Kahgegagahbowh (Mississauga) Copway (abt. 1818 - 1869)

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Biography

George (Mississauga) Copway is Notable.

Kahgegagahbowh was born in 1818. His mother was from the Eagle clan and his father—a medicine man, traditional chief, and veteran of the War of 1812—was from the Crane clan. The family belonged to the nation at Rice Lake (Pam-e-dash-cou tay-ang or Pamadusgodayong) in Upper Canada. Kahgegagahbowh converted to Christianity in 1830, changing his name to George Copway.^[1]

In July 1834, he was invited to work with a Methodist minister as a missionary to Ojibwe who lived near the western part of Lake Superior. His activities in two different areas over the next few years included working with Reverend Sherman Hall in La Pointe, Wisconsin to translate the Christian Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel of St Luke into Ojibwa. In 1838 the Methodists provided for Copway's education in Illinois, and later ordained him as a minister.^[2]

He returned to Upper Canada and met Elizabeth Howell in 1840 at the home of fellow missionary Peter Jones. Elizabeth was friends with Jones’ wife Eliza (née Field).^[3] They married and moved to Minnesota to serve as missionaries. They had a son, George Albert Copway, and a daughter, Frances Minne-Ha-Ha Copway.^[4] They also had three other children who passed away within five months of each other from 1849 to 1850.^[5]

George worked from about 1840-1845 as a missionary, interpreter, and Methodist minister in the United States and Canada. Accused of embezzlement by the Indian Department, he was expelled from the church and imprisoned for several weeks in 1846.^[6][7]

The Copways moved to New York City, where George wrote and published a memoir, “The Life, History and Travels of Kah-ge-ga-gah-Bowh” (1847), republished in London in 1850 as “Recollections of a forest life; or, the life and travels of Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh.” It was the first book published by a Canadian First Nations person. It had six printings in the first year and rapidly became a bestseller.^[8]

During the 1840s, he toured and lectured in the United States and also traveled to Europe. That travel later provided him with the material for his book of sketches of “Europe, Running sketches of men and places, in England, France, Germany, Belgium, and Scotland” (1851). ^[9]

George leveraged his new-found celebrity in the United States to petition Washington to support his ambitions for a self-governed First Nations territory (“Kahgega”) that would have eventually achieved statehood, arguing his case to Congress in "Organization of a New Indian Territory, East of the Missouri River" (1850). When his lobbying failed, he returned to writing. He drew from Anishinaabeg and Euro-American cultural traditions to write his pioneering history, "The Traditional History and Characteristic Sketches of the Ojibwa Nation" (1850), a travelogue documenting his popular lecture tours, entitled "Running Sketches of Men and Places in England, Germany, Belgium and Scotland" (1851), and the short-lived weekly, "Copway’s American Indian" (1851), which he published in New York City.^[10]

George’s career spiralled downward as he began drinking heavily and sank into debt, and in 1858 his wife Elizabeth Howell Copway took his daughter, Frances Minne-Ha-Ha, and left him. Copway traveled throughout New York and Michigan as a herbalist street healer and a Union army recruiter. He died in 1869 in Ypsilanti, Michigan.^[11]

In 2018, George Copway was designated a National Historic Person by the Canadian federal government (through the Minister of Environment & Climate Change).^[12]

Sources

1. ↑ Kahgegagahbowh (George Copway) (1818–1869), History and Culture, Parks Canada, https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/culture/clmhc-hsmbc/res/doc/information-backgrounder/Kahgegagahbowh
2. ↑ George Copway, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Copway
3. ↑ Morgan, Cecilia. Creating Interracial Intimacies: British North America, Canada, and the Transatlantic World, 1830–1914. Published July 23, 2009: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/037749ar
4. ↑ George Copway, Wikipedia, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Copway
5. ↑ Copway, George. Life, letters and speeches. University of Nebraska Press, 2006. Page 56, https://books.google.ca/books?id=PwL_Kt_GsvIC&pg=PA58&lpg=PA58&dq=frances+minne+ha+ha+copway&source=bl&ots=qds5Kn8WTH&sig=ACfU3U36WiIliFq6s2U7nrf8QCBSkxDerg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjHnOTsmPXmAhXvtlkKHa36CrMQ6AEwBHoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=frances%20minne%20ha%20ha%20copway&f=false
6. ↑ George Copway, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Copway
7. ↑ Kahgegagahbowh (George Copway) (1818–1869), History and Culture, Parks Canada, https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/culture/clmhc-hsmbc/res/doc/information-backgrounder/Kahgegagahbowh
8. ↑ George Copway, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Copway
9. ↑ George Copway, Wikipedia, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Copway
10. ↑ Kahgegagahbowh (George Copway) (1818–1869), History and Culture, Parks Canada, https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/culture/clmhc-hsmbc/res/doc/information-backgrounder/Kahgegagahbowh
11. ↑ George Copway, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Copway
12. ↑ George Copway, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Copway

• Kahgegagahbowh (George Copway) (1818–1869), History and Culture, Parks Canada, https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/culture/clmhc-hsmbc/res/doc/information-backgrounder/Kahgegagahbowh

• George Copway, Wikipedia, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Copway

• Ontario, District Marriage Registers, 1801-1858, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2C1-L6WL