George Fox University

Faculty Member, History and Political Science

Department Chair, Professor of History

About

Paul Otto specializes in European-Native American relations in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century North America.  His first book, "The Dutch-Munsee Encounter in America: The Struggle for Sovereignty in the Hudson Valley," is published by Berghahn Press. Growing out of this research he has begun work on a new project focusing upon the use and development of wampum in the colonial northeast in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This project is tentatively titled, "Beads of Power: Wampum and the Shaping of the Early American Frontier."

In 1998, he received the Hendricks Award for his work on Dutch-Indian interactions. In recognition for his work on New Netherland, he has been made a fellow of the New Netherland Institute and the Holland Society of New York. 
He has also received awards, grants, or fellowships from the Gilder Lehrman Institute-Council of Independent Colleges, the J. William Fulbright program, the Andrew Mellon Foundation and the Henry E. Huntington Library, the Earhart Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Paul Otto is available to lecture on topics related to his research and teaching expertise.  In particular, he is prepared to speak on the following topics:

-“Beads of Power: A Short History of Wampum”
-“Manhattan Island for Sale: The Meaning of Dutch-Munsee Indian Land Exchanges"
-“Wilden and Calvinisten: Native Americans, Dutch Attitudes, and Christian Missions in New Netherland”
-“Going Native: White Indians Take Hollywood Films Captive” (lecture and slide presentation)

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