Join Dr. Maeve Kane of the University of Albany for the next installment of our Experts Next Door series.

When George Washington ordered the “total destruction and devastation” of Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) territories in 1779, the offensive was to that date the largest and most expensive campaign of the American Revolution. What became known as the Sullivan-Clinton campaign aimed squarely at the agricultural heart of Haudenosaunee women’s diplomatic power, cultural status, and identity by burning cornfields and felling orchards. Dr. Kane’s talk will show how Continental soldiers constructed an American identity for themselves by destroying what they called Haudenosaunee women’s “homes of contentment,” and how Haudenosaunee women preserved their nations over the course of the war.