So @JoshuaPiker & I started writing this in late April ...and let some things get in the way. But when we opened it w a ref to national news abt Native American & early American history, we had no idea. https://blog.oieahc.wm.edu/nais-is-central-to-early-american-scholarship/

What we did know then and now is how critical NAIS is to our understanding of this history. There simply is no early American history without the histories of Native Americans--and NAIS is a critical path for that history. 2/

Similarly, there is no early American history without the deep and extensive histories of slavery- including enslavement of Native Americans. 3/

Similarly, there is no early American history without the history of European settlers, and their economy, politics & governance. The difference is that we have had a lot of this last, and only lately the first and second. We cannot understand this past without them. 4/

More than cannot understand early America without the histories of Native Americans and the histories of slavery and enslaved people, we *will* not understand it. The costs of that are enormous. All around us ppl are showing us this matters in this most consequential terms. 5/

That's why Native American and Indigenous Studies is so central, why I am grateful for the scholars who are doing such exceptional work and all who read and incorporate it, and why #VastEarlyAmerica is the OI's central commitment. // finis