# Jon W. Parmenter

**Source**: https://americanstudies.cornell.edu/jon-w-parmenter
**Parent**: https://americanstudies.cornell.edu/faculty-books

## Associate Professor

### Overview

I am a historian of colonial North America, specializing in the history of indigenous peoples in the Northeast, particularly that of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois). I took advantage of my status as a dual citizen of the Canada and the United States to train at what is now [Western University](http://history.uwo.ca/) in my hometown of London, Ontario, Canada, and completed my doctorate at [University of Michigan](https://lsa.umich.edu/history). My first book, The Edge of the Woods: Iroquoia, 1534-1701 (2010, reissued in [paperback](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/161186139X/ref=s9_simh_gw_g14_i7_r?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=desktop-1&pf_rd_r=0RZE94S5E1F8N6F7TECC&pf_rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=2079475242&pf_rd_i=desktop) in Canada and the USA in 2014) was published with the support of a [National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship](http://www.neh.gov/grants/research/fellowships). I argue that the extensive spatial mobility engaged in by Haudenosaunee people after their first contact with Europeans represented a geographical expression of Haudenosaunee social, political, and economic priorities. I drew on archival and published documents in several languages, archaeological data, published Haudenosaunee oral traditions, and GIS technology to reconstruct the 17th-century Haudenosaunee settlement landscape and the paths of human mobility that built and sustained it. Many of my article-length publications in journals such as Journal of Early American History, Diplomatic History, William and Mary Quarterly, and Recherches Amerindiennes au Quebec are available for consultation at my Academia.edu [webpage](https://cornell.academia.edu/JonParmenter). My current research interests include Cornell University’s [origins in Indigenous dispossession](https://cuidproject.com/), the impact of the U.S./Canada border on Native American nations, and contemporary Haudenosaunee nation-building initiatives.

At Cornell I am fortunate to reside in close proximity to the people and places I research and write about, and I have also had the privilege to serve as a legal and historical consultant to several Haudenosaunee communities, including most recently the [Mohawk Council of Akwesasne](http://www.akwesasne.ca/)and the [Six Nations of the Grand River](https://www.sixnations.ca/).  Since December 2014 I have been qualified to testify as an expert witness in several court cases related to Indigenous rights claims in Canada and my research and testimony contributed to the outcome of a landmark case [decided](https://www.firstpeopleslaw.com/public-education/blog/reframing-aboriginal-rights-r-c-montour) in the Superior Court of Québec in November 2023, R. v. White and Montour.

My teaching at Cornell includes courses such as: Everything You Know About Indians is Wrong: An Introduction to Native American History, the American Revolutionary era and seminars on Early American Cartography; the U.S.-Canada Border; Dispossession, Truth, and Reconciliation; and New World Encounters. In 2011-12 I was a recipient of the [Stephen and Margery Russell Award for Distinguished Teaching](http://as.cornell.edu/russell-distinguished-teaching-award#recipients) in the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell. In addition to my work on campus I am frequently on the road speaking to secondary educators, town historians, and the general public in venues such as Fort Ticonderoga's National Endowment for the Humanities ["Landmarks in American History and Culture Workshops,"](http://www.fortticonderoga.org/education/neh) [Johnson Hall State Historic Site](http://nysparks.com/historic-sites/10/details.aspx), the [Ontario County Historical Society](http://ochs.org/), and the [Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown](http://www.fenimoreartmuseum.org/).

### Research Focus

- Indigenous North America (esp. Haudenosaunee)
- Early American History
- Historical Geography
- Race and Ethnicity
- Social

### Publications

*MONOGRAPH*

The Edge of the Woods: Iroquoia, 1534-1701.  Michigan State University Press, 2010; paperback edition, University of Manitoba Press, 2014.

*PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES*

“Confronting Cornell University’s Origins in Indigenous Dispossession,” in Vanessa Holden and Michael Witgen, eds., “Forum: ‘The End of Early America?’” William and Mary Quarterly 81 (January 2024): 123-34.

"The Meaning of Kaswentha and the Two Row Wampum Belt in Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) History: Can Indigenous Oral Tradition be Reconciled with the Documentary Record?" Journal of Early American History 3 (2013): 82-109.

"The Perils and Possibilities of Wartime Neutrality on the Edges of Empires: Iroquois and Acadians between the British and French in North America, 1744-60."  (coauthored with Mark P. Robison) Diplomatic History 31 (2007): 167-206.

"After the Mourning Wars: The Iroquois as Allies in Colonial North American Campaigns, 1676-1760." William and Mary Quarterly 64 (2007): 39-82.

*BOOK CHAPTERS AND INVITED ESSAYS*

"Separate Vessels: Hudson, the Dutch, and the Iroquois."  In Jaap Jacobs and Louis Roper, eds., The Worlds of the Seventeenth Century Hudson Valley (Albany: SUNY Press, 2014), 103-33.

"In the Wake of Cartier: The Indigenous Context of Champlain's Activities in the St. Lawrence Valley and Upper Great Lakes, 1550-1635."  In Nancy Nahra, ed., When the French Were Here…And They're Still Here: Proceedings of the 2009 Champlain Quadricentennial Conference (Burlington, VT: Champlain College, 2010), 87-115.

"'Onenwahatirighsi Sa Gentho Skaghnughtudigh': Reassessing Iroquois Relations with the Albany Commissioners of Indian Affairs, 1723-1755."  In Nancy Rhoden, ed., English Atlantics Revisited: Essays Honouring Professor Ian K. Steele (Montréal, QC, and Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2007), 235-83.

*ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRIES AND SHORT ESSAYS*

“The Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768).” Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, 2024. <https://encyclopediavirginia.org> 

“La Ligue haudenosaunee, ou l’art du récit.” In Pierre Singaravélou, et al, eds., Colonisations: Notre Histoire (Paris: Seuil, 2023), 887-89.

“Indigenous Nations and US Foreign Policy.” In Jon Butler, ed., Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History (New York, NY: Oxford University Press; article published June 2020). doi: <https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.744>

“Iroquois Diplomacy.” In Gordon Martel, ed., The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Diplomacy (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2018).

"Native Americans," in Mark G. Spencer, ed., Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of the American Enlightenment (2 vols., New York: Bloomsbury, 2015), 2: 740-43.

"The Beaver Wars," in Antonio Thomson and Christos Frentzos, eds., The Routledge Handbook of U.S. Diplomatic and Military History: Colonial Period to 1877 (New York: Routledge, 2014), 33-41.

"Agriculture." In John Demos, ed.,American Centuries: The Ideas, Issues, and Trends that Made U.S. History, Volume 2, The Seventeenth Century (New York: MTM Publishing, 2011), 17-23.

## In the news

- [Faculty research university’s ties to Indigenous dispossession](/news/faculty-research-universitys-ties-indigenous-dispossession)
- [18th-century library map details Seneca and Cayuga villages](/news/18th-century-library-map-details-seneca-and-cayuga-villages)

## Courses - Fall 2025

- [AMST 2391 : From Terra Incognita to Territories of Nation-States: Early American History in Two Dozen Maps](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/FA25/class/AMST/2391)
- [AMST 2665 : The American Revolutionary Era](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/FA25/class/AMST/2665)

## Courses - Spring 2026

- [AMST 2660 : Everything You Know About Indians is Wrong: Unlearning Native American History](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/SP26/class/AMST/2660)
- [AMST 4674 : Dispossession, Truth, and Reconciliation](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/SP26/class/AMST/4674)