Jay Harrison

Biography

I am a cultural historian of the early modern Americas, with research interests in indigenous history and the history of colonial settlement in Mexico, the American Southwest, and the greater Atlantic world including Africa. I teach courses on world history, Latin America, indigenous peoples, the American Southwest borderlands, Atlantic societies and public history. My current research addresses the experiences of colonization of Native peoples in early Spanish Texas and that of the Spanish Franciscans who established missions in the region beginning in 1690.

As the director of a regional studies institute in Colorado before coming to Hood College, I supervised the operations of a museum, historical archive, research library and public programs. I also developed partnerships with regional and national museums and graduate programs that resulted in additional collaborative projects and new research opportunities with those institutions, most recently with the University of Colorado, the University of California at Los Angeles and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. I serve on the board of directors for the Mesa Verde Museum Association at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado.