Lecture Examines Peaceful Native Americans

Richard Pointer, Westmont professor of history, uncovers the peacemaking traditions of Native American communities in a lecture, “Peace-loving Indians? Recovering A Missing Piece of American History,” on Tuesday, March 3, at 7 pm in Hieronymus Lounge at Kerrwood Hall. The Paul C. Wilt Phi Kappa Phi Lecture is free and open to the public.

“Given what most of us know about the long and often painful history of native peoples in America, it is easy to imagine they were by nature or necessity warlike,” Pointer says. Drawing upon his forthcoming book, Pacifist Prophet, Pointer will tell the story of one such remarkable peacemaker, Papunhank, in war-torn 18^th century Pennsylvania.

Pointer, who graduated from Houghton College, earned his master’s and doctorate at Johns Hopkins University before joining Westmont’s history department in 1994. His books include Encounters of the Spirit: Native Americans and European Colonial Religion and Protestant Pluralism and the New York Experience; A Study of Eighteenth-Century Religious Diversity.

 Pacifist Prophet: Papunhank and the Quest for Peace in Early America is expected to be published in fall 2020.