I’m Jessica Wallace, the creator and manager of this site. I have a Ph.D. in early American history and currently am an associate professor in the Department of History and Geography at Georgia College & State University. I love teaching undergraduate students about early American history and convincing people who hate history that it’s far from boring! Instead, it’s full of amazing, bizarre, and sometimes horrifying stories of human beings doing awe-inspiring, deplorable, and often just downright average things.
My own specialties are the colonial period, broadly defined, and Native American history. My graduate school training in colonial American history had me take a lot of courses in Atlantic World history, or the idea that you can’t just look at the British colonies in isolation–those colonies were part of a larger world of intersecting governments, trade networks, and messy interactions with other Europeans, West Africans, colonies up and down the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and Native American groups who lived in the Americas well before any Europeans or Africans arrived. I try to take that broader perspective in talking and teaching about early American history, that we can’t just look at what’s happening with British people, but that truly, colonial Americas were “New Worlds for All,” as renowned historian Colin Calloway described the colonial world.
This site highlights some of those stories of colonial Americas, especially looking at lesser known individuals and events. I love the 15th-18th centuries in North America, and I hope to share that interest with you!
Have a question? Click the button below and fill out the short form. I love to hear student and reader questions, and will try to find an answer for you! Many reader questions get featured on future blog posts.