A William and Mary Quarterly & USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute Workshop

Territorial Crossings: Histories and Historiographies of the Early Americas
May 21–22, 2009
The Huntington Library and the University of Southern California

The WMQ-EMSI Workshop Series is designed to identify and encourage new trends in our understanding of the history and culture of early North America. It will foster intellectual exchange among scholars working on thematically related topics that may be chronologically, geographically, or methodologically diverse. The participants are primarily mature scholars working on second or subsequent book projects; they will share their work in progress with the aim of deepening and enriching their perspectives, their approaches, and ultimately the final products of their research. The conveners of each workshop will craft an essay on emerging work for publication in the William and Mary Quarterly.

The geographic and conceptual boundaries of the field once known as “colonial America” have shifted dramatically in the last decade as scholars have explored new borderlands, pressed into non-English-controlled territories, and made connections with rich scholarship in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, and Native American contexts. This workshop considers the consequences of this change, particularly the opportunities to make comparisons or identify continuities among different imperial settings. Workshop papers take up such challenges as traversing traditional historiographical boundaries (from “Colonial America” to “Colonial Latin America,” for example). They ask what theoretical and conceptual tools best frame this enlarged sphere of imperial competition and colonial development. What kinds of questions are made possible only by thinking across territories, and what subjects of analysis best suit comparative or more broadly contextualized scholarship? How can scholars generalize the insights of comparative studies?

Presenters’ papers are precirculated among the workshop participants. In each hour-long portion of the session devoted to a particular paper, brief respondents’ comments will be followed by thirty minutes of discussion among the participants. Audience members will then be invited to join the conversation. Registration is limited; requests for registration and access to the workshop papers should be sent to Kelly Crawford (kscraw@wm.edu).

The WMQ-EMSI Workshops are sponsored by the University of Southern California-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute (with financial support from the Salvatori Forum at USC and the Mellon Foundation) and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and are hosted by the Huntington Library and the University of Southern California.

Art: Segesser II (right side detail), 1720–1729? Courtesy Palace of the Governors Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA), detail from negative no. 149804. One of a pair, this large painting on tanned bison hide depicts an Aug. 13, 1720, skirmish at the confluence of the Loup and Platte rivers, between Pedro de Villasur’s expedition of Spanish and Pueblo Indian soldiers and a force of Pawnee and Oto Indians aided by some Frenchmen. Though it is unclear from the historical record whether any French were actually present, Villasur’s mission was to investigate rumors of French encroachment on Spanish-claimed territory. Jesuit priest Philipp von Segesser von Brunegg probably acquired the paintings in Sonora, Mexico, between 1732 and 1758, but many scholars believe they were created by indigenous artists. Segesser sent the paintings to his family in Switzerland, where they remained for 200 years.