This presentation examines how slaves and colonists weathered the economic and political upheavals that rocked the Lower Mississippi Valley in the years between the American Revolution and the Civil War. Dr. Pinnen focuses on the fitful–and often futile–efforts of the English, the Spanish, and the Americans to establish plantation agriculture in Natchez and its environs, a district that emerged as the heart of the “Cotton Kingdom.” Within this setting, slaves seized on many weapons to claim their freedom and subsequently redefined the ever-changing meaning of race, slavery and freedom.
Speakers Expertise:
Dr. Christian Pinnen is a Professor in the Department of History and Political Science. Dr. Pinnen joined MC’s faculty in 2012 and currently teaches U.S. History, History of the Old South, Latin America Survey, the American Revolution, and American Slavery. His research focuses on race and slavery in the Spanish-American borderlands and capitalism in early America. He has published two books in 2021:
Complexion of Empire in Natchez and
Colonial Mississippi. Dr. Pinnen is the recipient of the 2019 Humanities Teacher of the Year award and Complexion of Empire in Natchez received the 2021 Best Book of the Year award from the Mississippi Historical Society. He is a 2022-2024 Bright Fellow at Know College, the 2024 Mississippi Humanities Scholar of the Year, and the 2024 Distinguished Professor at Mississippi College.
