Moderator: Andrew Porwancher, Director of Graduate Studies and Professor, SCETL, ASU. Speaker: Eliga Gould, Professor of History, University of New Hampshire, “‘A Firm League of Friendship’: The Expansionist Origins of Benjamin Franklin’s British American Union of 1775.” Speaker: Craig Yirush, Associate Professor of History, UCLA, “‘The Greatest Cause That Ever Was Heard’: The Mohegan Case and the Fate of Native Rights in the American Revolution.” Speaker: Jane E. Calvert, Director & Chief Editor, The John Dickinson Writings Project, “‘The Sense of America...is for Reconciliation’: John Dickinson and the Progress Towards Revolution, 1765–1776.”
2025 SCETL Annual Spring Conference: Panel Two
What did imperial reform mean on the ground in North America and how did colonists respond? Local autonomy shaped responses on issues from Indian policy to taxation, but Americans saw themselves as part of the empire to a late stage. Colonial perspectives from Pennsylvanians Benjamin Franklin and John Dickenson highlight roads not taken.