George Copway (Kahgegagahbowh) | The Canadian Encyclopedia

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George Copway (Kahgegagahbowh)

George Copway, or Kahgegagahbowh, meaning "He Who Stands Forever," Mississauga (Ojibwa) translator, Methodist minister, lecturer, author (b near present-day Trenton, Ont 1818; d at Oka, Lake of Two Mountains, Qué Jan 1869).


George Copway (Kahgegagahbowh), 1850

At age 12 Copway converted to Methodism, and later became an ordained minister. He helped translate into Ojibwa the Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel of St Luke (see also Indigenous Languages in Canada). But when two Upper Canadian Indigenous bands accused him of embezzling their funds, the Methodists expelled him. In late 1846 Copway left for the US, where he became a successful lecturer and author. Between 1847 and 1851 he published three books: his autobiography, a history of the Ojibwa and an account of his European travels in 1850. He edited the weekly Copway's American Indian for several months in New York. Immediately before his death in 1869, he converted to Roman Catholicism.

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