The fourth and final Bancroft Library Roundtable of the spring semester will take place in the Lewis-Latimer Room of The Faculty Club at noon on Thursday, May 19. John Suval, Gunther Barth Fellow at The Bancroft Library and doctoral candidate in history at University of Wisconsin–Madison, will present “Dangerous Ground: Squatters, Statesmen, and the Rupture of American Democracy, 1830-1860.”
Squatters were a persistent frontier presence from the earliest days of the United States, yet these illegal settlers emerged as political and cultural lightning rods in the Jacksonian and antebellum periods. Why? This talk explores how squatters in the expanding West came to occupy a central place in U.S. political culture, territorial conquests, and conflicts leading up to the Civil War. California was a particularly violent and disruptive proving ground of squatter politics, and a primary focus of the discussion.
We hope to see you there. The talks are free and open to the public.
Kathi Neal
Bancroft Library Staff