"Small Nations, Big Histories"

Convened by Elizabeth N. Ellis, Associate Professor of History at Princeton University, and Eliga H. Gould, Professor of History at University of New Hampshire.

In early America, did the size of a nation or polity matter? Smaller political units were not powerless, and recent work has highlighted how Indigenous, African, and colonial actors from small polities transformed the continent between 1450-1850. But how did they gain and retain power in an age of imperial competition?

The history of “small nations” is a big subject. This WMQ-EMSI Workshop aims to bring together scholars from history and related disciplines whose work considers the place of small nations in early American history (1450-1850). The workshop will take a broad view of the subject matter.  We welcome proposals from scholars working on topics such as the history of the United States and Haiti, as well as the polities constructed by maroons, refugees, borderlands inhabitants, Indigenous and settler migrants, freedom seekers, and exiles. The “small nations” framework allows us to resituate the histories of nation states that dominate the historiography as well as communities that have historically been marginalized within the literature or dismissed because of their small populations or scant archival records. It also invites us to reconsider the history of polities such as the Muscogee Nation and the early American republic, often described as “nations” but that were themselves unions or associations of smaller political units that each had their own histories and agendas. We are particularly interested in exploring connections and exchanges between the different iterations of the histories of small nations.

The WMQ-EMSI Workshop Series is designed to identify and encourage new trends in our understanding of the history and culture of early North America. It fosters intellectual exchange among scholars working on thematically related topics that may be chronologically, geographically, or methodologically diverse. The participants are primarily mature scholars working on second or subsequent book projects; they share their works in progress with the aim of deepening and enriching their perspectives, their approaches, and ultimately the final products of their research.

All EMSI events are free and open to the public.