John Hannigan is the curator of collections at the Massachusetts Archives in Dorchester where he oversees the organization and management of permanent public records documenting almost 400 years of the state’s history. John holds a BA in History from Fairfield University, an MA in Teaching History from the UMass Boston, and Ph.D. in History from Brandeis University, where his doctoral dissertation examined the relationship between slavery and war in eighteenth-century Massachusetts. He has lectured extensively on the history of slavery and its legacy in Massachusetts, as well as on the experiences of African American soldiers during the Revolutionary War. At Brandeis, he taught undergraduate courses on the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War II, and the history of the American legal system, and he has also served as the Scholar in the Park at Minute Man National Historical Park and as the Scholar-in-Residence at the Robbins House Museum in Concord.