Life, Letters & Speeches

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.

 

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.

The works of George Copway include The Traditional History and Characteristic Sketches of the Ojibway Nation and Running Sketches of Men and Places in England, France, Germany, Belgium and Scotland.

 

A. LaVonne Brown Ruoff is a professor emerita of English at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and the author of American Indian Literatures: An Introduction, Bibliographic Review and Selected Bibliography.

 

Donald B. Smith is a professor of history at the University of Calgary, Alberta. He is the author of Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance: The Glorious Impostor and From the Land of Shadows: The Making of Grey Owl.