Who was Henry Schoolcraft and why attach his name to a Bemidji area charter school?

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft (1793-1864) is recognized as the European "discoverer" (in 1832) of the source of the Mississippi River. Along the way, he coined the name for Lake Itasca (combining the middle syllables of the Latin phrase veritas caput which translates roughly as "true source.") Schoolcraft also gave us our current names for Lake Irving (in honor of Washington Irving), Lake Marquette, and Lake Plantagenet (after a line of English kings). He had earlier accompanied Lewis Cass to Upper Red Cedar Lake (now Cass Lake) in 1820.

Originally trained as a mineralogist, circumstances and curiousity led Schoolcraft to become a pioneer ethnologist focusing on Native American studies, particularly of the Anishinabe Ojibway; he was especially interested in Anishinabeg language and culture. This interest went beyond the merely academic since in 1823 Henry married Jane Johnston, whose father John was a prominent fur trader in the Great Lakes region and whose mother, Ozhaw-Guscoday-Wayquay, was the daughter of Waub Ojeeg, a revered and powerful leader of the Chequamegon (Red Cliff) band of the Ojibway. Jane's knowledge of indigenous customs and language and her family contacts were critically important for Henry's expeditions and as well as for his extensive scholarly works on indigenous peoples of North America. Later in life he turned his literary efforts toward poetry in which he presented a highly romanticized and stylized account of his experiences of the land and people of the northern forests (and an alternate version of the origins of the word Itasca).

Although Schoolcraft found much to admire in native culture, he was a man of his times who frequently regarded indigenous Americans as "lower" than himself. For example, he wrote (with apparent sadness) of the primitive state of native religion and on the importance of bringing Christianity to the "Indians." Nonetheless, he was a man of great compassion (admittedly bordering on paternalism). He was also appalled by the widespread fur-trading practice of plying natives with "ardent spirits" and he played an important role in bringing smallpox vaccine to the bands of the northern lakes region.

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft was a complex and sometimes self-contradictory person who at once embodies the best and the worst of Euro-American exploration and exploitation of our region. Yet despite his many flaws, Schoolcraft's curiousity, compassion, and creativity are exemplary in any age and reflect virtues valued by our learning community.