The Potawatomi & Notre Dame: How their early history is remembered on campus
When: Tuesday, February 18 | 7pm reception to follow
Where: Remick Commons, Carole Sandner Hall
Drawing from the records of Fr. Badin, Fr. Sorin, and Fr. Hesburgh, as well as Chief Leopold Pokagon, the founder of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, Zada Ballew will tell a fuller, more complicated story of how Notre Dame was founded and why. In this telling, Indigenous peoples are neither missing nor absent from the narrative — they are central to the history of the land that became Notre Dame. Please join us to understand more fully how the early history of the Potawatomi and Notre Dame is remembered on campus.
Zada Ballew is an enrolled citizen of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and a PhD candidate in United States history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame (B.A., Economics and Psychology), her research explores Native American and United States history through lenses of sovereignty, nationalism, and anti-colonialism. She has served as the Historical Consultant and Cultural Liaison for the Native American Initiative (NAI) of Notre Dame. In that capacity, she researched the Native American history of Notre Dame and shared her findings with the campus community.
All are welcome!
Brought to you by the Department for American Studies and the Education, Schooling, and Society program.
