ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Completing this book was a long journey that included many side paths, explorations that lasted longer than expected, and some wandering to absorb the amazing and challenging surroundings of life along the way. While I completed much of this journey as a solitary task, there are countless strangers, colleagues, friends, and family to thank for keeping me on the path and pushing me toward the finish line.

My interest in The People of the Longhouse began in long conversations with Elizabeth Mancke at the University of Akron. I am saddened that she was not able to read the final product, but her mentoring and friendship made possible my engagement in academic research and university-level teaching. Under the direction of Alan Taylor at the University of California, Davis, my research interests in The People of the Longhouse became more focused and developed, and evolved into what follows here. It is difficult to describe the thanks and appreciation I owe him for his patience, mentoring, and competitive spirit that have made me a better writer and teacher, and his unfailing confidence that I would complete this journey. Thank you, Alan, for never giving up on me.

Numerous librarians and archival staff at the Newberry Library, New York Public Library, New York State Archives, Cornell University, Hamilton College, New York Historical Society, New York State Library, DeWitt-Tompkins County Historical Society, Montgomery County Historical Society, Old Fort Johnson, Rochester Museum and Science Center, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and the University of Houston provided immeasurable assistance in locating books, maps, and random collections of letters. I want to especially thank Christian Kelleher for introducing me to the Colonel Israel Shreve Papers in the University of Houston's Special Collections. I would never have guessed that one could find eyewitness accounts of Haudenosaunee subsistence practices deep in the heart of Texas. I also owe an incredible debt to James Akerman and Kathy Brosnan for accepting me into their National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute on Mapping Nature Across the Americas at the Newberry Library in 2014. The interdisciplinary backgrounds of fellow participants and intellectual rigor of the program allowed me to reconsider the use of maps in my own research.

Colleagues and administrators at the University of Houston have also supported my teaching and research at critical junctures. Sarah Fishman, John Hart, Sue Kellogg, and Nancy Beck Young opened opportunities as I traveled from contingent faculty to a permanent member of the department of history. I thank each of them for their support in my teaching and confidence in my research. Dan O’Connor, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, provided relief from teaching during two key semesters as I finished manuscript revisions. Several of my colleagues have offered their expertise on different chapters, before and after the completion of the manuscript. They include Matthew Clavin, Mark Goldberg, Todd Romero, and Jimmy Schafer. I especially want to thank Philip Howard, David McNally and Abed Takriti for their willingness to read multiple chapters and help me work through new ideas. I would also like to thank Sarah Grossman and Katlyn Bond of the Cornell University Press, as well as Debbie Ryan and Maureen O’Driscoll, for their eye for detail and carrying this manuscript to its final publication. They have each been a joy to work with. The two anonymous readers for Cornell University Press provided critical analysis and recommendations that have made the final product more interdisciplinary and the writing more polished. Any remaining errors, however, are mine alone.

While the network of colleagues who helped me refine my teaching, research, and writing has been critical to thriving in the academy, nothing compares to the support system of friends and family who make daily life more enjoyable and are always there to lift me up and keep me on the path. Many colleagues have become dear friends, have been unwavering in their support and love, and are always available for cold libations. I want to give a special thanks to my esteemed colleagues and dearest friends Nandini Bhattacharya, Pratik Chakrabarti, Tshepo Chéry, Alexey Golubev, David McNally, Don and Kathy Pierson, Abed Takriti, and Cihan Yüksel. You have all made my home away from home a better place. Finally, I am incredibly lucky to have a strong network of family support. Philip has been by my side on this journey, every step of the way. I thank him for his enduring love and support, his friendship, his good taste in music, and his great smile that makes every day better than the last. I could not have achieved this goal without him. Along this journey, Kathleen Elizabeth and Thomas Albert have joined us and made our home a more joyful place. My family support network, however, begins with my parents. As a first-generation college student, my parents were not entirely sure why I graduated from one college only to start again at another. My three brothers wondered when I would ever “get a job.” Learning curve and jokes aside, my family has never wavered in their support, despite the time and great distances this journey has taken. It is to my parents, Sandy and Rick, that I dedicate this book.