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Department of American Studies College of Arts and Sciences
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Christina Snyder

Picture of Christina Snyder

Assistant Professor
Department of American Studies
Department of History
Research Associate, Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology
Research Associate, American Indian Studies Research Institute

Office: Ballantine Hall 828
Phone: (812) 855-2287
E-mail: snyderch at indiana.edu

Education

Ph.D., History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2007
A.B., Anthropology, University of Georgia (2001)

Research Interests

Native North America; Early America; The American South; Race and Slavery

Personal Statement

Focusing largely on Native peoples of the Southeast, my research explores race, class, Indigenous sovereignty, and the intersection of U.S. and Native American history. In my first book, Slavery in Indian Country: The Changing Face of Captivity in Early America, I traced the dynamic nature of captivity from roughly A.D. 1000, when Native chiefdoms competed for regional power, through the conclusion of the Second Seminole War in 1842. Captivity was a fluid practice, which Southern Indians repeatedly reinvented to deal with a succession of challenges, including chiefly competition during the pre-Columbia era, post contact demographic disaster, and incorporation into the transatlantic economic in the colonial era. Not until the late eighteenth century did captivity transition from a kin-based to a race-based practice, a shift that had profound consequences for all inhabitants of the American South. In addition to enhancing the visibility of Native people in the broader narratives of both early American and Southern history, this project addresses cross-cultural constructions of race and racism as well as the diveristy of slavery in North America.

Currently, I'm at work on a book-length Choctaw Academy, the first national Indian school in the United States. The Academy, which endured from 1825 to 1848, was operated by Richard Mentor Johnson (vice president under Van Buren) and Johnson's multi-racial family. Although initiated by the Choctaw Nation, the Academy became home to a diverse range of Native peoples from the Southeast and Midwest, including Creeks, Cherokees, Chickasaws, Seminoles, Potawatomis, Miamis, and Osages. Choctaw Academy's lifespan corresponds to the American imperial turn, when the United States transitioned from an east-coast nation to a continental empire. This book, tentatively titled Warriors of the Pen, explores how native students and their families reimagined Indigenous nationhood and the future of North America during this pivotal historical period.

Courses Recently Taught

Undergraduate:

  • AMST-A 275 Indigenous Worldviews
  • HIST-A 207 Introduction to Native American History
  • HIST-J 300 Native American and Indigenous Cultures
  • HIST-A 300 Native American Women

Graduate:

  • AMST-G 605 Introduction to Native American and Indigenous Studies

Selected Publications

Slavery in Indian Country: The Changing Face of Captivity in Early America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010).

  • Winner, John C. Ewers Prize, Western History Association
  • Winner, Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Book Prize
  • Winner, James H. Broussard Prize, Society for Historians of the Early American Republic
  • Honorable Mention, Frederick Jackson Turner Prize, Organization of American Historians
  • Finalist, Frederick Douglass Prize, Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition

"Race and Indian Removal: Prespectives from Choctaw Academy," in Oxford Handbook on the History of Race, ed. Matthew Guterl (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

"The Lady of Cofitachequi: Gender and Political Power among Native Southerners."  in South Carolina Women: Their Lives and Times, eds. Joan Johnson, Valinda Littlefield, and Marjorie Spruill. University of Georgia Press, 2009.

"Conquered Enemies, Adopted Kin, and Owned People: The Creek Indians and Their Captives," Journal of Southern History 73 (2007): 255-288.

Honors and Awards

  • Kate B. & Hall J. Peterson Fellowship, American Antiquarian Society, 2012-2013
  • Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, Indiana University, 2012
  • American Council of Learned Sciences (ACLS) Fellowship, 2011-2012
  • Trustees' Teaching Award, IU, 2011-2012
  • Barra/Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship, McNeil Center for Early American Studies, 2007-2009
  • Phillips Fellowship, American Philosophical Society, 2006