Lunch and Learn: Indigenous Unfreedom and Race Making in Early New England

Virtual Presentation!

In this virtual presentation, New England Regional Fellowship Consortium grantee, Dr. Joanne Jahnke-Wegner, will examine how English enslavement of Indigenous peoples during the Pequot and King Philip’s Wars contributed to the racialization of Indigenous peoples in early New England. During the process of enslaving and dispossessing Indigenous peoples, English colonists combined Atlantic world stereotypes of Indigenous peoples and their own colonial practices in Ireland with cultural, theological, military, and economic discourses to racialize Indigenous peoples in order to justify colonial actions. English colonists created racialized habits of mind about Indigenous peoples that were used to justify continued Indigenous dispossession and marginalization in colonial New England.

This virtual event is free and open to the public. Click here to register.

Questions? Contact Public Programs and Special Events Coordinator, Jen Busa via email at jbusa@connecticutmuseum.org.

About the Speaker:  Dr. Joanne Jahnke-Wegner is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, where she teaches classes on early America, women and gender, and race and medicine. She received her PhD from the University of Minnesota and is currently at work on three articles and a book manuscript on captivity, enslavement, and race making in early New England.

Image: Universal Images Group/Getty Images, Washington Post, December 20, 2022