Meet Smith College’s 2026 Cromwell Day Speaker Alaina Roberts

Author and educator Alaina Roberts, an associate professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh and the 2026 Smith College Cromwell Day keynote speaker, says the inspiration for her research on the interwoven histories of Black and Native American people began as “a question mark” about her own ancestry.

Roberts says it wasn’t until she was a college student that she discovered her family roots are African American, Native American (Chickasaw and Choctaw), and white.

Her award-winning book, I’ve Been Here All the While: Black Freedom on Native Land, recounts how Roberts’s ancestors—people of African descent enslaved by members of the Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes—arrived in the mid-1800s in what is now Oklahoma. (Members of the Chickasaw, Choctaw, and three other tribal nations adopted African chattel slavery in the 18th century.)

By exploring the histories of Black people, Native Americans, and white people who migrated to what was then Indian Territory, the book upends prevailing wisdom about slavery, Reconstruction, and the settlement of the American West.

Roberts will explore those ideas—as well as her current work as the founder of Freedmen Futures public history initiative—in her Cromwell Day plenary address on November 10, at 10 a.m. Livestream access to the plenary will be available for Smith community members who log in with their Smith credentials.

Here’s what Roberts had to say in an interview about her work and how it relates to this year’s Cromwell Day theme, “Building Community Through Solidarity.”

Was there an “aha” moment that led to your research?
“It comes from a question mark that I felt for a lot of my life—not understanding why my family members looked the way they did. Most African American families have people of various types. My father was very light skinned—often confused for white. It wasn’t until I was in college and I asked him to help me research his family that I discovered the way he looked was a result of white and Native American ancestry.”

Your first book offers a different view of American history, including slavery and the settlement of the West. How was that received?
“I got pushback, but I was also welcomed more than I expected into a lot of different spaces. The confusion a lot of people had with this narrative is the desire on the part of Black people to see Black and Native people as allies. To know that some Native Americans were actually part of the same oppression [of chattel slavery] is painful. My white students often have no idea about this history, and it helps them understand the fundamentals of Black slavery.”

What does your research reveal about prevailing views of the American West?
“The West is so often seen as a place of freedom that is different from the traditional North/South. This [research] shows us that the same systems of slavery came out West because people from the East came West. With broader Black/Native relationships, when there was an attempt to get Native Americans to serve as slave catchers, some tribes said ‘No.’ Whereas the people I studied looked at slavery as an opportunity to become financially successful.”

What do you hope will be the impact of your work?
“Even if our history of oppression seems to pit us against each other, there is always a chance of doing better. That’s what my work is about now. I’m working with Chickasaw and Choctaw tribal citizens to encourage them to acknowledge their history. They have museums and public history sites that completely ignore slavery. We’ve spoken to tribal leaders in the past and corresponded with the Chickasaw government. It’s an organizing project that I’m writing about at the same time that I’m writing about broader Chickasaw history.”

How do you go about convincing people to face difficult histories?
“A lot of people I’ve come across so far have heard whispers of this history and want to know more about it. This is something that, of course, the Chickasaw Nation has to discuss. We had our first event last year in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and we’re looking forward to doing more. It seems like a moment when there is a national, or at least a regional conversation, and people want to look inward. It’s something we are building slowly.”