Dr. Arwin D. Smallwood is an Associate Professor of Colonial American History at the University of Memphis. He received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Political Science and history from North Carolina Central University and his Ph.D. in history from The Ohio State University. His research focuses on mapping African-American, Native-American, and Early American history. It also examines the creolization, or merging, of the three cultures during the colonial period particularly in eastern North Carolina. He primarily writes about the lives of the inhabitants of Indian Woods, North Carolina in Bertie County over its 400 years of recorded history, and how their lives shaped and were shaped by their surrounding landscape. His work documents the long history of the region and explains the intertwined histories of the groups he studies through maps he designs and illustrations and photos he mines from archives, special collections, and private collections.
He
has also organized or contributed to several sets of archived papers including:
"The
Bart F. Smallwood Papers," (over 5,000 items) housed by the Manuscripts
Department,
Southern Historical Collection, The University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill. He has digitized and organized over 700 photographs of African Americans
from annuals, yearbooks, newspaper, private collections of local residents and
photographic archives of Bradley University's Special Collections and the
Peoria, Illinois Public Library material are on disks. He has also been a
participant in Bradley University’s
Berlin Seminar.
His first book,
The Atlas of African-American History and
Politics: From the Slave Trade to Modern Times, traces the
history of African Americans from Africa to the Americas using over 150
originally produced maps and historic narratives which graphically reinforce
historical facts. The work is widely recognized by scholars as an essential
historical resource. “This is the most extraordinary collection of maps and
narrative that I have ever seen. It is absolutely essential that all students in
Africa and African-American history and studies possess this volume.” –
Dr. Darlene Clark Hine,
Board of Trustees Professor and Chair of African American Studies and Professor
of History, Northwestern University and past president of the
Organization of American Historians
and the Southern Historical Association.
Dr. Smallwood’s third book, Bertie County: An Eastern Carolina History, was based on his dissertation and current and ongoing research from which he plans to publish several books and articles including Indian Woods at the Cross Roads of three Cultures and The Tuscarora: A Complete history of the Sixth Iroquois Nation. All of his current work involves cartography and the mapping and documenting of the mixing of Native-American, African, and European culture in North Carolina, the South and Colonial America.
In 2007, he was among 13 scholars of Cartography and Native American History invited to present a paper at the New World Cartographies Conference sponsored by the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford and the American Museum in Britain in Bath, England. The conference theme was Mapping America, 1500-1776. His paper was titled “Mapping Red Black and White in America: Documenting Through Maps the Merging of Native American, African and English Cultures, 1584-1776.” He has also participated in the John Hope Franklin Center Conference on Reconciliation and effort to promote racial understanding and healing among Blacks, Native Americans and Whites similar to South Africa’s and other countries like Liberia’s efforts.
He is the recipient of several prestigious awards and fellowships including the American Philosophical Society’s Library Resident Research Fellowship and their Franklin Research Grant. He has recently been awarded The National Endowment for the Humanities African-American Research Grant Fellowship for the John D. Rocker Feller, Jr. Library of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. He has also held the Focus Fellowship by the Georgia Institute of Technology, the Archie K. Davis Fellowship from the North Caroliniana Society, the Joel Williamson Visiting Scholar Grant from the Southern Historical Collection of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Gilder Lehrman Fellowship by the Gilder Lehrman Research Institute, the Mellon Research Fellowship by the Virginia Historical Society, and the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship awarded by the Library Company of Philadelphia and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. He has also been awarded the Focus Fellowship by the Georgia Institute of Technology. He has also held a number of Fellowships and Grants offered by the University of Memphis including the Faculty Research Grant, the Professional Development Assignment and several Travel Grants. Dr. Smallwood is a Life member of the American Historical Association, Southern Historical Association, and the Association for the Study of African-American Life and History and also holds membership in the Organization of American Historians and the Iroquois Conference.
Dr. Smallwood has taught a number of courses in Colonial American, American, African-American, Native-American, Southern and World History. Through these courses he examines the merging of European, Native American and African peoples and their culture in the New World. His courses more specifically examine the Sugar, Tobacco, Rice, and Indigo cultures of the colonial period and the Cotton: culture of the antebellum period. Other courses he teaches include Independent Readings and Research seminars for M.A. and Ph.D. students studying in his area. He has recently after receiving a Study Abroad Course Development Fellowship developed a Study Abroad Program course on Native American History and Culture. Specifically focused on the Haudenosaunee or Six Nations Iroquois of Canada.
Dr. Smallwood uses PowerPoint with audio and video embedded in presentations for most of his classes and is currently developing courses for a possible Ph.D. field in Native American History. He has participated in a number of radio and newspaper interviews including NPR WCBU. He has also participated in the making of a TV documentary titled “The Birth of A Colony: North Carolina by UNC TV," the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources and Horizons Productions. Envisioned as an educational resource that will serve North Carolina educators and students for years to come. The will be available on a companion web site that will feature interactive supplemental material, searchable chapters, and an educators' guide to assistant teachers and home schoolers in the development of instructional material. The film covers the period from 1524 to 1713.
Dr. Smallwood has been appointed to the education curriculum committee of the Historic Hope Foundation of Windsor, North Carolina where he has given several lectures. He works with Grading Assistants, Teaching Assistants and at least one Research Assistant each semester. During his tenure at the University of Memphis, he helped develop the justification for the field in African-American History and to design core courses for the new Ph.D. field in African-American History. He has given presentations for the UNESCO Education Project for Middle and High School Student teachers hosted by the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute on how to use maps in the teaching of African-American and Native-American History and has been selected to serve as an A. P. US History Reader for the Educational Testing Service. Dr. Smallwood is also an invited lecturer for the Center for International Studies at the University of Delaware. The Center’s purpose is to promote understanding between the United States and Middle Eastern Countries. The program was sponsored by the United States Department of State as part of the State Department’s Middle Eastern Partnership Initiative.