Charles W. A. Prior, "Treaty Ground: Diplomacy and the Politics of Sovereignty, from Roanoke to the Republic" (U Nebraska Press, 2026)

About this episode

Professor Charles W. A. Prior discusses his book on Native American diplomacy and its impact on sovereignty in early America.

In Treaty Ground: Diplomacy and the Politics of Sovereignty, from Roanoke to the Republic (U Nebraska Press, 2026), Professor Charles W. A. Prior offers a new account of the sovereign claims of Native Americans, the Crown, and colonies in early America, arguing that Native American diplomacy shaped how sovereignty was negotiated and contested among all three, from Virginia’s founding to the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Previous scholars have focused on the contested relationship between the British imperial state and the colonies it established along the Atlantic Coast without addressing how sovereign Native nations shaped the colonial process through warfare, diplomacy, trade, peace-making, and treaty-making. Dr. Prior adopts a new interpretive framework for examining sovereignty in early America, arguing that the Native and colonial spaces of the Northeast were a treaty ground thickly layered with agreements and negotiated rules of interaction. Drawing on an extensive range of treaty records, writings on colonial and imperial affairs, letters, and official documents, Treaty Ground argues that sovereignty was negotiated within diplomacy and shaped the norms of war, the…

People in this episode

Host: Marshall Poe

Guest: Charles W. A. Prior

Topics covered

• Native American sovereignty
• diplomacy
• colonial history
• treaty-making
• politics of sovereignty

Keywords

• Native Americans
• sovereignty
• diplomacy
• colonial process
• treaties
• Virginia
• U.S. Constitution

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: U Nebraska Press

Books & works: Treaty Ground: Diplomacy and the Politics of Sovereignty, from Roanoke to the Republic

Places: Virginia

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