Robert M. Owens, Dr.

Overview

Dr. Owens specializes in Colonial, Revolutionary, and Early American History, particularly Indian Affairs. He has published articles in The Journal of the Early Republic, The Indiana Magazine of History, Ohio Valley History, and The American Indian Quarterly. His first book, Mr. Jefferson’s Hammer: William Henry Harrison and the Origins of American Indian Policy, was published by University of Oklahoma Press in 2007. His second book, Red Dreams, White Nightmares: Pan-Indian Alliances in the Anglo-American Mind, 1763-1815, was published in 2015, also with University of Oklahoma Press. ‘Indian Wars’ and the Struggle for Eastern North America, 1763-1842, a reader with primary source documents, was published by Routledge Press in 2020. His latest book, Killing Over Land: Death and Diplomacy on the Early American Frontier, was published by University of Oklahoma Press in 2024. He also contributed a chapter for Routledge Press’ The Routledge History Handbook on the American Dream (forthcoming). His current research project explores the way early Americans treated their friends and enemies in death.

Ph.D., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 2003

Academic Interests and Expertise

• Colonial and Revolutionary U.S.
• Early America to 1830
• Indian Affairs
• Politics

Publications

• “The Death of Captain Big Three: Suicide and the Perils of U.S.-Iroquois Diplomacy in the Early 1790s,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 145, 2 (April 2021)
• Indian Wars and the Struggle for Eastern North America, 1736-1842 [a reader with documents] (Routledge, 2020)
• “‘Between two Fires’: Elusive Justice on the Cherokee/Tennessee Frontier, 1796-1814,” American Indian Quarterly 40, 1 (Winter 2016)
• Red Dreams, White Nightmares: Pan-Indian Alliances in the Anglo-American Mind, 1763-1815 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2015)
• “Isaac White and Manliness in Early Illinois,” Journal of Illinois History 17, 1 (Spring 2014)
• “Bigger than Bighorn: Nomenclature, Memory, and the Greatest Native American Victory over the United States,” Ohio Valley History 12, 2 (Summer 2012) [co-authored with Michael F. Conlin, Ph.D.]
• Mr. Jefferson’s Hammer: William Henry Harrison and the Origins of American Indian Policy (University of Oklahoma Press, 2011)
• “Law & Disorder North of the Ohio, 1739-1815,” Indiana Magazine of History 103, 3 (2007)
• “Jeffersonian Benevolence on the Ground: The Indian Land Cession Treaties of William Henry Harrison,” Journal of the Early Republic 22, 3 (2002)
• “Jean Baptiste Ducoigne, the Kaskaskias, and the Limits of Thomas Jefferson’s Friendship,” Journal of Illinois History 15, 2 (2002) 

Working Papers

Dr. Owens is currently working on a new book-length project that focuses on the intersection of murder and Indian diplomacy.