author
Henry Benjamin Whipple
1822–1901
A pioneering Episcopal leader in the American Midwest, he became known for building churches and schools in Minnesota and for speaking out on behalf of Native people during a violent and troubled era. His life joined missionary work, institution-building, and public advocacy in ways that still draw attention today.
1 Audiobook
Five Sermons
by Henry Benjamin Whipple
About the author
Born in 1822, he became the first Episcopal bishop of Minnesota in 1859 and remained in that role until his death in 1901. He is especially remembered for helping shape the early Episcopal Church in the region and for founding or supporting religious and educational institutions in places such as Faribault.
He also became widely known for his advocacy for Dakota and Ojibwe people. During and after the U.S.–Dakota War of 1862, he appealed directly to federal leaders for mercy and argued that the government had treated Native communities unjustly. That public witness made him one of the best-known church voices on Native rights in his time.
Whipple wrote and preached extensively, and his legacy is tied both to his church leadership and to the moral courage many readers see in his defense of people facing persecution. For listeners interested in nineteenth-century American religion, frontier history, and reform, his story offers all three at once.