Dr. Arwin D. Smallwood is an Associate Professor of Colonial American History at the University of Memphis. He was born and raised in Windsor, North Carolina, a town in the eastern part of the state. He received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from North Carolina Central University and his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University.
His research focuses on mapping African-American, Native-American, and Early American history. It also examines the creolization, or merging, of the three cultures – African, Native and European during the colonial period particularly in eastern North Carolina. He primarily writes about the lives of the Native American, African and European inhabitants of Indian Woods North Carolina in Bertie County over its 400 years of recorded history, and how their lives shaped and were shaped by their surrounding landscape. His work documents the long history of the region and explains the intertwined histories of the groups he studies through maps he designs and illustrations and photos he mines from archives, special collections, and private collections.
He has also organized or contributed to several sets of archived papers
including: "The Bart F. Smallwood Papers,"
(over 5,000 items) housed by
the Manuscripts Department, Southern Historical Collection,
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, copyright 1997.
"The Wylie Family Papers" housed in the Southern Historical Collection at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill copies of material on disk are also
housed in Bradley University's Special Collections. Digitized and organized over
700 photographs of African Americans from annuals, yearbooks, newspaper, private
collections of local residents and photographic archives of Bradley University's
Special Collections and the Peoria, Illinois Public Library.
His first book, The Atlas of African-American History and Politics: From the Slave Trade to Modern Times, traces the history of African Americans from Africa to the Americas using over 150 originally produced maps and historic narratives which graphically reinforce historical facts. The work is widely recognized by scholars as an essential historical resource. “The Smallwood Atlas is unique in its extensive coverage of the African-American experience. It portrays quite vividly the several stages through which blacks made their way from the old world to the new, from the 17th century to the present. Thus, it is a valuable addition to African-American history and culture.” - John Hope Franklin, James B. Duke Professor Emeritus, Duke University
Dr. Smallwood’s third book, Bertie County: An Eastern Carolina History, was based on his current and ongoing research from which he plans to publish several books and articles including Indian Woods at the Cross Roads of three Cultures and The Tuscarora: A Complete history of the Sixth Iroquois Nation. All of his current work involves cartography and the mapping and documenting of the mixing of Native-American, African, and European culture in North Carolina, the South and Colonial America.
In 2007, he was invited to present a paper entitled, “Mapping Red Black and White in America: Documenting Through Maps the Merging of Native American, African and English Cultures, 1584-1776” at the New World Cartographies: Mapping America, 1500-1776 Conference sponsored by the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford and the American Museum in Britain in Bath, England.
He is the recipient of several prestigious awards and fellowships including the Archie K. Davis Fellowship by the North Caroliniana Society, the Joel Williamson Visiting Scholar Grant at the Southern Historical Collection of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Gilder Lehrman Fellowship by the Gilder Lehrman Research Institute, the Mellon Research Fellowship by the Virginia Historical Society, and the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship awarded by the Library Company of Philadelphia and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. He has also been awarded the Focus Fellowship by the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Dr. Smallwood has taught a number of courses in American, Colonial American, African-American, Native-American, Southern and World History. Through these courses he examines the merging of European, Native American and African peoples and their culture in the New World. His courses more specifically examine the Sugar, Tobacco, Rice, and Indigo cultures of the colonial period and the Cotton: culture of the antebellum period. Other courses he teaches include Independent Readings and Research seminars for M.A. and Ph.D. students studying in his area.
Dr. Smallwood has designed PowerPoint presentations for most of his classes and has been appointed to the education curriculum committee of the Historic Hope Foundation of Windsor, North Carolina where he has given several lectures. He works with Grading Assistants, Teaching Assistants and at least one Research Assistant each semester. During his tenure at the University of Memphis, he helped develop the justification for the field in African-American History and to design core courses for the new Ph.D. field in African-American History. He has given presentations for the UNESCO Education Project for Middle and High School Student teachers hosted by the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute on how to use maps in the teaching of African-American and Native-American History and has been selected to serve as an A. P. US History Reader for the Educational Testing Service. Dr. Smallwood is also an invited lecturer for the Center for International Studies at the University of Delaware. The Center’s purpose is to promote understanding between the United States and Middle Eastern Countries. The program was sponsored by the United States Department of State as part of the State Department’s Middle Eastern Partnership Initiative.
Dr. Smallwood has also served as the advisor to the Graduate Association for African American History since 2004 where he has helped the organization draft a constitution and secure funding to plan and host it's annual African-American History Conference. He assisted the organization, the Department of History, College of Arts and Sciences and the University of Memphis in planning and organizing a program to honor the “Memphis State Eight” in 2006. This University-wide effort was successful in moving the university forward by examining its past. Dr. Smallwood continues to work with a number of honors undergraduate, M.A. and Ph. D. students studying in his research area.