Kevin Kokomoor, PhD
Biography
I'm originally from Englewood, Florida, and I've had a passion for history as early as I can remember. It seemed like the only thing that made sense to me in college, so I stuck with it until the bitter end, when I received my Ph.D. in American History from Florida State University in 2013. If I could go to school for more history, I could.
I am currently a full-time faculty member in the history department at Coastal Carolina University in Myrtle Beach, SC. I teach American history survey courses and upper level courses on Native America, Colonial and Early Republican America, the Early Southeast, and the Atlantic World.
I'm also an active researcher and writer. Some of the finest libraries and societies have funded my research, including the American Philosophical Society, the Clements Library at the University of Michigan, and the Filson Historical Society. I'm proud to say I've published some excellent stuff. My newest book, La Florida, is a look at early American history that is meant for scholars and enthusiasts alike.
La Florida
Catholics, Conquistadores, and Other American Origin Stories
La Florida explores a Spanish thread to early American history that is unfamiliar or even unknown to most Americans. As this book uncovers, it was Spanish influence, and not English, which drove America’s early history. By focusing on America’s Spanish heritage, this collection of stories complicates and sometimes challenges how Americans view their past, which author Kevin Kokomoor refers to as “the country’s founding mythology.”
Dig deeper into Hispanic and Caribbean history, and how important happenings elsewhere in the Spanish colonial world influenced the discovery and colonization of the American Southeast. Follow Spanish sailors discovering the edges of a new continent and greedy, violent conquistadors quickly moving in to find riches, along with Catholic missionaries on their search for religious converts. Learn how Spanish colonialism in Florida sparked the British’s plans for colonization of the continent and influenced some of the most enduring traditions of the larger Southeast. The key history presented in the book will challenge the general assumption that whatever is important or interesting about this country is a product of its English past.
Buy La Florida:
Of One Mind and Of One Government:
The Rise and Fall of the Creek Nation in the Early Republic
"This book contributes immensely to the field of ethnohistory in its expert examination of Creek politics in the early nineteenth century and its placement of the Creek Nation into a larger context of nation building."—Alex Colvin, Chronicles of Oklahoma
“A stunning book about an indigenous people’s valiant attempts to stand up to American expansionism through an internal political revolution—an attempt that ultimately failed, not because the Creeks could not realize a new political order but because America would not let them. It is just brilliant.”—Robbie Ethridge, professor of anthropology at the University of Mississippi and author of Mapping the Mississippian Shatter Zone: The Colonial Indian Slave Trade and Regional Instability in the American South
“The subject is vital. Nationalism encompasses all people in the early nineteenth century. The Creek National Council has been a source of contention for a long time. [The book’s] bold thesis, advocating the efficacy of the Creek National Council, will generate productive debate for years to come.”—Steven C. Hahn, professor of history at St. Olaf College and author of The Invention of the Creek Nation, 1670–1763
Buy Of One Mind and of One Government
Seriously...buy one. My royalty check for all of last year was literally like $50.
Media
Book Talks, Signings, and Scheduled Media Events
Interviews, Reviews, and Podcasts
Research
As a trained Native Americanist and Ethnohistorian, my primary research interests lay in the early Southeast and their Native Peoples: mainly the Creek, Cherokee, and Seminole Indians. I study their histories and cultures, and their relationships with Euro-Americans at both the local and National levels. In addition to Of One Mind, I've published several award-winning articles on the subject, available below. I am currently in the writing stages of another monograph, tentatively titled "Twenty Years on the Dark and Bloody Ground": How a Generation of Conflict in the American South shaped the United States Constitution.
My secondary research focus is on Florida history, spanning the earliest colonial years to sport fishing in the Progressive Era. Before receiving my Ph.D., I worked with Gary Mormino and the Florida Studies Center at the University of South Florida, and early Florida history continues to serve as one of my most important and most enriching fields of scholarly inquiry.
Teaching
I have taught in the university classroom for well over a decade, and have built courses to suit the needs of several excellent institutions of higher learning, including Florida State University, the New College of Florida, the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, and the University of South Florida, Sarasota.
I have been a member of the faculty at Coastal Carolina University for almost a decade, and have created several unique syllabi for both lower and upper-level undergraduate work. These include entry-level surveys on American History, as well as original courses on Native American and Atlantic History. One recent addition is a course on American Foodways, which investigates the historical contexts of important foods and drinks in American and Caribbean history, including Sugar, Rum, Tobacco, Rice, and even BBQ.
While at Coastal I have also enjoyed the opportunity to connect students to their local and state history. I regularly teach an upper level South Carolina class, which is important for both history and education majors. I also focus regularly on the region's Cherokee, and Catawba history, as well as its history of slavery and rice cultivation, and its rich Gullah-Geechee heritage.
Education
Florida State University
Ph.D., American History
2013
The University of South Florida
M.A., History
2008
The University of South Florida
B.A., History
2006
East Tennessee State University
Too Much Partying, Not enough Studying...
A Few Selected Publications...
A Re-assessment of Seminoles, Africans, and Slavery on the Florida Frontier
Florida Historical Quarterly, 2008
Winner of the Florida Historical Society's 2009 Arthur W. Thompson Award for the most outstanding article published by the Florida Historical Quarterly in 2008
