USM History Professor working with National Park Service in Study of Natchez’ Fort Rosalie

Thu, 10/24/2024 - 10:47am | By: Dr. David Tisdale

A University of Southern Mississippi (USM) School of Humanities faculty member and a former colleague will conduct a special history study of Natchez, Miss. and its famed Fort Rosalie military garrison and their intersection with native peoples and enslaved Blacks through the support of a $120,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Interior’s National Park Service (NPS). 

Dr. Max Grivno, associate professor of history in the School of the Humanities, and Dr. John Winters, will assemble an interdisciplinary team of scholars to complete the project in the coming years. Grivno has worked previously with NPS, including from 2019-22 as co-principal investigator on the study of the Forks of the Road slave market in Natchez.  

Fort Rosalie was the military garrison constructed by the French in the early 1700s and maintained by the British, the Spanish, and Americans into the early 1800s. It was the scene of the 1729 Natchez Revolt by the Natchez tribe and was a center for the economic and social life of the community for the better part of a century.   

“In many ways, Fort Rosalie is a lens to understanding how Natchez fit into the larger struggles to control the Lower Mississippi Valley,” Grivno said.

The goals for the project include increasing public awareness of and understanding of how Fort Rosalie was a key element in the development of Natchez by synthesizing decades of scholarship on the site and the city; and to provide a baseline for NPS interpretive programs for the public, as well as centering the voices of the African and Native American peoples whose lives intersected with the garrison. 

“This is an opportunity to create a foundation for future public programming at the site that is more inclusive, comprehensive, and meaningful to the many communities who have ties to the region," said Dr. Winters, who now serves as assistant director of the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center at Penn State University.

For the research team, Fort Rosalie provides a rare opportunity for the NPS to tell the interconnected stories of colonialism, dispossession, and enslavement in North America with effects that rippled up through the antebellum period. The site is a contributing element in the Natchez Under-the-Hill National Register district, rich in archaeological resources - those that remain at the site -and thousands of artifacts in the park’s museum collection and housed at the Southeast Archeological Center.  

“This [Fort Rosalie project] felt like a great opportunity to continue building my relationship with the NPS and to tell the story of Mississippi,” Grivno said of his interest in pursuing the study. “We hope our study will provide the NPS with a comprehensive roadmap for developing an interpretive program that will tell the story of this site to visitors from across the world.”

Dr. Grivno holds a Ph.D. in American history from the University of Maryland; his areas of expertise include Antebellum South, slavery, economic and labor history, and Mississippi history. Dr. Winters holds a Ph.D. In American history from the City University of New York and is a specialist in Indigenous, museum, and public history. 

Click here for information about Grivno’s work at USM and that of his colleagues, and degree programs offered in the USM School of Humanities.

(Photo credit: National Park Planner)