John Frederick Schwaller

John Frederick Schwaller earned a BA in History from Grinnell College.  He received an MA in Spanish and Portuguese from the University of Kansas, and a doctorate in Colonial Latin American History from Indiana University. 

Schwaller’s academic career began at Florida Atlantic University, where he served from 1979-93, with a joint appointment in both History and in Languages and Linguistics. He became the Associate Dean of the Schmidt College of Arts and Humanities in 1989.  While in South Florida, Schwaller also served as a Visiting Professor of History at the St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary, Boynton Beach, FL. 

In 1993-95 he served as the Director of the Academy of American Franciscan History (AAFH), located in Berkeley, CA.  He also held an academic appointment of the Franciscan School of Theology.  Continuing as Director of the AAFH, in 1995 Schwaller became the Associate Provost and Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs of the University of Montana (Missoula), where he also held academic appointments in History and Spanish.  In 2001 Schwaller was appointed the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs of the University of Minnesota, Morris, with a faculty appointment. In 2006, Schwaller became the fifteenth President of SUNY Potsdam.  In 2013 he stepped down from the presidency and took an appointment as a Professor of History at the University at Albany (SUNY).

In recognition of his career in higher education, in 2009 he was awarded a Doctorate of Humane Letters, honoris causa, by his alma mater, Grinnell College. In 2013, he was inducted into the Spanish Imperial Order of Carlos V in recognition of his efforts to increase awareness of Spanish history and culture.   The Academy of American Franciscan History named him an Honorary Scholar and gave him the Tibesar Award for Lifetime Achievement. He also received the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Research in 2018, and in 2022 the Distinguished Service Award of the American Society of Ethnohistory. During the 2025-26 academic year he is the Jay Kislak Chair in the Study of the History and Culture of the Early Americas at the Library of Congress.

He is known for his work on the secular clergy in early colonial Mexico, Nahuatl language manuscripts, a history of the Catholic Church in Latin America,  He has assisted Stafford Poole on an English translation of a confessional manual written by the Third Provincial Council of Mexico (1585). His recent works include a study of the landing of the Cortés expedition at Veracruz and the petition of the company to the crown., The First Letter from New Spain and a book on the Aztec month of Panquetzaliztli, The Fifteenth Month. Recently he published The Stations of the Cross in Colonial Mexico, a history of the devotion and analysis of a version translated to Nahuatl by Fr. Agustin de Vetancurt. In 2025 he was the co-editor with Vitus Huber of a collection of essays reexamining the Spanish conquest of Mexico.

A former Editor of Ethnohistory, he has served on the Editorial Board of The Americas since 1993, is the former Editor and currently Associate Editor for specil projects.