Ben Clingman
PhD Student
Early America / Indigenous History

Advisor: Professor Elizabeth Fenn • Ben is a second-year PhD student interested in the Indigenous and environmental history of early America. His research focuses on multi-ethnic communities of Cherokee, Lenape, Muscogee, Shawnee, and other Native migrants in the trans-Mississippi West in the half-century before the Trail of Tears (c.1770-c.1840): in particular, the new relationships Native migrants forged with the peoples and ecologies they encountered and how these shaped their evolving ideas on identity, sovereignty, and nationhood.

Ben moved to Colorado from the U.K., where he earned an MPhil in American history from the University of Cambridge and a BA in History from the University of Oxford, where he was advised by Profs. Sarah Pearsall and Pekka Hämäläinen. He is currently the Vice-President of the History Graduate Student Association.