Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

NATCHEZ — Christian Pinnen’s Complexion of Empire in Natchez, Race and Slavery in the Mississippi Borderlands, published by the University of Georgia Press, has won the Mississippi Historical Society’s award for the best Mississippi history book published in 2021.

April Holm, associate professor of history at the University of Mississippi, chaired the selection panel. She quoted one panel member who stated, “This book is focused on Mississippi history, is deeply researched and original, and was engaging to read. It is filled with individual stories as

well as thoughtful analysis, and engages with Mississippi history in a truly global context. Pinnen weaves together legal history, race, and gender to show how the interplay of Native Americans, people of African descent, and European and American settlers created the changing landscape of slavery in early Mississippi.”

Pinnen is an associate professor of history at Mississippi College and teaches U.S. history, history of the Old South, Latin American survey, the American Revolution, and American slavery. He is also the co-author with Charles Weeks of Colonial Mississippi: A Borrowed Land.

The Mississippi Historical Society’s Book of the Year Award goes to the best book on a subject related to Mississippi history or biography. The prize carries a $700 cash award.

Pinnen will accept the award and deliver a lecture during the Mississippi Historical Society’s annual meeting in Hattiesburg on March 10-11, 2022.

The Mississippi Historical Society, founded in 1858, encourages outstanding work in interpreting, teaching, and preserving Mississippi history. Membership is open to anyone; benefits include receiving the Journal of Mississippi History, the Mississippi History Newsletter, and discounts at the Mississippi Museum Store. For information on becoming a member, call 601-576-6936.