Women in War, Centering Black and Native Experiences in the Early American South

Dr Alejandra Dubcovsky (University of California, Riverside) will present a talk focusing on the experiences of Black and Native women living in Spanish Florida in the eighteenth century.

Native and Black women living in Spanish Florida worked to make their lives palatable, liveable, and safe-enough. Though their stories are not often told, lost in archival practices that fail to record their names or acknowledge their humanity, these women made gendered claims to protect their bodies, livelihoods, and spaces. Rooted at the eve of the eighteenth century, as the violence of the War of Spanish Succession reached American soil, this talk shows that Native and Black women in the Southeast had already been fighting a prolonged war. For them the stakes were far more tangible than who would ascend the Spanish throne; they worried about the very survival of their towns, families, and bodies. A personal and in many ways an intimate fight, these women’s struggles show the limitations of colonial power.

The meeting will take place on Zoom. Register for your place.

All are very welcome, and we hope to see you there.