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Jane Johnston Schoolcraft , also known as Bamewawagezhikaquay (January 31, 1800 – May 22, 1842) is one of the earliest Native American literary writers. She was of Ojibwe and Scots-Irish ancestry. Her Ojibwe name can also be written as O-bah-bahm-wawa-ge-zhe-go-qua ( Obabaamwewe-giizhigokwe in modern spelling), meaning 'Woman of the Sound [that the stars make] Rushing Through the Sky', from babaam- 'place to place' or bimi- 'along', wewe- 'makes a repeated sound', giizhig 'sky', and ikwe 'woman'. She lived most of her life in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan .

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48-560: Itasca is a word coined by Henry Schoolcraft and may refer to: Lake Itasca , the source of the Mississippi River Places in the United States [ edit ] Itasca County, Minnesota Itasca Township, Clearwater County, Minnesota Itasca Township, Sherman County, Kansas Itasca State Park , Minnesota Itasca, Illinois Itasca, Texas Itasca Village ,

96-640: A few other locals. Although they produced only single issues, each was distributed widely to residents in Sault Ste. Marie, then to Schoolcraft's friends in Detroit, New York, and other eastern cities. Jane Johnston Schoolcraft used the pen names of "Rosa" and Leelinau as personae to write about different aspects of Indian culture. Schoolcraft was elected to the legislature of the Michigan Territory , where he served from 1828 to 1832. In 1832, he traveled again to

144-703: A former settlement in Anoka County, Minnesota South Itasca, Wisconsin Itascatown, a historical settlement on Howland Island named after the United States Coast Guard Cutter Itasca (see below) Itaska Street (St. Louis) , a road in St. Louis, Missouri Ships in the United States [ edit ] USCGC  Itasca  (1929) , a United States Coast Guard cutter in commission from 1930 to 1941 and from 1946 to 1950, famous for her role during

192-630: A lead mine outside St. Louis in the 18th century.) He also published Journal of a Tour into the Interior of Missouri and Arkansaw (1821), the first written account of a European-American exploration of the Ozark Mountains . This expedition and his resulting publications brought Schoolcraft to the attention of John C. Calhoun , the Secretary of War, who considered him "a man of industry, ambition, and insatiable curiosity." Calhoun recommended Schoolcraft to

240-667: A leading Ojibwe chief, Waubojeeg , and his wife. Both of the Johnstons were of high status; they had eight children together, and their cultured, wealthy family was well known in the area. Jane was also known as Bamewawagezhikaquay (Woman of the Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky). Her knowledge of the Ojibwe language and culture, which she shared with Schoolcraft, formed in part

288-407: A literary life with her husband Henry Rowe Schoolcraft . They worked together closely on each of their writings. Her poetry was generally concerned with private life. Jane Schoolcraft's writings have attracted considerable interest from scholars and students, especially those concerned with Native American literature and history. She has been recognized as "the first Native American literary writer,

336-650: A member of the Board of Regents of the University of Michigan in its early years. In this position he helped establish the state university's financial organization. Schoolcraft founded and contributed to the first United States journal on public education, The Journal of Education. He also published The Souvenir of the Lakes , the first literary magazine in Michigan. Schoolcraft named many of Michigan's counties and locations within

384-484: A personal account of the discovery with his book, Narrative of an Expedition Through the Upper Mississippi River to Itasca Lake (1834). After his territory for Indian Affairs was greatly increased in 1833, Schoolcraft and his wife Jane moved to Mackinac Island , the new headquarters of his administration. In 1836, he was instrumental in settling land disputes with the Ojibwe. He worked with them to accomplish

432-522: A prominent Scotch-Irish fur trader and an Ojibwe mother, who was the high-ranking daughter of Waubojeeg , a war chief. Jane lived with her family in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan . She was bilingual and educated, having grown up in a literate household. Jane taught Schoolcraft the Ojibwe language and much about her maternal culture. They had several children together, only two of whom survived past childhood. She

480-492: A six-volume study known as Indian Tribes of the United States . Henry Schoolcraft's publications, including materials written by Jane Schoolcraft, were the main source for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 's The Song of Hiawatha (1855). They had four children: Jane and Henry Schoolcraft moved to Mackinac Island in 1833, after he had been given responsibility for a larger territory as Indian agent. Their home has since been demolished, but Henry Schoolcraft's office, also known as

528-769: A war party that had contact with Europeans on the East Coast. They had gone to Montreal to assist the French against the British in the French and Indian War (the North American front of the Seven Years' War ). During the voyage, Schoolcraft took the opportunity to explore the region, making the first accurate map of the Lake District around western Lake Superior. Following the lead of Ozawindib , an Ojibwe guide, Schoolcraft encountered

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576-542: Is now Springfield . They traveled further down the White River into Arkansas , making a survey of the geography , geology , and mineralogy of the area. Schoolcraft published this study in A View of the Lead Mines of Missouri (1819). In this book, he correctly identified the potential for lead deposits in the region . Missouri eventually became the number one lead-producing state. (French colonists had earlier developed

624-482: Is now recognized for her poetry and other writings as the first Native American literary writer in the United States. Schoolcraft continued to study Native American tribes and publish works about them. In 1833, he was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society . By 1846, Jane had died. That year, Schoolcraft was commissioned by Congress for a major study, known as Indian Tribes of

672-428: Is now the state of Michigan . Her mother, Ozhaguscodaywayquay , was the daughter of Waubojeeg , a prominent Ojibwe war chief and civil leader from what is now northern Wisconsin , and his wife. Her father John Johnston (1762–1828) was a fur trader who emigrated from Belfast, Ireland , in 1790. The Johnstons are famous historically in the Sault Ste. Marie area, where the couple were prominent leaders in both

720-694: The Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC. His papers are archived in the Library of Congress . Elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1821. Numerous counties, towns, lakes, streams, roads and other geographic features are named in his honor, including: Jane Johnston Schoolcraft Jane Johnston was born in Sault Ste. Marie in the Upper Peninsula of what

768-561: The Indian Dormitory , survives. It was used to house Indians who came to the island to acquire promised annuities and supplies. The Schoolcrafts took Jane and John to a boarding schools on the East coast when they were eleven and nine, respectively, which was hard for John. Schoolcraft wrote a poem in Ojibwe that expressed her feelings of loss after their separation. In 1841, when Henry lost his patronage position as federal Indian agent due to

816-536: The Michigan Territorial Governor , Lewis Cass , for a position on an expedition led by Cass to explore the wilderness region of Lake Superior and the lands west to the upper Mississippi River. Beginning in the spring of 1820, Schoolcraft served as a geologist on the Lewis Cass expedition . Beginning in Detroit, they traveled nearly 2,000 miles (3,200 km) along Lake Huron and Lake Superior, west to

864-405: The Ojibwe language , as well as much of the lore of the tribe and its culture. Schoolcraft created The Muzzeniegun, or Literary Voyager , a family magazine which he and Jane produced in the winter of 1826–1827 and circulated among friends ("muzzeniegun" coming from Ojibwe mazina'igan meaning "book"). It contained mostly his own writings, although he did include a few pieces from his wife and

912-468: The Treaty of Washington (1836) , by which they ceded to the United States a vast territory of more than 13 million acres (53,000 km ), worth many millions of dollars . He believed that the Ojibwe would be better off learning to farm and giving up their wide hunting lands. The government agreed to pay subsidies and provide supplies while the Ojibwe made a transition to a new way of living, but its provision of

960-623: The Whig Party came to power in 1841 with the election of William Henry Harrison , Schoolcraft lost his political position as Indian agent. He and Jane moved to New York. She died the next year during a visit with a sister in Canada, while Schoolcraft was traveling in Europe. He continued to write about Native Americans. In 1846 Congress commissioned him to develop a comprehensive reference work on American Indian tribes. Schoolcraft traveled to England to request

1008-606: The Euro-American and the Ojibwe communities. The young Jane learned the Ojibwe language and culture from her mother and her family, and she learned about written literature from her father and his large library. Johnston wrote poetry and traditional Ojibwe stories, and she translated Ojibwe songs into English. She mostly wrote in English, but she wrote several poems in the Ojibwe language , as she lived her daily life in both Ojibwe and English. While she did not publish her work, she lived

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1056-547: The Mississippi River, down the river to present-day Iowa, and then returning to Detroit after tracing the shores of Lake Michigan . The expedition was intended to establish the source of the Mississippi River. It was also intended to settle the question of the yet undetermined boundary between the United States and British Canada . The expedition traveled as far upstream as Upper Red Cedar Lake in present-day Minnesota. Since low water precluded navigating farther upstream,

1104-745: The Schoolcraft children. They became alienated from both her and their father. After Schoolcraft's hands became paralyzed in 1848 from a rheumatic condition, Mary devoted much of her attention to caring for him and helping him complete his massive study of Native Americans, which had been commissioned by Congress in 1846. In 1860, she published the novel The Black Gauntlet: A Tale of Plantation Life in South Carolina (which she said her husband had encouraged). One of many pro-slavery books published in response to Harriet Beecher Stowe 's bestselling Uncle Tom's Cabin , such defenses of slavery, published in

1152-538: The Sources of the Mississippi River (1821). In 1821, he was a member of another government expedition, which traveled through Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. In 1832, he led a second expedition to the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Arriving a month earlier than had the 1820 expedition, he was able to take advantage of higher water to navigate to Lake Itasca . Schoolcraft met his first wife Jane Johnston soon after being assigned in 1822 to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan , as

1200-514: The United States . It was published in six volumes from 1851 to 1857, and illustrated by Seth Eastman , a career Army officer with extensive experience as an artist of indigenous peoples. Schoolcraft remarried in 1847, to Mary Howard , from a slaveholding family in South Carolina . In 1860 , Howard published the bestselling novel The Black Gauntlet . It was part of the Anti-Tom literature that

1248-545: The conditions of American Indians; it was informally known as the Meriam Report , after the technical director of the team, Lewis Meriam .) Schoolcraft died in Washington, D.C., on December 10, 1864. After his death, Schoolcraft's second wife Mary donated over 200 books from his library, which had been published in 35 different Native American languages, to the Boston Athenæum . Schoolcraft and Mary were each buried in

1296-483: The decade before the American Civil War , became known as the anti-Tom genre. Hers became a best-seller, although not on the scale of Stowe's. Schoolcraft began his ethnological research in 1822 during his appointment as US Indian agent at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan . He had responsibility for tribes in what is now northern Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. From his wife Jane Johnston, Schoolcraft learned

1344-455: The disappearance of Amelia Earhart in 1937 USS  Itasca , the name of more than one United States Navy ship Other [ edit ] Itasca Phasar , a brand of recreational vehicles produced by Winnebago Industries Itasca, the pseudonym of American musician Kayla Cohen, who released the 2024 album Imitation of War Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with

1392-463: The expedition designated the lake as the river's headwaters and renamed it in honor of Cass . (Schoolcraft noted, however, that locals informed the expedition that it was possible to navigate by canoe farther upstream earlier in the year when water levels were higher.) Schoolcraft's account of the expedition was published as A Narrative Journal of Travels Through the Northwestern Regions...to

1440-535: The first US Indian agent in the region. Two years before, the government had built Fort Brady and wanted to establish an official presence to forestall any renewed British threat following the War of 1812 . The government tried to ensure against British agitation of the Ojibwa . Jane was the eldest daughter of John Johnston , a prominent Scots-Irish fur trader , and his wife Ozhaguscodaywayquay (Susan Johnston), daughter of

1488-476: The first known Indian woman writer, the first known Indian poet, the first known poet to write poems in a Native American language and the first known American Indian to write out traditional Indian stories." Her role in the Native American literary canon has been compared to that of Anne Bradstreet in the "broader American literary canon." In 1823 Jane married Henry Rowe Schoolcraft , a US Indian agent in

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1536-704: The former Michigan Territory . He named Leelanau County, Michigan after his wife's pen name of "Leelinau". For those counties established in 1840, he made elisions – the process of joining or merging morphemes that contained abstract ideas from multiple languages – to form unique place names he considered as never previously used in North America. In names such as Alcona , Algoma , Allegan , Alpena , Arenac , Iosco , Kalkaska , Leelanau , Lenawee , Oscoda , and Tuscola , for example, Schoolcraft combined words and syllables from Native American languages with words and syllables from Latin and Arabic . Lake Itasca ,

1584-588: The meticulous and knowledgeable illustrations by Eastman. Critics also noted the work's shortcomings, including a lack of index, and poor organization, which made the information almost inaccessible. Almost 100 years later, in 1954, the Bureau of American Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution prepared and published an index to the volumes. (It was not until 1928 that the US government conducted another overall study of

1632-471: The promised subsidies was often late and underfunded. The Ojibwe suffered as a result. In 1838 pursuant to the terms of the treaty, Schoolcraft oversaw the construction of the Indian Dormitory on Mackinac Island. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places . It provided temporary housing to the Ojibwe who came to Mackinac Island to receive annuities during their transition to what

1680-675: The region, who became a founding figure of American cultural anthropology . He was appointed U.S. Indian Agent to the Michigan Territory in 1822 and served in the Northwest until 1841. In 1826 and 1827, Henry Schoolcraft produced a handwritten magazine called The Literary Voyager which included some of Jane's writings. Although he had only single issues, each was distributed widely to residents in Sault Ste. Marie, then to his friends in Detroit, New York and other eastern cities. The Schoolcrafts' letters to each other during periods of separation often included poetry, also expressing how literature

1728-518: The second time as commander of the fort, and had closely studied, drawn and painted the people of the Indian cultures of the Great Plains . Schoolcraft worked for years on the history and survey of the Indian tribes of the United States. It was published in six volumes from 1851 to 1857 by J. B. Lippincott & Co. of Philadelphia . Critics praised its scholarship and valuable content by Schoolcraft, and

1776-481: The services of George Catlin to illustrate his proposed work, as the latter was widely regarded as the premier illustrator of Indian life. Schoolcraft was deeply disappointed when Catlin refused. Schoolcraft later engaged the artist Seth Eastman , a career Army officer, as illustrator. An Army captain and later brigadier general, Eastman was renowned for his paintings of Native American peoples. He had two extended assignments at Fort Snelling in present-day Minnesota ,

1824-479: The source lake of the Mississippi River , is another example of his eliding Native American and Latin morphemes. In 1843 the unique names of six counties named in 1840 after Native Michigan chiefs were erased – Kautawaubet County , Kaykakee County , Keskkauko County , Meegisee County , Mikenauk County , and Tonedagana County . But none of the 1840 counties with unique Schoolcraft elisions were changed. When

1872-463: The source material for Longfellow 's epic poem The Song of Hiawatha . Jane and Henry had four children together: The Schoolcrafts sent Jane and John to a boarding school in Detroit for part of their education. Jane at 11 could handle the transition, but John at nine had a more difficult time and missed his parents. The Schoolcrafts had a literary marriage, producing a family magazine. They included their own poetry in letters to each other through

1920-583: The title Itasca . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Itasca&oldid=1208556603 " Categories : Disambiguation pages Place name disambiguation pages Henry Schoolcraft neologisms Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Henry Schoolcraft Henry Rowe Schoolcraft (March 28, 1793 – December 10, 1864)

1968-548: The true headwaters of the Mississippi River, a lake that the natives called "Omushkos", meaning Elk Lake. which Schoolcraft renamed Lake Itasca , a name which he coined from the Latin words ver itas meaning 'truth' and ca put meaning 'head'. The nearby Schoolcraft River , the first major tributary of the Mississippi, was later named in his honor. United States newspapers widely covered this expedition. Schoolcraft followed up with

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2016-413: The upper reaches of the Mississippi to settle continuing troubles between the Ojibwe and Dakota (Sioux) nations. He worked to talk to as many Native American leaders as possible to maintain the peace. He was also provided with a surgeon and given instructions to begin vaccinating Native Americans against smallpox . He determined that smallpox had been unknown among the Ojibwe before the return in 1750 of

2064-566: The years. Jane suffered from frequent illnesses. She died in 1842, while visiting a sister in Canada, and was buried at St. John's Anglican Church, Ancaster, Ontario . On January 12, 1847, after moving to Washington, DC, at age 53 Schoolcraft married again, to Mary Howard (died March 12, 1878). She was a southerner and slaveholder, from an elite planter family of the Beaufort district of South Carolina. Her support of slavery and opposition to mixed-race unions created strains in her relationship with

2112-515: Was a glassmaker , and Schoolcraft initially studied and worked in the same industry. At age 24, he wrote his first paper on the topic, Vitreology (1817). After working in several glassworks in New York, Vermont , and New Hampshire , the young Schoolcraft left the family business at age 25 to explore the western frontier. From November 18 to February 1819, Schoolcraft and his companion Levi Pettibone made an expedition from Potosi, Missouri , to what

2160-651: Was an American geographer , geologist , and ethnologist , noted for his early studies of Native American cultures, as well as for his 1832 expedition to the source of the Mississippi River . He is also noted for his major six-volume study of Native Americans commissioned by Congress and published in the 1850s. He served as United States Indian agent in Michigan for a period beginning in 1822. During this period, he named several newly organized counties, often creating neologisms that he claimed were derived from indigenous languages. There he married Jane Johnston , daughter of

2208-597: Was envisioned by the US government as a more settled way of life. In 1839 Schoolcraft was appointed Superintendent of Indian Affairs in the Northern Department. He began a series of Native American studies later published as the Algic Researches (2 vols., 1839). These included his collection of Native American stories and legends, many of which his wife Jane Johnston Schoolcraft told him or translated for him from her culture. While in Michigan, Schoolcraft became

2256-540: Was part of their daily lives. Henry Schoolcraft won fame for his later publications about Native Americans, especially the Ojibwe people and their language (also known as Chippewa and Anishinaabemowin ). His work was based on information and stories he learned from Jane and the Johnston family, and the access they arranged to other Ojibwe. In 1846, he was commissioned by the United States Congress for what became

2304-535: Was written in Southern response to the bestselling Uncle Tom's Cabin by Northern abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe . Schoolcraft was born in 1793 in Guilderland , Albany County, New York , the son of Lawrence Schoolcraft and Margaret-Anne Barbara (née Rowe) Schoolcraft. He entered Union College at age 15 and later attended Middlebury College . He was especially interested in geology and mineralogy. His father

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