Murder and Mercy on the Susquehanna with Nicole Eustace

128 Main Road,Tyringham MA 01264

09 July, 2022

Description

Murder and Mercy on the Susquehanna Join the Bidwell House Museum on Saturday July 9 for our second history talk of the summer, Murder and Mercy on the Susquehanna: Captain Civility of Conestoga Teaches Pennsylvania Colonists New Principles of Justice with New York University Professor, Pulitzer Prize winner and National Book Award Finalist Nicole Eustace. On the eve of a major treaty conference between Iroquois leaders and European colonists in the distant summer of 1722, two white fur traders attacked a Seneca hunter and left him for dead near Conestoga, Pennsylvania. Though virtually forgotten today, this act of brutality set into motion a remarkable series of criminal investigations and cross-cultural negotiations that challenged the definition of justice in early America. The lessons this case has to teach remain relevant to debates about criminal justice reform today. Nicole Eustace is professor of history at New York University. She is the author 1812: War and the Passions of Patriotism and Passion Is the Gale: Emotion, Power, and the Coming of the American Revolution. Her most recent book, Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America, won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in History. This program is sponsored in part by grants from the Monterey, Tyringham and Sandisfield Cultural Councils, a local agencies which are sponsored by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.