Podcast: The Battle for the American West

For Native American Heritage Month, the National Constitution Center presents a discussion with historians H.W. Brands, author of The Last Campaign: Sherman, Geronimo and the War for America; Lori Daggar, author of Cultivating Empire: Capitalism, Philanthropy, and the Negotiation of American Imperialism in Indian Country; and Lindsay Robertson, author of Conquest by Law: How the Discovery of America Dispossessed Indigenous Peoples of Their Lands, for a historical overview of U.S. westward expansion, manifest destiny, and the impact on native peoples and tribes. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates.

Participants

H.W. Brands is the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of more than a dozen biographies and histories, including Dreams of El Dorado: A History of the American West; Our First Civil War: Patriots and Loyalists in the American Revolution; and his most recent book, The Last Campaign: Sherman, Geronimo and the War for America.

Lori Daggar is associate professor of history at Ursinus College, where she is also a member of the Welcome Home project designed to increase awareness about the history and culture of the Lenape people in the Perkiomen Valley region and surrounding communities. She is the author of the new book Cultivating Empire: Capitalism, Philanthropy, and the Negotiation of American Imperialism in Indian Country.

Lindsay Robertson is the Chickasaw Nation Endowed Chair in Native American Law, the Faculty Director of Center for the Study of American Indian Law and Policy, and the Sam K. Viersen Family Foundation Presidential Professor at the University of Oklahoma. He is the author of Conquest by Law: How the Discovery of America Dispossessed Indigenous Peoples of Their Lands, and he currently serves as a justice on the Supreme Court of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. 

Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.