From March 26 to 28, 2026, Yale Group for the Study of Native America (YGSNA) and the NYU-Yale American Indian Sovereignty Project hosted their spring conference at Yale. Titled First America: The Legacies of the Declaration of Independence for Native Nations, the conference convened academics, public intellectuals, and museum and archives professionals to examine the legacies of the American Revolution and, particularly, the place of Northeastern Native nations in the telling of American history.
Over two days (March 27-28), panels and special sessions were held at Luce Hall. Subjects of potential discussion include land dispossession, questions of citizenship, the U.S. Constitution and American colonialism, the Revolution and Indigenous peoples in American culture, and the legacies of Indigenous enslavement.
Professor Rickard presented on Native Nations and the Future of Revolutionary Studies panel, chaired by Ned Blackhawk, which looked toward how Indigenous peoples figure in the future of scholarship on the American Revolution.
The conference was sponsored by the NYU-Yale American Indian Sovereignty project, the New Haven America 250 Commission, America 250 | CT Commission, CT Humanities, the Howard R. Lamar Center for the Study of Frontiers and Borders, and the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration.
Silvermoon Mars LaRose contributed artwork for the flyer. LaRose, a member of the Narragansett Tribe, is the Assistant Director of the Tomaquag Museum. The piece (acrylic on canvas) is entitled Yòh (Four).
https://ygsna.sites.yale.edu/news/first-america-conference-program-march-26-28
