Dissertation Research

Maopewa iati bi “To abandon so beautiful a Dwelling”: Indians of the Kanawha-New River Valley, 1500-1760

This is an extension of the work I did in my MA thesis. While ethnohistorical, my analysis pulls from many different fields including geospatial theory, linguistics, paleoclimatology, and epidemiology. I examine the change of Indian inhabitants within the Kanawha-New River Valley from Siouan-speaking people during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to Algonquian and Iroquoian speaking people during the eighteenth century.

My dissertation connects the archaeological past of the region to the colonial period, Hudson’s “forgotten centuries.” By filling in this time period, I complicate and criticize the “common hunting ground” myth prevalent in Seven Years War historiography. The inclusion of environmental factors into my analysis, and a critical evaluation of epidemiological context, I pose a more robust social logic for removal during the late-seventeenth century. Lastly, my work attempts to break free of the European perceptions of landscape by using Tutelo language and archaeological support. This begins the process of reconstructing and conveying indigenous perceptions of their world to readers.

My work is only the beginning of a larger conversation about Native Americans in the Central Appalachian Mountains. West Virginia especially continues to be a blindspot when it comes to indigenous history in North America, this dissertation is meant to foster discussion and debate.