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As European settlers began to explore the lower Mississippi Valley and displace Native American people to build settlements, the Europeans knew they needed to generate profits to make it a worthwhile endeavor. Most believed that the key to success was rooted in the ability of settlers to purchase enslaved Africans and utilize their forced labor in their own desire to build wealth.

At the monthly meeting of the Natchez Historical Society, Tuesday, April 22, Dr. Christian Pinnen will present “Race and Slavery in Colonial Natchez.” The location of the Natchez District enables a unique study of British, Spanish, and American legal systems, how enslaved people and natives navigated them, and the consequences of imperial shifts in an often-changing environment. The differing and competing conceptions of racial complexion in the lower Mississippi Valley strongly influenced the governance of plantation colonies and the hierarchies of race in colonial Natchez. By placing Natchez at the focal point, Dr. Pinnen will reveal the unexplored tensions and dynamics among the enslaved, enslavers, natives, and struggling colonial administrators, as well as the links between slavery and the westward expansion of the American Republic.

Dr. Pinnen’s talk is taken from his award-winning book, Complexion of Empire in Natchez, Race and Slavery in the Mississippi Borderlands, published by the University of Georgia Press. It won the Mississippi Historical Society’s award for the best Mississippi history book published in 2021. Dr. April Holm, associate professor of history at the University of Mississippi, chaired the selection panel. She quoted one panel member who stated, “This book is focused on Mississippi history, is deeply researched and original, and was engaging to read. It is filled with individual stories as well as thoughtful analysis and engages with Mississippi history in a truly global context. Pinnen weaves together legal history, race, and gender to show how the interplay of Native Americans, people of African descent, and European and American settlers created the changing landscape of slavery in early Mississippi.”

Dr. Christian Pinnen is a Professor in the Department of History at Mississippi College. His research focuses on the American borderlands and the legal landscapes that gave rise to definitions of blackness and whiteness in the face of maturing slave societies. He specifically investigates the colonial Natchez District in an attempt to resurrect the stories of the enslaved and the role Atlantic Africans played in shaping the region. He has published two books: Complexion of Empire in Natchez and Colonial Mississippi. Dr. Pinnen has won national and international research fellowships from the German Historical Institute, the LSU and University of Texas Libraries, and he has presented his research in Europe and the U.S. He was selected as the Mississippi Humanities Teacher of the Year in 2019. From 2022 to 2024, Dr. Pinnen was a Bright Fellow at Knox College. In 2024, he was named the Humanities Scholar of the Year by the Mississippi Humanities Council and Distinguished Professor of the Year at Mississippi College.

The Natchez Historical Society’s meeting will occur at the Historic Natchez Foundation, 108 S. Commerce St., in Natchez. The program will begin with a social at 5:30 p.m., with the presentation at 6 p.m. All are invited, members and non-members alike, and there is no charge for attendance. The Natchez Historical Society’s programming is funded by a grant from the Mississippi Humanities Council through funding by the National Endowment for the Humanities. For more information, call 225-939-8780 or 601-431-7737 or send email to info@natchezhistoricalsociety.org.

DAYE DEARING is a trustee of the Natchez Historical Society and chair of programming.