This talk, “Visions of the New Nation in the Northwest Territory,” examines Marietta as a cultural heritage site that serves a crucial role in redefining American collective history by reconstructing a national identity based on the Northwest Ordinance, one of the most important, progressive, and far-reaching legislative acts in American history. By using the interlinked aspects of place, Marietta’s importance as the “first organized settlement of the Northwest Territory” illustrates how it became the birthplace of equality through the preservation of the public domain. This is in contrast with the myth of freedom and independence of a seemingly limitless land. The lessons learned from Marietta as “place,” then, expands the American narrative by challenging our understanding of territorial expansion within the United States in the early nineteenth century.
Dr. Brandon Downing focuses on early American history, particularly Native-white relations along the frontier. He has taught courses in U.S. History (both to 1877 and after 1877), Colonial America, American Revolutionary Era, Native American History, Atlantic World, Professional Historian, and Introduction to Public History. His current book manuscript is “‘Barbarous Tribes of Savages’: Violence and Conflict on the Periphery of Empire in the Colonial Mid-Atlantic, 1750-1776.” Prior to working at Marietta, Dr. Downing was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Mississippi.
This event has been made possible by the assistance of the Ohio Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
