The Traditional History and Characteristic Sketches of the Ojibway Nation - Paperback

by George Copway (Author), Shelley Hulan (Afterword by)

The Traditional History and Characteristic Sketches of the Ojibway Nation (1850) was one of the first books of Indigenous history written by an Indigenous author. The book blends nature writing and narrative to describe the language, religious beliefs, stories, land, work, and play of the Ojibway people. Shelley Hulan's afterword considers Copway's rhetorical strategies in framing a narrative--she considers it a form of "history, interrupted"--for a non-Indigenous readership.

Author Biography

Born in Trenton, Ontario, in 1818, George Copway (Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh) wrote extensively on Indigenous peoples and, as an ordained Methodist minister, worked as a missionary among several tribes. He is the author of several books, including The Traditional History and Characteristic Sketches of the Ojibway Nation (reprinted 2014 by WLU Press).Shelley Hulan is an associate professor at the University of Waterloo, where she teaches early Canadian literature. She is a co-editor of Literature, Rhetoric, and Values: Selected Proceedings (2011) and a contributor to National Plots: Historical Fiction and Changing Ideas of Canada(WLU Press, 2010)