Settling Ohio: First Peoples and Beyond with Tim Anderson

November 21, 2023
12:00pm - 1:00pm

Settling Ohio First Peoples and Beyond, edited by Timothy G. Anderson and Brian Schoen, begins with an overview of the first people who inhabited the region, who built civilizations that moved massive amounts of earth and left an archaeological record that drew the interest of subsequent settlers and continues to intrigue scholars. It highlights how, in the eighteenth century, Native Americans who migrated from the East and North interacted with Europeans to develop impressive trading networks and how they navigated complicated wars and sought to preserve national identities in the face of violent attempts to remove them from their lands.

This program will be our second in a November series dedicated to National Native American Heritage Month.

Presenter: Timothy G. Anderson 

This program will be available to watch live on Facebook Live, on YouTube, and on the OCPL website's LWB Livestream page.  Log into your Facebook or YouTube account during the program to leave questions for our presenters in the comments box. They will answer them during the live broadcast. 

PRESENTER BIO:  

Timothy G. Anderson is an associate professor of geography at Ohio University.   

Brian Schoen is the chair of the Department of History and the James Richard Hamilton/Baker & Hostetler Distinguished Professor of Teaching in the Humanities at Ohio University. He is the author of The Fragile Fabric of Union: Cotton, Federal Politics, and the Global Origins of the Civil War and has coedited three other collections.   

FEATURED BOOK:  Settling Ohio: First Peoples and Beyond, Edited by Timothy G. Anderson and Brian Schoen, Foreword by M. Duane Nellis, Afterword by Glenna J. Wallace

Scholars working in archaeology, education, history, geography, and politics tell a nuanced story about the people and dynamics that reshaped this region and determined who would control it.

The Ohio Valley possesses some of the most resource-rich terrain in the world. Its settlement by humans was thus consequential not only for shaping the geographic and cultural landscape of the region but also for forming the United States and the future of world history.

Settling Ohio begins with an overview of the first people who inhabited the region, who built civilizations that moved massive amounts of earth and left an archaeological record that drew the interest of subsequent settlers and continues to intrigue scholars. It highlights how, in the eighteenth century, Native Americans who migrated from the East and North interacted with Europeans to develop impressive trading networks and how they navigated complicated wars and sought to preserve national identities in the face of violent attempts to remove them from their lands.

The book situates the traditional story of Ohio settlement, including the Northwest Ordinance, the dealings of the Ohio Company of Associates, and early road building, into a far richer story of contested spaces, competing visions of nationhood, and complicated relations with Indian peoples. By so doing, the contributors provide valuable new insights into how chaotic and contingent early national politics and frontier development truly were. Chapters highlighting the role of apple-growing culture, education, African American settlers, and the diverse migration flows into Ohio from the East and Europe further demonstrate the complex multiethnic composition of Ohio’s early settlements and the tensions that resulted.

A final theme of this volume is the desirability of working to recover the often-forgotten history of non-White peoples displaced by the processes of settler colonialism that has been, until recently, undervalued in the scholarship.

REVIEWS: 

“Provides new and fresh insights into the settlement of the Ohio country.”

-Scott C. Martin, author of Killing Time: Leisure and Culture in Southwestern Pennsylvania, 1800–1850

“An important collection of essays that should find abundant and long-term use in the classroom.”

-R. Douglas Hurt, author of Food and Agriculture during the Civil War

Lunch With Books Livestream starts at noon on Facebook and YouTube.

Subscribe to the Lunch With Books Youtube channel or like us on the Lunch With Books Facebook page or to receive notifications of our upcoming LWB broadcasts. To receive emails about our upcoming programs, visit our News page, click the "Subscribe" button to sign-up for our news blasts or download our free OCPL Connect app from your smartphone's app store. 

"Lunch With Books" is the library’s flagship program for adult patrons. These lunchtime programs feature authors, poets, musicians, historians, and more every Tuesday at noon. Bring lunch (to your computer), feed your brain!