On July 4, 1776, two hundred miles northwest of Philadelphia, on Indigenous land along the West Branch of the Susquehanna River, a group of colonial squatters declared their independence. They were not alone in their efforts. This bold symbolic gesture was just a small part of a much broader and longer struggle in the Northern Susquehanna River Valley, where diverse peoples, especially Indigenous nations, fought tenaciously to safeguard their lands, sovereignty and survival. Drawing from his new book, Christopher Pearl, associate professor of history and the chairman of the history department at Lycoming College, reveals how conflicts within and between Indigenous Americans, rebellious colonial squatters, opportunistic land speculators and imperial government agents set the terms and ultimately shaped the meaning of the American Revolution.

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About the Speaker

Christopher Pearl is an associate professor of history and the chair of the department at Lycoming College. Having receive his Ph.D. from Binghamton University, his research interests are in early American history and the American Revolution. He is the author of Conceived in Crisis: The Revolutionary Creation of an American State (UVA Press, 2020), a book that explores how ineffective colonial governance and British imperial politics precipitated a process of state formation that was accelerated by the demands of the Revolutionary War, and several scholarly articles that have been featured in various publications, including Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies, The Journal of Presbyterian History and The Journal of the Lycoming County Historical Society. He received the Junior Faculty Teaching Award and the Howard C. Berthold Faculty Research and Information Competencies Award from Lycoming College in 2015 and 2016, respectively, and has been awarded research grants and fellowships at the David Center for the American Revolution (2020), the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies (2020) and the Presbyterian Historical Society (2014).