Evan Haefeli

Research Interests

Evan Haefeli is an historian of colonial America and the Atlantic world, interested in Native American History as well as the religious and political aspects and consequences of early modern European (British, Dutch, and French) expansion in the Americas, including the origins of American religious freedom. He joined Texas A&M University in 2014, after teaching at Princeton, Tufts, and Columbia Universities as well as the London School of Economics. He has held fellowships from various prestigious organizations, including the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Beginning with a study of the borderland of New France (Canada) and New England his research has progressed steadily southwards through the Mid-Atlantic (first colonized by the Dutch) to the Chesapeake and now the Caribbean. In addition to finishing up a multi-book project on religious toleration in the Dutch and British colonies, he is studying the importance of anti-Catholicism to early American society as well as the diplomatic relationship of the Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee) and their Indigenous neighbors across the eastern woodlands. In between, he keeps busy with a side interest in Quakers and historical memory.

Areas of Speciality

• Atlantic World
• Early America