Enfilade

From Colonial Williamsburg:

New Republic, New Worlds

Fifth and final meeting of the ‘For 2026’ Project

Williamsburg, 23–24 October 2026

Hosted by The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture, and William & Mary

The American Revolution forged a new nation out of thirteen British colonies, triggering a host of predictable and unexpected consequences. This conference will explore the novel circumstances, challenges, and opportunities of the transitional era that followed victory in the War for American Independence. What were the fresh constitutional and political structures fueled by the Revolution, and what were the possibilities in play then and after? How were families, communities, boundaries, and environments changed in the new era? What were the ambitions of this new nation, and what do we now know about how diverse communities assessed its prospects? How did the various peoples within its borders and beyond respond to this new moment?

New Republic, New Worlds, the final meeting of the five-year For 2026 project, brings into conversation scholarly and public-facing research exploring the far-reaching effects of the American Revolution. It will take place October 23–24, 2026, at the William & Mary School of Education and at Colonial Williamsburg in Williamsburg, Virginia. Daytime programs will take place on the campus of William & Mary and throughout the Historic Area of Colonial Williamsburg, with two evening plenaries open to the public with no pre-registration required. Full conference registration information will be available by September.

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e v e n i n g  p l e n a r i e s

The Friday and Saturday evening plenaries are free and open to the public. Seating will be available on a first-come, first-served basis, and the recorded programs will be available online on both William & Mary and Colonial Williamsburg supported pages following the event.

Ronald Johnson | Entangled Alliances: Racialized Freedom and

Atlantic Diplomacy during the American Revolution

Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg, 23 October 2026, 5pm (doors open at 4:30)

Dr. Ronald Angelo Johnson is the 2026–2027 Mellon Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the American Antiquarian Society and the Ralph and Bessie Mae Lynn Professor of History at Baylor University. He is the author two books: Entangled Alliances: Racialized Freedom and Atlantic Diplomacy during the American Revolution (Cornell University Press, 2025) and Diplomacy in Black and White: John Adams, Toussaint Louverture, and Their Atlantic World Alliance (UGA Press, 2014). He co-edited the volume In Search of Liberty: African American Internationalism in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World (UGA Press, 2021). His current book manuscript We Are All Equal: Turmoil and Triumph in the Early United States and Revolutionary Haiti is under contract with Princeton University Press.

Kathleen DuVal | The American Revolution and the Survival of Native Nations

Muscarelle Museum of Art, Williamsburg, 24 October 2026, 5pm (doors open at 4:30)

The American Revolution brought unprecedented challenges to Indigenous lives, land, and sovereignty in North America. Yet we can also tell the past 250 years of Native history as the story of surviving the creation of the United States. Focusing on Native history can help us put the American Revolution in the longer context of North America’s long past, present, and future.

Dr. Kathleen DuVal is the Carl W. Ernst Distinguished Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a Guggenheim Fellow and the author of Native Nations: A Millennium in North America, which won the Pulitzer Prize, the Bancroft Prize, the Mark Lynton History Prize, and the Cundill History Prize. Her other books include Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution, The Native Ground: Indians and Colonists in the Heart of the Continent, and the U.S. history textbook Give Me Liberty!, co-authored with Eric Foner and Lisa McGirr. DuVal has published in the William and Mary Quarterly, the Journal of the Early Republic, The Atlantic, Time Magazine, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. She also appeared in the recent Ken Burns film, The American Revolution.