Life, Letters and Speeches

Life, Letters and Speeches
Author: George Copway
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2006-04-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780803264632

George Copway (Kahgegagahbowh, 1818?69), an Ojibwe writer and lecturer, rose to prominence in American literary, political, and social circles during the mid-nineteenth century. His colorful, kaleidoscopic life took him from the tiny Ojibwe village of his youth to the halls of state legislatures throughout the eastern United States and eventually overseas. Copway converted to Methodism as a teenager and traveled throughout the Midwest as a missionary, becoming a forceful and energetic spokesperson for temperance and the rights and sovereignty of Indians, lecturing to large crowds in the United States and Europe, and founding a newspaper devoted to Native issues. ø One of the first Native American autobiographies, Life, Letters and Speeches chronicles Copway's unique and often difficult cultural journey, vividly portraying the freedom of his early childhood, the dramatic moment of his spiritual awakening to Methodism, the rewards and frustrations of missionary work, his desperate race home to warn of a pending Sioux attack, and the harrowing rescue of his son from drowning.

Mississauga Portraits

Mississauga Portraits
Author: Donald B. Smith
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 497
Release: 2013-06-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1442666692

The word “Mississauga” is the name British Canadian settlers used for the Ojibwe on the north of Lake Ontario – now the most urbanized region in what is now Canada. The Ojibwe of this area in the early and mid-nineteenth century lived through a time of considerable threat to the survival of the First Nations, as they lost much of their autonomy, and almost all of their traditional territory. Donald B. Smith’s Mississauga Portraits recreates the lives of eight Ojibwe who lived during this period – all of whom are historically important and interesting figures, and seven of whom have never before received full biographical treatment. Each portrait is based on research drawn from an extensive collection of writings and recorded speeches by southern Ontario Ojibwe themselves, along with secondary sources. These documents – uncovered over the 40 years that Smith has spent researching and writing about the Ojibwe – represent the richest source of personal First Nations writing in Canada from the mid-nineteenth century. Mississauga Portraits is a sequel to Smith’s immensely popular Sacred Feathers, which provided a detailed biography of Mississauga chief and Methodist minister Peter Jones (1802–1856). The first chapter in Mississauga Portraits on Jones tightly links the two books, which together give readers a vivid composite picture of life in mid-nineteenth-century Aboriginal Canada.