History prof Smallwood to return to Asheboro library for talk on origins of NC

Dr. Arwin Smallwood

ASHEBORO – Native Americans, European settlers and enslaved Africans shaped — and were shaped by — North Carolina and its landscape.

Learn how this mixture of influences contributed to “The Origins and Early History of North Carolina” with N.C. A & T history professor Dr. Arwin Smallwood at 6:30 p.m. Monday, September 9, at the Asheboro Public Library.

Smallwood’s appearance, sponsored by the Friends of the Library, is free and the public is invited.

Smallwood, chair of the History Department at N.C. A & T, left the audience here spellbound in May with his discussion of the fate of the Lost Colony.

In his new talk, he focuses on the long history of North Carolina and describes how its people, at first limited by the landscape, radically altered it to support their needs. The state’s waterways and forests sustained Native American villages that were replaced in the eighteenth century by English plantations, cleared for whites by African and Indian slaves.

All the state’s inhabitants successfully developed and sustained a wide variety of crops including the “three sisters” — corn, beans and squash —  as well as the giants: tobacco, cotton and peanuts.

Smallwood traces the story of the Native Americans, largely gone from the state for over 200 years, except for small populations; African slaves and their descendants through the struggles of slavery, Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Era; and Europeans in their rush to tame the wilderness in a new land.

The entwined histories are visible through dozens of maps Smallwood has created especially for this presentation, along with vivid illustrations of forgotten faces and moments from the past.

Smallwood was born in Windsor, North Carolina, and raised in Indian Woods – areas that feature prominently in his talks. He earned a bachelors degree in political science and a masters in history from North Carolina Central University, and a Ph.D. from Ohio State University.

He taught at Bradley University in Illinois, and the University of Memphis, where he helped develop at Ph.D. program in African-American history, the only one of its kind in the country. He also is recipient of numerous awards, fellowships and grants, and participated in the award-winning UNC-TV documentary “The Birth of a Colony: North Carolina.”

The library is located at 201 Worth Street. For further information, call 336-318-6803.