Native Land and the American Revolution

media release: Join WisHistory for a free public lecture featuring Michael Witgen, Columbia University professor and citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, offering a thought-provoking examination of the colonial beginnings of the United States. Witgen is a 2023 Pulitzer Prize finalist for “Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America.”

Witgen will explore how the United States inherited European colonial ideas about North America as an “empty” wilderness and pursued the dispossession of Native peoples as it expanded beyond the original thirteen states. His presentation will consider how this process was framed as peaceful settlement, while functioning as a broader imperial project to seize land, resources and a continent.

As the nation marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence—and observes Constitution Day on Sept. 17, the anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution in 1787—the annual James Madison Lecture offers a timely opportunity to examine the roots of American democracy and consider how the nation’s founding and expansion shaped the United States we know today.

A pop-up showcase of collection items will be displayed for this event. 

Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026| 5 to 7 p.m. A public reception will begin at 5 p.m. and the lecture will begin at 6 p.m.

Wisconsin Historical Society Headquarters, 816 State St., Madison, WI 53706

Register for this FREE event here. Seats are first-come, first-served. Parking information is available online.

The James Madison Lecture Series is an annual lecture series on early American history co-presented by the Wisconsin Historical Society and the Center for the Study of the American Constitution at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The lectures honor the scholarly work of Dr. Merrill Jensen (1905-1980), an influential scholar of the American Revolution, beloved mentor, and longtime faculty member of the University of Wisconsin Department of History.

Lectures are free with funding generously provided by the Lynde & Harry Bradley Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the James Madison Lectures endowment, which was made possible by a generous bequest from the Estate of John A. Peters and many private donors.

About the Wisconsin Historical Society

The Wisconsin Historical Society, founded in 1846, ranks as one of the largest, most active and most diversified state historical societies in the nation. As both a state agency and a private membership organization, its mission is to help people connect to the past by collecting, preserving and sharing stories. The Wisconsin Historical Society serves millions of people every year through a wide range of sites, programs and services. For more information, visit www.wisconsinhistory.org.