author

Nicholas Louis Sifferath

1828–1898

A 19th-century Catholic missionary, he is remembered for a rare catechism prepared for Ottawa and Ojibwe readers. His surviving work offers a small but revealing window into missionary publishing and Indigenous-language religious instruction in the Great Lakes region.

1 Audiobook

A Short Compendium of the Catechism for the Indians With the Approbation of the Rt. Rev. Frederic Baraga, Bishop of Saut Sainte Marie

A Short Compendium of the Catechism for the Indians With the Approbation of the Rt. Rev. Frederic Baraga, Bishop of Saut Sainte Marie

by Nicholas Louis Sifferath

About the author

Very little biographical information is easy to confirm about this author, but library and public-domain records consistently identify him as Rev. Nicholas Louis Sifferath, born in 1828 and died in 1898. He is chiefly known today for A Short Compendium of the Catechism for the Indians, a religious text associated with Catholic mission work.

That book was approved by Bishop Frederic Baraga in 1864 and published in Buffalo in 1869. Catalog and ebook records describe Sifferath as a missionary working among Ottawa and Ojibwe communities, and the book is noted as a catechism in the Ottawa language.

Because so little else could be confirmed from reliable sources during this search, it is best to remember Sifferath as a figure known through one surviving publication rather than through a well-documented public life. Even so, that publication has lasting historical interest for readers studying missionary history, Great Lakes Catholicism, and Indigenous-language print culture.