PhD Candidate
North America
I specialize in Native American and Indigenous history. My dissertation focuses on the political and economic development of the Cherokee Nation and Indian Territory during the closing decades of the 19th century. Starting with the Cherokee government's approach to Reconstruction, I explore how the self-described "little republic" instituted important reforms during the 1880s which helped mitigate the costs of settler encroachment and promote the extension of what Cherokee nationalists referred to as "domestic independence." In re-examining the supposed end of sovereignty, I seek to bring a fresh interpretation of the links between U.S. imperialism abroad and Oklahoma's path to statehood, granted in 1907. I am a proud citizen of the Cherokee Nation.
Research Interests
- Native American and Indigenous Studies
- Settler Colonialism in the United States
- U.S. Imperialism
- Indigenous Democracy and Nationalism
- Capitalism in the U.S. West
Prizes and Awards
Western History Collection Masterson Fellowship, 2022
American Philosophical Society Phillips Fund for Native American Research, 2022
Articles
"We Have Always Been Global: Tribal Nations in the Democratic Slide" Opinion piece in AHA Perspectives Daily (2022)
"Sovereignty is Not So Fragile: McGirt and the Failure of Denationalization" Opinion piece in AHA Perspectives Daily (2022)
"The Cherokee Republic as Indigenous Resistance" Contributing blog for the OER Project (2023)
"Not Just Native Sovereignty: ICWA's Survival is a Bellwether for Democracy" Opinion piece in AHA Perspectives Daily (2023)
Conferences
"Honest Settlers: Permitted Foreign Laborers in the Cherokee Nation Proper, 1879-1893," WHA, 2022.
“‘All Are Indians’: The Expanding Legal Jurisdiction of the Cherokee Nation, 1866-1897," WHA, 2023.
"White Immigration to the Postwar Cherokee Nation," BOCA LONGA, 2023.
Roundtable: "Slavery, Dispossession, and the State: New Directions in Financial History," SHEAR, 2023.
Teaching
Instructor of Record
NATAMST R1A: Native History According to Native Authors (2021)
Graduate Student Instructor
History 133A: History of American Capitalism (2023)
History 7A: United States History until the Civil War (2019, 2020)
History 7B: United States History since the Civil War (2020)
