author
Andrew J. Blackbird
1810–1908
An Odawa leader, interpreter, and writer from northern Michigan, he left behind one of the earliest published accounts of Ottawa and Chippewa history by a Native author. His work blends community history, language, and personal memory in a voice that still feels direct and purposeful.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in the L'Arbre Croche area of Michigan, near present-day Harbor Springs, Andrew J. Blackbird was an Odawa leader also known as Makade-binesi, or "Black Hawk." Sources disagree on his exact birth year, but they place it around 1814 or 1815, and he died in Harbor Springs in September 1908.
Blackbird moved between Native and U.S. official worlds in ways that shaped his writing. He served as an interpreter for the U.S. government and later as postmaster of Little Traverse, and he remained active in public life as a teacher, lecturer, and advocate in Native affairs.
He is best known for his 1887 book History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan: a grammar of their language, and personal and family history of the author. The book is remembered as an early, important account of Odawa and Ojibwa history and language, and it also preserves his own perspective on the pressures and changes facing his community in the 19th century.