Sovereignty and Strife: The Civil War Era in Indian Territory

Join us on October 15–17 for the 2026 Steven and Janice Brose Distinguished Lecture Series featuring Fay Yarbrough, senior associate dean of faculty and graduate programs, William Gaines Twyman Professor of History, Rice University. Yarbrough’s lectures are titled, “Sovereignty and Strife: The Civil War Era in Indian Territory.”

Professor Yarbrough’s research interests focus on the Native populations of the southeastern United States and Indian Territory during the nineteenth century. She is particularly interested in the interactions between Indigenous peoples and people of African descent.

Her first book, Race and the Cherokee Nation: Sovereignty in the Nineteenth Century, explores the complex relationship between the construction of sexual boundaries and the formation of tribal and racial identities. Professor Yarbrough also co-edited a collection of essays entitled Gender and Sexuality in the Indigenous Americas, 1400–1850 with Sandra Slater (College of Charleston).

Professor Yarbrough’s most recent book is Choctaw Confederates: The American Civil War in Indian Country, which considers the participation of Choctaw Indians in the American Civil War.