On Wednesday mornings, the Glasscock center presents “Morning Coffee Hour,” an informal discussion centered around current research by professors in the history department.
This week, Professor Angela Pulley Hudson led a discussion over her most recent book, “Creek Paths and Federal Roads: Indians, Settlers, and Slaves and the Making of the American South.”
In addition to an abundance of coffee and pastries, conversation flowed from all who were present.
Those in attendance included noted faculty members such as the director of the Glasscock Center for Humanities Research James Rosenheim, associate professor in the department of history, Andrew Kirkendall and doctoral student Brian Franklin.
“Morning Coffee Hour is a very informal place,” Franklin said. “It’s a good opportunity to learn about a subject you wouldn’t normally seek out on your own. People from all other disciplines who are interested in learning attend.”
Conversation centered on Hudson’s work of unearthing the reality faced by Native Americans in the 19th century.
“I hope students will learn that Indian people were dispossessed of their homelands in nearly every region that now comprises the United States of America, including Texas, the South and much of the West. And I hope they will understand that this process did not take place overnight and was not inevitable,” Hudson said.
American Indian history is not a well-known subject. Although indigenous Americans played a pivotal role in the formation of today’s society, it is not an area widely studied. Hudson is changing that.
“American Indian history is American history. Every chapter of American history involves the participation and perspectives of American Indian people. Even the most seemingly American phenomena– like barbecue and football– are either directly traced to or owe their development to American Indians,” she said. “I hope those attending “Morning Coffee Hour” will understand that Native people in the U.S. South and elsewhere have always been actively engaged in defining and defending their homelands. I also hope they will see that the development of the U.S. South is about much, much more than just the emergence of antebellum plantations and civil war battles.”