The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples & the Unmaking of US History

This is a hybrid event. FREE for MHS Members. $10 per person fee (in person). No charge for virtual attendees or Card to Culture participants (EBT, WIC, and ConnectorCare). The in-person reception starts at 5:30 and the program will begin at 6:00.

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The long practice of ignoring Indigenous history is changing, with a new generation of scholars insisting that any full American history address the struggle, survival, and resurgence of American Indian nations. Ned Blackhawk interweaves five centuries of Native and non‑Native histories, from Spanish colonial exploration to the rise of Native American self-determination in the late 20th-century. He argues that European colonization in the 1600s was never a predetermined success; Native nations helped shape England’s crisis of empire; the first shots of the American Revolution were prompted by Indian affairs in the interior; California’s Indians targeted by federally funded militias were among the first casualties of the Civil War; the Union victory forever recalibrated Native communities across the West; and 20th-century reservation activists refashioned American law and policy. Blackhawk’s retelling of US history acknowledges the enduring power, agency, and survival of Indigenous peoples, yielding a truer account of the United States and revealing anew the varied meanings of America.