Bonga: A Safe Abode in the Wilderness

Beltrami County Historical Society welcomes author and historian Barry Babcock on October 19 at noon to discuss his new book Bonga: A Safe Abode in the Wilderness. The program will be at the Beltrami County History Center (130 Minnesota Ave SW, Bemidji).

Bonga shares how an enslaved African and family escaped from the West Indies to the Northwoods of the Great Lakes. Three generations of the family married into the Ojibwe tribes, distinguished themselves in the fur trade, and were seen with great respect by the Anishinaabeg and white men. They found themselves in the vortex of the significant events that occurred at this time in the making of the territories of the Great Lakes region and the Headwaters of the Mississippi.

Stalwarts among men and intimately involved in the first murder and trial held decades before these territories became states, they tracked down escaped prisoners and opened trading posts…