Historian of Race and Slavery
Welcome! I am a Professor of History and Co-Director of African American Studies at Mississippi College. From 2022 to 2024, I will be a Fellow at the Bright Institute at Knox College. I focus on the American borderlands and the legal landscapes that gave rise to definitions of blackness and whiteness in the face of maturing slave societies in my research. I specifically investigate the colonial Natchez District in an attempt to resurrect the stories of the enslaved and the role Atlantic Africans played in shaping the region.
I just finished a study of the Natchez Slave Market “Forks of the Road” for the National Park Service in Natchez with Max Grivno. Currently, I am working on the initial research for a new book on the Spanish slave trade in the lower Mississippi Valley.
Hello, World!
About
I have been a history professor at Mississippi College since 2012. Starting Fall 2022, I will co-direct the African American Studies program with my colleague Kristi Richard Melancon. I teach the two U.S. surveys and the African American History survey. Upper level classes include Colonial U.S. History, History of the American Revolution, the Old South, and the Survey of Latin American History as well as courses in my immediate specialty.
Come study with us at MC!
I am happy to talk to your organization. I am a member of the Mississippi Humanities Council Speakers Bureau.
Christian Pinnen
Public Talks
Race and Slavery in Colonial Natchez
Mississippi Book Festival Panel “The Gulf South”
Complexion of Empire(s)
Colonial Mississippi
Podcasts
Books
Complexion of Empire in Natchez:
Race and Slavery in the Mississippi Borderlands
Award Winner: Book of the Year, Mississippi Historical Society, 2022
Complexion of Empire is a detailed study of the emergence of race as the core concept for slavery in the Mississippi Borderlands. Tightly focusing on the Natchez District, the book follows the ebb and flow of slavery and the enslaved people as they navigated the various empires that held sway over the region in the long eighteenth century.
Colonial Mississippi:
A Borrowed Land
Colonial Mississippi is the first synthesis of colonial Mississippi’s complex history. The book reconstructs the complicated, multi-faceted and multi-ethnic origins of the Magnolia State, We place a special emphasize on the people that interacted with the European colonists and forced them to acquiesce to the realities of settlements in which Native Americans, Atlantic Africans, and European colonizers interacted to forge working settlements.
Other Publications
Oxford Bibliogprahies: Atlantic History