First published as Life and Labors of the Rt. Rev. Frederic Baraga, this volume has been retypeset and republished.


BISHOP FREDERIC BARAGA was a great apostle to the Native Americans and other peoples of the Upper Great Lakes. Born in Slovenia in 1797, he came to North America in 1830 as a missionary priest. For 37 years he poured himself out in love for people, ministering to them over a vast territory of more than 80, 000 square miles of wilderness. He regularly risked his life and endured brutal hardships to care for his flock: braving blizzards and sub-zero temperatures in treks on snowshoes that exceeded hundreds of miles, with only the canopy of heaven above him, risking river rapids in a fragile canoe, enduring clouds of mosquitoes through swamps, surviving Great Lake Superior ice drifts and stormy waters. His ardent desire was to make Jesus known to all. His reputation for sanctity spread far and wide, locally and in Europe. He was a man of uncommon ability, learning, and piety.


The author has put together and arranged what others personally acquainted with the saintly man have said and written. His object is to edify the reader by the recital of the labors, trials, and success of a truly apostolic man, a Christian gentleman in the full sense of the word, a model Indian missionary and bishop. Bishop Baraga united in himself the activity of Martha and the contemplativeness of Mary, being wonderful in both. He composed the grammer and dictionary of the Otchipwe language, as well as won the lasting love and respect of the people of the north, among whom he labored so long self-sacrificingly.