TAMIU Hosts History Lecture on Warfare Against Indians in American History Wednesday, April 30

Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) College of Arts and Sciences will host an engaging lecture by Dr. William Kiser, professor and chair of the department of History at Texas A&M University-San Antonio (TAMU-SA) on the topic of his new history book Wednesday, April 30, from 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. in the Western Hemispheric Trade Center, room 111.

Dr. Kiser will lecture on his new book, "The Business of Killing Indians: Scalp Warfare and the Violent Conquest of North America" (Yale University Press, 2025). He will offer his insights against the context of American history. The lecture is free and open to the public.

According to the book, from the mid-1600s through the late 1800s, since central governments in Amsterdam, Paris, London, Mexico City, and Washington, D.C., failed to provide adequate military support and financial resources for colonial frontier defense, administrators in regional capitals such as New York, Québec City, New Orleans, Boston, Ciudad Chihuahua, Austin, and Sacramento took matters into their own hands. At different times and in almost every part of the continent, they paid citizens for killing Indians, taking Indians captive, scalping or beheading Indians, and undertaking other forms of violence.

Kiser is Professor of History and Department Chair at TAMU-SA, where he teaches classes on the Civil War and Reconstruction, the American West, Native American History, U.S. Foreign Policy, and Research Methods.  He is the author of six books, including "Borderlands of Slavery: The Struggle over Captivity and Peonage in the American Southwest" and "Illusions of Empire: The Civil War and Reconstruction in the U.S.-México Borderlands," both published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. 

Kiser's lecture is funded by the TAMIU College of Arts and Sciences.

For more information, please contact lecture organizer Dr. Adam Kozaczka, assistant professor of English, at 956.326.326.3300 or email adam.kozaczka@tamiu.edu.

Registration for TAMIU’s Maymester, Summer, and Fall 2025 is underway online via Uconnect. 

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