With Upstander Project researchers Dr. Mishy Lesser & Kristine Malpica
Part of the Atlantic World Connections Speaker Series
Hosted by Atlantic Black Box
Tonight at 6:00 pm ET on Zoom
(Wednesday, May 7, 2025)
Upstander Project created the bounty rewards archive as a public learning and teaching resource to accompany the Bounty film project. The database includes 2,438 entries and represents several years of extensive archival and documentary research into scalp bounty acts and claims made by colonial governments and settlers in the northeastern Dawnland (later called New England), between 1675-1765.
The film and research on bounty laws passed by colonial governments invite us to face a history of domestic terrorism that targeted the Original peoples. Scalping people for cash rewards and land is a shocking practice, part of the story of how the United States became a nation, built by dehumanizing and dispossessing Indigenous nations who thrived here for millennia before Europeans invaded these shores.
This Wednesday, May 7 Dr. Mishy Lesser (Upstander Project co-founder and Emmy Award winning researcher) and Kristine Malpica (Upstander Project researcher and public historian) will join the Atlantic Black Box community to discuss the research and realities behind Bounty, a short filmic testimony of the resistance and survivance of Wabanaki People of the Dawnland which we encourage you to watch prior to Wednesday evening’s program.
