News Flash

In collaboration with the Hampton 2019 Commemorative Commission, author Peter Cozzens will talk about his book “The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West,” as part of the Hampton History Museum’s Port Hampton Lecture Series on Monday, May 6, 7:00-8:00 p.m.

With the end of the Civil War, the nation recommenced its expansion onto traditional Indian tribal lands, setting off a wide-ranging conflict that would last more than three decades. In an exploration of the wars and negotiations that destroyed tribal ways of life even as they made possible the emergence of the modern United States, Peter Cozzens gives us both sides in comprehensive and singularly intimate detail. He illuminates the encroachment experienced by the tribes and the tribal conflicts over whether to fight or make peace, and explores the squalid lives of soldiers posted to the frontier and the ethical quandaries faced by generals who often sympathized with their native enemies.

After his talk, Peter Cozzens will sign copies of his book which will be available in the gift shop for $20. Museum members receive a 10% discount!

The talk is free for museum members and $5.00 for non-members.

Peter Cozzens

Peter Cozzens is the editor of seventeen books on the American Civil War and the American West. Cozzens also recently retired from a thirty-year career as a Foreign Service Officer, U. S. Department of State. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, he served as a captain in the U. S. Army.

His most recent book “The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West,” was published by Alfred A. Knopf in October 2016. It is the recipient of the 2017 Gilder Lehrman Prize in Military History, the Caroline Bancroft Prize in Western History, and--in translation--the 2018 HisLibris Award (Spain) for the best non-fiction work of history. The Earth is Weeping was chosen by Smithsonian Magazine as one of the top ten history books of 2016. It also made several other best books of the year lists, including Amazon, the San Francisco Chronicle, the London Times, the Seattle Times, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and Newsday.

2019 Commemorative Commission

The mission of the 2019 Commemorative Commission is to promote the history of the first Africans in the new world and to plan events leading up to a yearlong remembrance-commemoration program in 2019. In 2019, join the global commemoration of the 400th anniversary of four pivotal happenings in English North America’s Virginia colony: the arrival of the first Africans, the arrival of women, convening of the first General Assembly, and celebration of the first Thanksgiving. The First African Arrival occurred at Point Comfort in 1619, present site of national monument Fort Monroe in present-day Hampton, Virginia.