Memory Wars: Settlers and Natives Remember Washington’s Sullivan Expedition of 1779

Join us for a Lunch at the Library presentation from A. Lynn Smith who will be discussing her new book: Memory Wars: Settlers and Natives Remember Washington’s Sullivan Expedition of 1779.

How should we remember a Revolutionary War campaign that was also a scorched earth military expedition against Indigenous communities? Memory Wars addresses this question through a study of the Sullivan Expedition of the Revolutionary War (1779). This expedition, also known as "Washington's Indian Expedition," brought a third of the Continental Army into Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) homelands, razing over fifty Haudenosaunee settlements to the ground. This brutal expedition has been memorialized with a vast commemorative project involving 300 historical markers spanning two states. Memory Wars explores both the origins of this memorialization in the 19th century and its reverberations into the present day. In this talk, she contrasts the retelling of the Sullivan story on plaques in Pennsylvania and New York with its narration at nearby Haudenosaunee cultural centers, and considers new projects under development in advance of the expedition's 250th anniversary in 2029.

This event will take place on Thursday, December 10, 2025 at 12:00 p.m. ET in Benjamin Franklin Hall and will also be livestreamed.

In-person registration for this event is now closed. Please register to attend the livestream.

Dr. A. Lynn Smith is a historical anthropologist whose research explores settler colonialism and social memory. Her new book, Memory Wars: Settlers and Natives Remember Washington’s Sullivan Expedition of 1779, contrasts the public history of a Revolutionary War expedition with its narration at Haudenosaunee cultural centers in central New York.  Previous publications consider French settler colonialism with the award-winning Colonial Memory and Postcolonial Europe: Maltese Settlers in Algeria and France (2006) and the role of place-loss in forging community in Rebuilding Shattered Worlds: Creating Community by Voicing the Past (2016).  She is currently working on a book on public and private memories of the Walking Purchase of 1737, which removed the Lenape from eastern Pennsylvania.