Description
Join us for a presentation as Linford Fisher, professor of history at Brown University, traces the long and surprising history of Native American enslavement and land theft―from the earliest English colonies through the end of the U.S. Civil War and beyond. Drawing on his new book, Stealing America: The Hidden Story of Indigenous Slavery in U.S. History (2026), Fisher shows how colonizers captured Natives and often deliberately mislabeled them as Black slaves to avoid detection. He weaves together accounts of major episodes in American history including early colonization, the American Revolution, and the Civil War with lesser-known stories of Native enslavement and land dispossession.
About the Speaker
Linford D. Fisher is Professor of History at Brown University and a specialist in early American and Native American history. He is the author of The Indian Great Awakening: Religion and the Shaping of Native Cultures in Early America (2012), the co-author of two edited collections on Roger Williams, and has published a dozen academic essays. He is also the Principal Investigator of a tribal collaborative database project titled Stolen Relations: Recovering Stories of Indigenous Enslavement in the Americas (www.stolenrelations.org). His most recent book is Stealing America: The Hidden Story of Indigenous Slavery in U.S. History (Liveright/WW Norton, 2026).
About Colloquium
Colloquium is a weekly series of talks featuring staff, fellows, and scholars who are working with the library’s vast collections. These events bring together experts from various fields to share their research on a wide range of topics, followed by an opportunity for the audience to ask questions and engage in conversation.
Colloquium is open to the public and offers a chance to explore fascinating ideas and new discoveries. No advance registration is required.