George copway autobiography
- Copway's autobiography.
- In 1847 he published a memoir about his life and time as a missionary.
- Recollections of a Forest Life, Or, the Life and Travels of Kah-Ge-Ga-Gah-Bowh, or George Copway, Chief of the Ojibway Nation.
- •
George Copway (Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh; Ojibwa) (1818-1869)
Contributing Editor:
A. LaVonne Brown Ruoff
Comparisons, Contrasts, Connections
Students need information about the Ojibwas as a group. They also need to understand the relationship between Copway's autobiography, the Indian Removal Bill, and the attempts to move the Ojibwa out of Minnesota. They need as well an understanding of how Native American autobiography differs from that of non-Indians. See discussion below.
Students respond much more enthusiastically to Copway's description of traditional life than to his references to Christianity. (For Indians' attitudes toward conversion to Christianity, see the comments on Occom and Apess.)
Major Themes, Historical Perspectives, and Personal Issues
The Ojibwa or Chippewa are numerically the largest tribe in the United States and Canada. A member of the Algonkian language family, they are spread out around the western Northern Great Lakes region, extending from the northern shore of Lake Huron as far west as Montana, southward well into Wisconsin and Minnesota, and northw
- •
Book Title: The Life History and Travels of Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh, 1847
Author: George Copway
Book Description: The Life, History, and Travels of Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh (1847) is a published memoir by Native American author George Copway. The novel centers on his life and time as a missionary. Not only did the novel make him Canada's first literary celebrity in the United States, but it is also recognized as the first book published by a Canadian First Nations writer.
Contents
Book Information
Book Description
The Life, History, and Travels of Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh (1847) is a published memoir by Native American author George Copway. The novel centers on his life and time as a missionary. Not only did the novel make him Canada’s first literary celebrity in the United States, but it is also recognized as the first book published by a Canadian First Nations writer.
- •
Kahgegagahbowh (George Copway) National Historic Person (1818–1869)
Kahgegagahbowh (George Copway) was designated a national historic person in 2018.
Historical importance: Mississauga Anishinaabe author, lecturer, publisher, and activist, he gained international literary celebrity as an author of popular non-fiction books in the late 1840s and early 1850s.
Commemorative plaque: No plaqueFootnote 1
Kahgegagahbowh (George Copway)
Kahgegagahbowh (George Copway) was an early Anishinaabe author of popular non-fiction books, which expressed pride in his nation, engaged with Victorian and Romantic literatures to challenge their racism, and offered non-Indigenous readers—in Canada and abroad—important insights into Mississauga spirituality, history, and culture. An international literary celebrity, he contributed to general knowledge of the First Nations in Canada, giving well-attended lectures on Mississauga life to audiences in North America, Great Britain, and Western Europe, and speaking on behalf of Indigenous peoples at the Third World Peace C
Copyright ©bitelogy.pages.dev 2025