• PhD, History, The University of Texas at Arlington, 2018
• MA, Heritage Resources, Northwestern State University, 2011
• MS, Labor Studies, The University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2003
• BA, Anthropology and History, The University of New Orleans, 2001

Robert Caldwell is an enrolled citizen of the Choctaw-Apache Community of Ebarb Louisiana. His first book, Choctaw-Apache Foodways received an award from the Louisiana Folklife Commission, and he was named culture bearer. He is co-founder of the HoMinti Society, a nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching his tribe’s traditional culture.  He enjoys playing Kabutcha Toli (southeastern stickball) and is honored to be a guest in Haudenosaunee lands. 

Caldwell’s longstanding research projects consist of three categories: maps and Native representation; ethnohistorical research on behalf of his own tribal community, and Native migration to the near southwest. 

In Progress:  Indians in their Proper Place: Social Sciences and the Mapping of Native America (Working Title) Under contract with the University of Nebraska Press.

with Thomas Parrie, eds. Choctaw-Apache Voices Vol 2. Lincoln, Neb: Lewis-Clark/ Sandhills Press, 2026.

"The Real Cost of Supporting BIPOC Graduate Education at an R1 University" in In the Academy, But Not at the Table: Voices of Marginalized Faculty on the Tenure Track eds. Nicolas D. Hartep, Fred Bonner and Januela Burt. New York: Routledge, 2026

“Tipis in Texas and along the Gulf of Mexico as depicted in Eighteenth-Century Spanish Maps.” The Gulf Coast Historical and Biographical Record Vol. 60 (1) Summer 2024.

“Be-ing and Longing in the shadow of Jeffrey Amherst” in Belonging in Higher Education: Perspectives and Lessons from Diverse Faculty. eds. Nicolas D. Hartep, Terrell L. Strayhorn and Fred Bonner. New York: Routledge 2024.

with Thomas Parrie, eds. Choctaw-Apache Voices. Nacogdoches, TX: Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2023.

“Filé Man: Colson’s Creole-Indigenous Continuity” Louisiana Creole Peoplehood: Afro-Indigeneity and Community. Eds. Rain Prud’homme-Cranford, Andrew Jolivétte, and Darryl Barthé. University of Washington Press, 2021.

“Persistence on the Edge: The Choctaw-Apache Community of Ebarb,” Native South. Vol. 19, 2020.

“Choctaw Frontier: Incursions and settlement in Northwest Louisiana and East Texas, 1760-1836,” North Louisiana History Fall 2020.

Choctaw-Apache Foodways. Nacogdoches, TX: Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2015. 

Introduction to Indigenous Studies 

Afro-Indigeneity: Black Natives, Anti-Blackness, and Decolonization 

Survey of Indigenous History to 1871

Survey of Indigenous History Since 1872

Independent Study/Directed Readings

Indigenous Peoples and Places of North America: Native Geographies/Settler Cartography 

Indigenous Perspectives on US History 

Indigenous Workers: Native Proletarians under Capitalism

Methods and Theory in Indigenous Historical Research

Not Recognized: Struggle for Indigenous Rights, Land, and Acknowledgement