George and Ann RichardsCivil War Era Center

Heather Menefee is completing her PhD in Native American and U.S. history at Northwestern University, where she is a Mellon Cluster Fellow in Native American and Indigenous Studies, a T.H. Breen Fellow in History, and a former Presidential Fellow. Her dissertation, “‘That We May Live Upon the Earth Again’: Kinship in Daḳota Maḳoc̣e, 1815-1939,” demonstrates how conflicting settler and Dakota conceptualizations of kinship shaped the political development of the United States and the Dakota oyate (nation) throughout the nineteenth century and beyond. Her research interests include transformations of Indigenous sovereignty and U.S. citizenship since the early nineteenth century, Dakota history, the relationship of federal Indian policy to U.S. imperialism, John Trudell’s political philosophy, and histories of the Great Lakes. As a non-Native historian, Heather is committed to supporting the return of Dakota land and the health of the Dakota language. She earned an MA in American Studies at UNC Chapel Hill in 2019, and a BA (summa cum laude) from Northwestern in 2015 with an ad hoc major in Native American Studies. abolition, or language revitalization, on or beyond campus. She enjoys the White Sox, choral singing, studying languages, and befriending other people’s dogs. Heather’s family’s donkey (pictured) is named Jackson and lives in Georgia, where he protects cows from coyotes. She is thrilled to join the Richards Center as a postdoctoral fellow and welcomes anyone to reach out.