Mark Miller

Professor of History

  • Cedar City UT UNITED STATES

Specializing in Native American identity and citizenship, wars of independence, and the economic history of the American midwest

Contact

Biography

Dr. Mark Miller is the department chair and professor of history at Southern Utah University. His research and teaching specialties include United States History, American West, Borderlands, Indigenous Culture and History, World Civilization, and Latin America. He has published articles and books on modern American Indian History, most recently Forgotten Tribes (2006) and Claiming Tribal Identity (2013). He has published articles on race and ethnicity, on indigenous identity and politics in several journals.

Dr. Miller has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and other publications on issues of tribal recognition. In the past several years his research on the United Houma Nation and other Louisiana tribes was noted in the AP Business Insider, AP The Big Story, and the Shreveport Times. Most recently his work was quoted in, "Meet the Native American Rachel Dolezal," in The Daily Beast:

Dr. Miller has a bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M University, and masters and a doctorate from the University of Arizona.

Spotlight

2 min

Professor Helps Mowa Band of Choctaw Indians Secure Federal Tribal Acknowledgment

Dr. Mark E. Miller, Professor of History at Southern Utah University, recently wrote a brief in support of the MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians receiving federal tribal acknowledgment. After being denied federal acknowledgment in the 1990s, the Band is now looking to their congressional representatives to secure tribal status through an act of Congress. “It is not well-known, but there are over one hundred groups that identify as Aboriginal communities in the U.S. that the federal government never formally recognized as tribes,” said Dr. Miller. “Currently the MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians is recognized by the State of Alabama. They have a small reservation, a tribal center, a few housing developments built with federal grants, and a sports complex. That said, state recognition is far inferior compared to the benefits that federal status conveys.” Dr. Miller is uniquely qualified to represent the MOWA Band. His decades of experience and knowledge provided the foundation for his first book on the federal tribal acknowledgment process, Forgotten Tribes. His second book, Claiming Tribal Identity, focuses on the conflict between the Five “Civilized” Tribes (now known as the Five Tribes), most particularly the Cherokee Nation, and dozens of unrecognized bands that purport to descend from the Five Tribes. An entire chapter outlines the problems the MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians faced in using Euro-American historical records in proving its “race” as a Choctaw enclave. Bill S.3443 to extend federal recognition to the MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians was introduced to the U.S. Senate by Senator Richard C. Shelby (R-AL), a long-time supporter of the MOWA Band, in January 2022. The bill is currently in committee and will likely be approved by the Senate later this year.

Mark Miller

2 min

Continuing to Learn and Explore American History

In the United States, students take several American history courses throughout their K-12 experience. So, why should students bother to continue taking American history courses in college? For Southern Utah University's Dr. Mark Miller, the answer is simple. “When I teach a history course, I am always looking for ways to point out how an issue or event in the past is relevant to something going on in today's world,” said Dr. Miller. “With this year's presidential election going on there have been plenty of examples to tie into regarding past politics and past political crises we have lived through as Americans.” Dr. Miller has conducted some exciting research that will be published in 2021. His upcoming articles includes: “Polygamy under the Red Cliffs: Women’s Voices and Historical Memory at Centennial Park” in Utah Historical Quarterly, “A River Again: Fossil Creek, Desert Fishes, and Dam Removal in the American Southwest” in Pacific Historical Review, and “‘One Territory, Many Peoples:” Racial and Ethnic Groups and the Development of Arizona Territory” in The Smoke Signal. “I think my work on plural marriage and environmental history shows that history is never dead,” said Dr. Miller. “It reveals that in current debates history is quite important. What happened in the past still informs the present. Since both of these topics are quite controversial today, I think historians provide a valuable service by exposing the history behind debates over allowing polygamy in modern America or whether we should make trade offs in development and water use to preserve unique species. Knowledge of people who practice plural marriage and their religious history as well as the history of preservation efforts toward endangered species is vital to all participants in the debates.” Dr. Mark Miller is a professor of history and the department chair of History, Sociology, & Anthropology at Southern Utah University. His research and teaching specialties include United States History, American West, Borderlands, Indigenous Culture and History, World Civilization, and Latin America. He has published articles and books on modern American Indian History, most recently Forgotten Tribes (2006) and Claiming Tribal Identity (2013). He has published articles on race and ethnicity, on indigenous identity and politics in several journals. Dr. Miller is familiar with the media and available for an interview. Simply visit his profile.

Mark Miller

Social

Industry Expertise

Education/Learning
Writing and Editing

Areas of Expertise

Indigenous Peoples of the Americas
Twentieth Century U.S. History
Environmental History
American West
U.S. Mexico Borderlands
Mormon Plural Marriage

Education

University of Arizona

Ph.D.

United States, Native Americans, American West, Borderlands

Minor Field: Latin America

University of Arizona

M.A.

Texas A&M University

B.A.

Accomplishments

Professor of the Year Award

Finalist

Distinguished Educator of the Year

Southern Utah University

Outstanding Scholarship Award

College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Southern Utah University

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Affiliations

  • American Association of University Professors
  • Western History Association
  • Rocky Mountain Council for Latin American Studies
  • American Society for Ethnohistory
  • Association for Borderlands Studies
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Media Appearances

Pushed to the edge, tribe members in coastal Louisiana wonder where to go after Ida

NPR  online

2021-10-02

In 1994, the Bureau of Indian Affairs rejected the tribe's petition because it did not meet the federal criteria needed to earn the formal status. The United Houma Nation failed to prove that it was a unified community, that it had a modern political body or that it had descended from a tribe named Houma, the bureau said at the time.

"The government's position was basically, in a nutshell, that you are Indigenous, but you can't prove what tribe you came from," said Mark Miller, a history professor at Southern Utah University history and author of the book Forgotten Tribes.

As early as 1682, French writings place the tribe on the Mississippi River, just north of present-day Baton Rouge, according to Miller. In the late 1700s through the 1800s, European and American settlements eventually drove the Houma south to settle in the coastal region.

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Tribes were displaced, and slavery was brought here. So how should Utahns view Mormon Pioneer Day?

Salt Lake Tribune  online

2021-07-07

As Utahns prepare to celebrate Pioneer Day — some with reverent songs and a costumed parade, others with irreverent (“pie and beer day”) and rowdy escapades — it may be time to rethink what exactly the holiday means to the whole Beehive State. And what history is worth remembering.

In his approach to the state holiday, Mark Miller, who teaches history and Native American identity and citizenship at Southern Utah University, describes for his students the “travails and religious persecution that Latter-day Saints faced as they fled from the East,” he says. “I don’t emphasize race relations when talking about the first Mormon pioneer company entering the valley that day.”

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SUU History day; a faith-promoting founding and a symbol of community spirit

St George News  online

2019-08-25

“The festival is an important part of outside perceptions of SUU and Cedar City in general,” SUU history professor Mark Miller said. “It brings in a lot of talent and outside energy to the campus, especially when students come for competitions and people come to stay during the summer to attend the plays.”

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Research Grants

Center of Excellence for Teaching & Learning, Faculty Development Support Fund Grant,

Southern Utah University

The Provost's Office graciously provides Southern Utah University faculty with two funding grants to support their professional development.

Articles

“A River Again: Fossil Creek, Desert Fishes, and Dam Removal in the American Southwest.

Pacific Historical Review

Mark Miller

This article details the successful campaign to decommission two hydroelectric plants and a dam on Fossil Creek in Arizona—a rare perennial stream in the Southwest.

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Polygamy under the Red Cliffs: Women’s Voices and Historical Memory at Centennial Park

Utah Historical Quarterly

Mark Miller

A look into Polygamy under the Red Cliffs: Women’s Voices and Historical Memory at Centennial Park

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Claiming Tribal Identity The Five Tribes and the Politics of Federal Acknowledgment

University of Oklahoma Press

Mark Miller

Who counts as an American Indian? Which groups qualify as Indian tribes? These questions have become increasingly complex in the past several decades, and federal legislation and the rise of tribal-owned casinos have raised the stakes in the ongoing debate. In this revealing study, historian Mark Edwin Miller describes how and why dozens of previously unrecognized tribal groups in the southeastern states have sought, and sometimes won, recognition, often to the dismay of the Five Tribes—the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles.

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Courses

HIST 1510 World History from 1500 C.E. to Present

This survey examines the political, social, cultural, economic, religious, scientific, and intellectual influences on the development of Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Europe from 1500 to the present. The emphasis is global, comparative, and multicultural.

HIST 1700 American Civilization

The fundamentals of American history including political, economic, and social development of American institutions and ideas.

HIST 2700 United States 1607-1877

A political, social and economic survey of the period, emphasizing the forces for American Independence, the development of the Constitution, the emergence of Jacksonian democracy, the causes and aftermath of the Civil War.

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