OI 28th Annual Conference
June 12, 2025 - June 14, 2025
Join us for “Currents and Exchanges in Vast Early America” — the OI 28th Annual Conference at the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina. Co-sponsored with the Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World program at the College of Charleston, the conference will feature papers on all topics in vast early American history with a special focus on plantation economies, Native and Indigenous communities, and the environment, in particular, locations in the greater Caribbean or wider Atlantic world affected by capitalist agriculture, forced migration, climate change, and extreme weather events.
The program committee is co-chaired by Joyce Chaplin (Havard University) and Matthew Mulcahy (Loyola University Maryland).
REGISTER HERE
Hotel Information
We have reserved a block of rooms with the Francis Marion hotel at 387 King Street. The hotel is a few minutes walk from the Rita Science Center on the campus of the College of Charleston where the majority of the sessions will be held. Rooms are $269 per night plus tax. Parking is available for an additional fee. Breakfast is not included. Reserve your room before May 12, 2025, via THIS LINK. Use code OIEAH25. Alternatively, you can call one of these numbers and speak with the front desk directly (843) 722-0600 or (877) 756-2121. Please tell them you are with the Omohundro Institute Group. All reservations must be guaranteed with a major credit card.
Note: As of Tuesday, May 27, there are a few rooms still available. Please call the front desk if you are interested.
Dorm rooms
We also will have a block of dorm rooms available. Each will have a private bathroom. These will cost LESS THAN $100 per night. If you are interested in this option, please email us directly at oieahc@wm.edu. Please tell us the nights you intend to stay. As of May 27, we also have a very small number of these rooms still available as well.
Special museum passes for conference attendees
We are delighted to announce that the International African American Museum in Charleston is providing deeply discounted tickets ($9.50 per adult instead of $22.50) for the first 100 conference attendees who purchase advance tickets via the museum’s website. If you have not been to the IAAM then you do not want to miss it. We will post the savings code as soon as the offer is live. (As of May 27, we are still working on this.)
NEW! Dining recommendations from food historian David Shields
We are delighted to be able to offer this guide to some of Charleston’s most beloved restaurants, courtesy of David Shields. June is still tourist season in Charleston and restaurant reservations fill up fast. We recommend making yours now.
Opening Keynote by Deirdre Cooper Owens
A keynote by scholar Deirdre Cooper Owens will be held in the historic Mother Emanuel AME Church (110 Calhoun Street) on Thursday, June 12, 2025 at 4:00 pm ET. A reception (featuring Lowcountry cuisine by Carolimas and drinks by Carolina Cocktails) will follow immediately at the Charleston Museum.
“Let the Culture Be Your Resistance: Tracing the Gullah/Geechee Imprint on the Nation”
In her keynote address, Deirdre Cooper Owens, a Gullah/Geechee historian of the 19th century Black past, will discuss how the survival practices of Gullah/Geechee people serve as a model for how cultural resistance strengthened this nation. From the movement of African peoples off the continent’s coast to the enslavement of their descendants for centuries, culture as manifested through spiritual practices, liberatory farming, education and political maneuvering, Low Country Black people have been at the forefront of liberation movements meant to free all people.
Deirdre Cooper Owens is an Associate Professor of History and Africana Studies at the University of Connecticut. Before her most recent appointment, she simultaneously directed the Program in African American History at the Library Company of Philadelphia and a medical humanities program at the University of Nebraska. During that time, she was the only Black woman in the country who served as director of an academic medical humanities program. Dr. Cooper Owens is a popular public speaker, has appeared in several documentaries, podcasts and television newscasts as a historical expert, and is a nationally recognized reproductive justice advocate. She is an Organization of American Historians’ (OAH) Distinguished Lecturer, a past American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Fellow, and a newly elected member of the American Antiquarian Society. Time Magazine named her as one of the country’s “best historians.” Dr. Cooper Owens has won several prestigious honors and awards for her scholarly and advocacy work in history and reproductive and birthing justice. Her first book, Medical Bondage: Race, Gender and the Origins of American Gynecology won a Darlene Clark Hine Book Award from the Organization of American Historians as the best book written in African American women’s and gender history. It has been translated into Korean. She is currently working on a popular biography about Harriet Tubman that will examine her life through the lens of disability and is also writing a historical monograph about race, medical discovery, and the C-section.
Lastly, Dr. Cooper Owens is a proud SC native who was born in Georgetown and raised in Williamsburg County (Kingstree). She traces her ancestry on both sides to 18th century colonial South Carolina.
Program
You can download a PDF of the full program here with addresses included. Session information is listed below.
On remote presentations
We regret that remote attendance and presentation are not possible at this conference due to unsustainable costs of equipment rental and staff time. We recognize the increasing importance of virtual programming and we encourage scholars to join one of the many online events the OI organizes each year and also to propose additional virtual programming. Write to us directly at oieahc@wm.edu.
Thursday, June 12, 2025
Registration opens at 11:00 am in the Rita Science Center Lobby, 58 Coming Street, Charleston (in the historic Cistern Yard).
SESSIONS 1-3
1:30-3:00 PM
Session 1: “Revisiting Black Majority”
Rita Science Center Room 101
Chair: Jane Landers, Vanderbilt University
- Hayden R. Smith, College of Charleston
- D. Andrew Johnson, South Carolina Department of Archives and History
- Crystal Eddins, University of Pittsburgh
- Ras Michael Brown, Georgia State University
- Fernanda Bretones Lane, University of Florida
Comment: Peter H. Wood, Duke University
Session 2: “Perspectives from the Museum: Presenting difficult histories in challenging times”
Rita Science Center Room 102
Moderator: Peter Inker, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
- Janice Canaday, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
- Adam Canaday, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
- Toby Smith, former Cultural History Interpretation Coordinator, Charleston County Park & Recreation Commission
- Joseph McGill, Slave Dwelling Project, Ladson, SC
BREAK
3:00-4:00 PM
Please note that the distance between the afternoon sessions’ location and the keynote location is approximately one-half mile.
4:00-5:30
Mother Emanuel AME Church
110 Calhoun Street
Charleston, SC. 29401
Session 3: Keynote Lecture with Deirdre Cooper Owens
“Let the Culture Be Your Resistance: Tracing the Gullah/Geechee Imprint on the Nation”
In her keynote address, Deirdre Cooper Owens, a Gullah/Geechee historian of the 19th century Black past, will discuss how the survival practices of Gullah/Geechee people serve as a model for how cultural resistance strengthened this nation. From the movement of African peoples off the continent’s coast to the enslavement of their descendants for centuries, culture as manifested through spiritual practices, liberatory farming, education and political maneuvering, Low Country Black people have been at the forefront of liberation movements meant to free all people.
Followed immediately by a reception at the Charleston Museum, 360 Meeting Street, Charleston, SC 29401.
Friday, June 13, 2025
*Coffee service and a book exhibit are available both Friday and Saturday in Randolph Hall in the historic Cistern Yard—just around the corner from the Rita Science Center. You can also find FREE boxed lunches there on Friday and Saturday (first come, first served).
SESSIONS 4-6
9:00-10:30
Session 4: “Climate, Commodities, and Colonial Life”
Rita Science Center Room 101
Chair: Matthew Mulcahy, Loyola University Maryland
- Patrick Barker, Miami Dade College, “Extreme Weather and Plantation Life in Early Nineteenth Century Trinidad”
- Rob Paulett, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, “The Breeches of Britain: Using Deerskins to Rethink Production and Consumption in the Eighteenth-century Atlantic”
- Charlotte Leib, Yale University, “Revolutions in the Grass: Little Ice Age Agricultural Adjustments and the Acceleration of the 1740’s-1770’s in the Middle Colonies
Comment: Eric Herschthal, University of Utah
Session 5: “Childhood in Vast Early America”
Rita Science Center Room 102
Chair: Holly White, William & Mary
- Aaron Hoggle, University of Alabama, “‘I Have Bestowed a Livery’: An English Widow and an Enslaved African Boy in Colonial South Carolina”
- Xinyi Hu, New York University, “Racial and Patriarchal Capitalism under the Apprenticeship System in Jamaica, 1834-1838”
- A.B. Wilkinson, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, “Mixed-Heritage Families in the Colonial Chesapeake”
Comment: Audience
Session 6: “Women and Unfree Labor in Vast Early America”
Rita Science Center Room 103
Chair: Shavagne Scott, The Ohio State University
- Lindsay Keiter, Penn State Altoona, “Marriage Settlements and Family Property in Antebellum South Carolina”
- Deirdre Lyons, University of Chicago, “Women and Family Freedom Strategies in the French Antilles, 1830-1852”
- James Spady, Siena Taylor, Keito Newman (Soka University), and Anjan Rana Magar (Claremont Graduate University), “Where Were the Black Women of Charleston? Mapping Little-Known, Global Stories of Anti-slavery, Anti-racist Survivance in the early 1820s”
Comment: Audience
BREAK
10:30-11:00
SESSIONS 7-9
11:00-12:30
Session 7: “Faith, Empire, and Identity in the Atlantic World”
Rita Science Center Room 101
Chair/Comment: Doug Winiarski, University of Richmond
- Gail Coughlin, University of Minnesota, “‘Thou Ancient Oak!’: The Cognitive Roots of Religious Colonial Identities and Environmental Possession in 19th century Massachusetts and Minnesota”
- James L. Gorman, Johnson University, “‘To Beget the Strongest Prejudices against Christianity’: Missionary Motives for Opposing Slavery in the Early National Era”
Session 8: “Markets and Morals in the Early Atlantic World”
Rita Science Center Room 102 a
Chair/Comment: Lee Wilson, Clemson University
- Katie A. Moore, University of California, Santa Barbara, “Counter-history and Political Economy: Financial Instruments as Literary Texts in Early America”
- Greg Brooking, Fulton County Schools, “Henry Laurens: A Gentleman of Character and Experience in Trade”
- Lauren Davila, Tulane University, “The Largest Domestic Slave Auction: Overcoming Silences Through Public History”
Session 9: “Authority and its Discontents in Colonial New England”
Rita Science Center Room 103
Chair/Comment: Paul Musselwhite, Dartmouth College
- Can Mert Kökerer, University of Chicago, “The Meaning of Democracy in the Massachusetts Bay Colony: Unlimited Domination, Anti-Authority, or Mixed Government?”
- Nathan Braccio, Clark University, “Not Having the Fear of God Before Thine Eyes: Killing and Authority in Puritan New England”
- Arthur George Kamya, Boston University, “The Limits of Authority: Penal Policy and Servitude in Massachusetts Bay Colony”
LUNCH
12:30-2:00
FREE lunches available in the Randolph Building (near the book exhibits) —first come, first served. Join us and meet your fellow conference attendees!
SESSIONS 10-12
2:00-3:30
Session 10: “Porous Empires: the Circulation of People Beyond Imperial Frontiers”
Rita Science Center Room 101
Chair: María Esther Hammack, The Ohio State University
- Kristen Block, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, “Prestige and Danger at the Boundaries of Medicine and Empire”
- Ségolène Boutinot, Université de Sorbonne, “Self-interest and imperial loyalty: The Irish in the 18th Century French Caribbean Islands”
- Elodie Peyrol-Kleiber, Université de Poitiers, “From La Rochelle to Barbados and St. Kitts: French indentured servants in an English colony?”
Comment: Chris Hodson, Brigham Young University
Session 11: “Hebraic Models and Political Imagination in Early America”
Rita Science Center Room 102
Chair: Michael Hoberman, Fitchburg State University
- Israel Benporat, Yeshiva University, “Atlantic Exodus: Political Hebraism in Plymouth Colony”
- Nan Goodman, University of Colorado Boulder, “Increase Mather, Sabbatai Sevi, and Puritan Political Identity”
- Daniel Slate, University of Notre Dame, “The Chief Magistrate: Executive Power in light of Hebraic Republicanism”
Comment: Adam Lebovitz, University of Florida
Session 12: “Indigenous Sovereignty and Public History”
Rita Science Center Room 103
Chair/Comment: Brooke Bauer, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
- Joshua Catalano, Clemson University
- Denise Bossy, University of North Florida
- Stephen Criswell, University of South Carolina, Lancaster
BREAK
3:30-4:00
SESSIONS 13-15
4:00-5:30
Session 13: “Navigating Warscapes: Everyday Experiences of Warfare in the Greater Caribbean”
Rita Science Center Room 101
Chair/Comment: Ernesto Bassi, Cornell University
- Phoebe Labat, Brown University, “The American Revolution and Natural Disasters: A History of the Everyday Lives of Slaves in the French Caribbean”
- Rachel Tils, University of Chicago, “Marketing in the System: Policing the Antillean Internal Economy, 1776-1789”
Session 14: “Fluid Identities/Contested Spaces in Vast Early America”
Rita Science Center Room 102
Chair: Sophie White, University of Notre Dame
- Frances Kolb Turnbell, University of North Alabama, “Boundary Crossings and Expanded Opportunities: British Merchants and British Atlantic Trade Networks in the Lower Mississippi Valley, 1763-1783”
- Justin P. Jones, Vanderbilt University, “Sovereignty at Sea?: The Changing Oceanic Identities of Participants in the Illegal Slave Trade”
- Jessica Power, Fisk University, “The Occupation of Pensacola: Slavery and Sovereignty in the Gulf World Borderlands”
Comment: Kristen Block, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Session 15: “Environmental History in the Caribbean Beyond the Sugar Plantation”
Rita Science Center Room 103
Chair: Jennifer Anderson, Stonybrook University
- Keith Richards, Tulane University, “Land Use and the Environment in Cuba’s Cattle Industry, 1492-1700”
- Mary Draper, MSU Texas, “The Environmental History of the Port Royal Earthquake”
Comment: Keith Pluymers, Illinois State University
Saturday, June 14, 2025
SESSIONS 16-18
10:30-12:00
Session 16: “The Home Front: Households, Power, and Resistance in the Atlantic World”
Rita Science Center Room 101
Chair/Comment: Rob Taber, Fayetteville State University
- Hannah R. Abrahamson, College of the Holycross, “Hands that Grind and Feed: Maya Women’s Labor in Multiethnic Colonial Households”
- Amanda Faulkner, Columbia University, “Households Divided: Transatlantic Households in New Netherland”
- Caylin Carbonell, Bowdoin College, “Bonds of Unfreedom in Colonial New England Households”
Session 17: “Copper, Rainforest, and the Open Boat: Environmental Histories of the Early Caribbean”
Rita Science Center Room 102
Chair/Comment: Blake Scott, College of Charleston
- Handy Acosta Cuellar, Tulane University, “Forging Connections: Enslaved African Metallurgists and the Circulation of Technology in Early Colonial Cuba”
- Giovanna Montenegro, Binghamton University, “Moravian Missionaries and their Engagement with Saamaka Maroons’ Cultural Traditions”
- Catherine R. Peters, Omohundro Institute Postdoctoral Fellow, “The Open Boat and the Marketplace: Afro-Asian Histories and Ecologies of Early Nineteenth Century Trinidad”
Session 18: “Crossing boundaries: geographies of the passage between life and death”
Rita Science Center Room 103
Moderator: Peter Inker, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (CWF)
- Cathy Hellier, CWF, “Taking Care of Horses”: Travel and Autonomy for Enslaved Male Domestics in Eighteenth-Century Virginia”
- Kelly Brennan, CWF, “Within the graveyard’s bounds: British North American burial spaces and the limits of British cultural influence”
- Nicole Isenbarger, Charles Towne Landing State Historic Site, “A “Lot” not in “Common”: Archaeological research on the c.1670 capital of the English Carolina colony”
- Sarah Platt, College of Charleston, “…and for mending the Guns of some of the Chickasaw Indians”: Colonial Entanglements and the Archaeology of Gunsmithing at 87 Church Street, Charleston
LUNCH
12:00-1:30
FREE lunches available in the Randolph Building (near the book exhibits) —first come, first served. Join us and meet your fellow conference attendees!
SESSIONS 19-21
1:30-3:00
Session 19: “Generations of Struggle: Black Life in South Carolina”
A panel sponsored by the McNeil Center for Early American Studies (MCEAS)
Rita Science Center Room 101
Chair: Emma Hart, MCEAS
- Erica Duncan, New York University, “Scripting Black Childhoods in Colonial South Carolina”
- Mélena “Mae” Laudig, Princeton University, “Carolina Crossroads: Black Childhood and the Spirit Worlds of Antebellum South Carolina”
- Madison Ogletree, Columbia University, “Geographies of Freedom: Mapping Free Afro-Americans in Rural South Carolina, 1790-1860”
Comment: Miya-Carey Agyemang, Loyola University Maryland
Session 20: “Closer and Closer Apart: Challenges and Opportunities in Commemorating the 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution”
Rita Science Center Room 102
Chair: Lawrence Peskin, Morgan State University
- Sarah Pearsall, The Johns Hopkins University
- Adam McNeil, Rutgers University
- Katherine Pemberton, South Carolina 250
- Alyssa Mt. Pleasant, ATW Research
- Sarah Weicksel, American Historical Association
Session 21: “Problematizing the Archive”
Rita Science Center Room 103
Chair/Comment: Juliana Barr, Duke University
- Zoe Waldman, University of Michigan, “Native Resistance at the Treaty of Hopewell, 1785-86”
- Kai Werner, William & Mary, “Inventing New Mexico: False Histories and Imaginative Geographies in Seventeenth-Century North America”
- Javaria Khalid Abbasi, University of Oxford, “Epistolary Conquest: The native world(s) of Hernán Cortés’s Cartas de relación (1520) and John Smith’s The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624)”
BREAK
3:00-3:30
3:30-5:00
Closing Plenary Session
SESSION 22
“Current Trends in Environmental History”
Rita Science Center Room 101
Chair: Matthew Mulcahy, Loyola University Maryland
- Jennifer Anderson, Stonybrook University
- Ryan Kashanipour, University of Arizona
- Hayley Negrin, University of Illinois Chicago
- Keith Pluymers, Illinois State University
- Thomas Wickman, Trinity College
Closing Reception in Courtyard