Degrees:
Ph.D., University of Oklahoma
M.A., New York University

Biography:

My work focuses on the interactions between Native Americans and European colonists during the 17th and 18th centuries. I am particularly interested in the relationships that developed in the Lower Mississippi Valley between the French and the Natchez, Chickasawnand Choctaw peoples. On a larger scale, my research investigates how the communities that grew up in that region fit into the emerging Atlantic World. My work has been supported by grants from the American Philosophical Society, the Huntington Library and the American Historical Association.

The courses that I teach reflect my research interests. These include a two-semester survey of Native American history, an upper-division course on Colonial America, and one on Piracy in the Atlantic World. I also teach the introductory survey on United States History until 1877.

Publications:

Articles and Book Chapters

"Clerics, Cartographers, and Kings: Mapping Power in the French Atlantic World, 1608-1752," in Religion and Space in the Atlantic World, eds. John Corrigan, David Bodenhamer, and Trevor Harris (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, forthcoming).

“Picking up the Pieces: Natchez Coalescence in the Shatter Zone,” in Mapping the Mississippian Shatter Zone: The Colonial Indian Slave Trade and Regional Instability in the American South, eds. Robbie Etheridge and Sherri M. Shuck Hall (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009), 388-417.

Encyclopedia Entries

"French Colonial Louisiana, 1699-1763," "Native American Military Practices to 1783," "Native American Military Practices since 1783," "The Jesuits" and "The Natchez Indians" in Peter Mancall, ed., The Encyclopedia of Native American History (New York: Facts on File, 2009).

"American Indians: Old Southwest," "The Battle of Horseshoe Bend" and "Creek War" in Paul Finkelman, ed., Encyclopedia of the New American Nation: The Emergence of the United States, 1754-1829 (Detroit: Scribner's, 2006).

Nineteen individual entries in Paul Gilje, ed., The Encyclopedia of American History, vol. 3 (New York: Facts on File, 2003).