Description
Gakiiwegwanebi was a Canadian Methodist missionary, raised by his Ojibwe mother Tuhbenahneequay until the age of 14, at which point he moved to be with his Welsh-American father, Augustus Jones. He converted to Methodism at the age of 21, became the first Indigenous missionary to the Ojibwe, and completed three speaking tours of the UK for the purposes of fundraising and conversion. He met his future wife, Eliza Field, in 1932, on one of these tours. Gakiiwegwanebi also did very important work as a translator, producing hymns and scripture in both Anishinaabemowin and Mohawk. In Edinburgh in 1845, Gakiiwegwanebi became the first Native North American to have their photograph taken (by Robert Adamson and David Octavius Hill).
Bibliographic sources
Donald B. Smith, Mississauga Portraits. Image by Hill & Adamson – Getty Center, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3816826