MAY 27, 1825

OJIBWE HISTORIAN, INTERPRETER WILLIAM WHIPPLE WARREN BORN

Born at La Pointe, Michigan Territory (now-Wisconsin), he was the son of an Ojibwe mother and a fur trader father of Ojibwe-French descent.  In 1836, Warren attended Clarkson Academy and later the Oneida Institute near Whitesboro, New York.  At age 17, he started work as an interpreter and began making notes on the stories of the Ojibwe.  In 1845, Warren moved to Crow Wing, Wisconsin Territory (now Minnesota) to work as an interpreter and began to write a history of the Ojibwe.  A mixed-blood, he was not considered Indian by the Indians, but was a relative and was relied on for his counsel.  In 1848, he aided Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, an early ethnologist, in developing his six-volume history of Native Americans, commissioned by the U.S. Congress.  Warren prepared A Brief History of the Ojibwas, which the Minnesota Democrat newspaper published in several installments in 1851.  Also in 1851, Warren was elected to the Minnesota Territorial House of Representatives.  He died June 1, 1853.

Source:  Thrapp, Dan, Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography: In Three Volumes (Lincoln: U of Nebraska Press, 1991) p. 1515.  Retrieved 7/1/2019,  https://books.google.com/books?id=NCObM3OAPuwC&pg=PA1515&lpg=PA1515&dq=william+whipple+warren+bibliography&source=web&ots=4spAl86a6t&sig=EqX9AdHDr24LWaKPe4JrJJp9sE4&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false
Photo:  Author unknown, circa 1851.  Public Domain in U.S.:  Pre 1/1/1925.  Public Domain elsewhere where copyright term is author’s life plus 70 years or less.