James L. Axtell (December 20, 1941 - August 29, 2023) was an American historian. He was a professor of history at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. Axtell, whose interests lie in American Indian history and the history of higher education, was the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Humanities. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004. Axtell retired at the end of the spring 2008 semester, although he taught a class at Princeton University in the fall of 2009.