“Best Book Award,” 2021, awarded by the Missouri Conference on History for The Lost Tradition of Economic Equality in America, 1600-1870.

Historical Society of Pennsylvania/Library Company of Philadelphia Indian Rights Association fellowship in Native American studies, summer 2021.

Distinguished Research Fellow, Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy, University of Missouri, 2018-2019.

2016, Distinguished Literary Achievement, Missouri Humanities Council

Sabbatical, 2015-2016, to work on The Lost Tradition of Economic Equality in America, 1600-1880.

Participating scholar, Egalitarian Seminar, School of Social Science, Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, 2014-2015.

Member, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass., elected 2014.

Visiting scholar, Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies, January 2013.

American Antiquarian Society-National Endowment for the Humanities Long-Term Fellowship, 2012-2013, for study of the “lost tradition” of economic equality in America.

Fellow, Massachusetts Historical Society, elected 2011.

Member, Colonial Society of Massachusetts, elected 2011.

National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar on “The Problem of Governance in the Early Republic,” Library Company of Philadelphia, 2011.

Truman Faculty Summer Research Grant, 2010.

Lawrence W. Levine Prize, 2008, awarded by the Organization of American Historians for the best book on American cultural history (Tribe, Race, History).

Andrew Mellon Foundation Research Fellowship, Library Company of Philadelphia and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 2008.

Sabbatical, 2007-2008, to study the evolution of the concept of equality in America, 1600-1880.

American Antiquarian Society, Joyce Tracy Fellowship, 2002, to study images of Indians in Southern New England, 1760-1880.

Truman State University Faculty Research Grant, 2000, to research on Indians in nineteenth-century southern New England.

National Endowment for the Humanities Research Fellowship, 1996-97, to research Indians, ethnicity, and race in New England.

Andrew Mellon Fellowship, Massachusetts Historical Society, July-August 1995, research Indians, ethnicity, and race in early New England.

National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar on “Current Issues in Native American History,” University of Arizona, 1993.

Old Sturbridge Village Research Fellowship, 1991-1992, to research Indians in nineteenth-century Massachusetts.

Massachusetts State Arts Grant, 1987-1989, to study Indians in eighteenth-century New England.