I graduated in 2016 with a BA in History from the University of Oxford. I wrote my dissertation on the political dynamics of the Cherokee Nation during the era of the removal crisis in the 1830s, with a particular focus on the emergence of a nationalist ideology influenced by local missionaries. In the course of researching this project, I made extensive use of the archives of the Cherokee Phoenix, the first regularly published Native American newspaper, and of the personal letters of its editor, Elias Boudinot. Focusing on Boudinot’s life’s work introduced me to the idea of using micro-histories of individual lives in conjunction with world history, something I’d be keen to look into again. More broadly, I am interested in exploring the ways that imperial and indigenous societies connected and clashed, particularly in ‘borderland’ spaces of diffuse political authority. I am also interested in the emergence of the United States onto the world stage in the 19th and 20th centuries, and what this meant for the global system of international relations.
