Laurence M. Hauptman
Laurence M. Hauptman is an American historian who is currently Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at SUNY New Paltz. He is an expert on Native American history, specifically the Iroquois in the 19th and 20th centuries. Biography. Hauptman attended New York University (NYU), where he received a PhD in history. He became interest in Iroquois history while a graduate student when he read "The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca" by Anthony F. C. Wallace. Hauptman began researching the people and found "a gap in the historical literature" after 1815, and sought to "fill in that gap  by writing 19th and 20th century Haudenosaunee history." Bayrd Still mentored Hauptman at NYU, where he wrote a master's essay on the Dawes Act and contemporary Native policies that was finished by 1968. Hauptman began teaching at the State University of New York at New Paltz in 1971. On September 22, 1999, the SUNY Board of Trustees made Hauptman a Distinguished Professor, the highest rank in the SUNY system for teachers. He has worked for the Adirondack Museum, New York State Museum, and Rochester Museum and Science Center as a historian, and has served as an expert witness in  several cases on Native Americans, testifying to the United States Congress in 1990 about the Seneca Nation Settlement Act. He has also consulted with several native tribes and taught at various universities, including NYU, the University of New Mexico, and Saint Bonaventure University's graduate school. From at least 1989 to 1999 he edited the Iroquois Book Series of Syracuse University Press. He has also edited works including "The Oneida Indian Experience: Two Perspectives" (with Jack Campisi, 1988, ), "The Oneida Indian Journey: From New York to Wisconsin, 1784-1860" (with Gordon McLester III).