Claudio Saunt

Claudio Saunt is an award-winning historian and author of several books on early American history. He is currently a Professor of History at the University of Georgia. His expertise and books chart the histories of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and the early period of colonization by Europeans.

Saunt was born to Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants in San Diego, California in 1966. As a child, he was taken on regular trips to the Mexico border towns of El Centro and Mexicali, helping cement his interest in Mexican-American relations and cultural history. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a BA in history in 1990 and went on to complete his Doctor of Philosophy in History at Stanford University in 1997, where his doctoral thesis focused on the 1790 Indian Trade and Intercourse Act. This was to prove a pivotal moment in American History, as it would go on to form the basis of the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

The first book of Saunt’s to be published was A New Order of Things: Property, Power, and the Transformation of the Creek Indians, 1733-1816 (1999), which was shortlisted for the Frederick Jackson Turner Award. The focus of the book was on the Creek people of Alabama and Georgia, charting the transition of these indigenous peoples from pre-colonial times to after the Revolutionary War. In 2003, Saunt published the widely acclaimed book, West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776, which looked at the long-term effects of the events of 1776 in the formation of the American republic, following settlers and Native Americans as they struggle to build a life in the newly independent nation.

In 2004, Saunt published another book, The Ownership of Enterprise (2004), which took a look at the development of private property in America prior to the Civil War. By examining a range of archives and using ‘the expanded lens of Indian slavery’, Saunt concluded that the institution of private property was deeply intertwined with African-American slavery, a theory that had previously been unexplored. His 2015 book Unworthy Republic (2015) is perhaps his best-known work, taking an in-depth look at the Indian Removal Act of 1830, examining the surrounding political and economic forces and exploring how this act of racial discrimination has cast a long, dark shadow over US-Indian relations in the years since.

Saunt has also contributed opinion pieces to the Washington Post and The New York Times, as well as appearing on radio and television programs to discuss his work. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Lincoln Prize in 2012, the Donald Nieman Best Book Award in 2003, and is a past recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship. He currently serves on the Southern Historical Association’s Executive Committee and is a Member of the Modern Western American History Council of the Organization of American Historians.

In addition to teaching and researching, Saunt is an active public historian, regularly giving talks and lectures to audiences across the country. As such, he is an invaluable resource to anyone studying the history of the early Americans, natives, settlers, and the muddled development of their nation. Through his writing, Saunt has sought to amplify the voices of the forgotten, sharing their stories and knowledge with a wider audience.