through vivid depictions of early conflicts, the French and Indian War, and the American Revolution, all from a native perspective, Masters of Empire overturns our assumptions about colonial America. By calling attention to the Great Lakes as a crucible of culture and conflict, McDonnell reimagines the landscape of American history.