Indigenous Ohio Past and Present

‘You will then learn our title to that land’: Indigenous Ohio past and present is an event all about how Native Nations have called the lands of Ohio home since time immemorial, establishing relationships between each other and living together as neighbors. The beginning of the European colonization of North America did not alter that. French and British colonists were often incorporated into Indigenous communities through marriage, adoption, and economic relationships.

The expansion of the new United States following the American Revolution threatened to change that as American settlers and the Federal Government sought to claim the Ohio Country for themselves. Westward Euro-American immigration into Indian Country, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, brought Ohio Native Nations and the United States to a crossroads. Could they live as side-by-side as neighbors or was Ohio not big enough for the two of them?

Our presenter, Dr. John Bickers, is an assistant professor of History at Case Western Reserve University and a citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. This presentation has been customized specifically for our UA History Speaks series. Dr. Bickers specializes in early American and Native American history. His research focuses on Indigenous constructions of citizenship and race and theories of Native political sovereignty and governance.

His first book project, “The Miami Nation: A Middle Path for Indigenous Nationhood” is an exploration of the political history of the Miami Tribe through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Dr. Bickers received his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University.

This is a free-to-attend event. Society members will receive an email a few weeks before the event to reserve seats. (Society memberships start for as low at $25 / calendar year.) The general public is welcome on a first-come, first serve basis.