Afro-Indigenous Identities in Ojibwe Country: Settler Colonialism, Nostalgia, and Myths of the Bonga Family

This paper explores American settler colonialism, the role of historical narratives, and racial formation through an examination of the mythology of the Bonga family. Through journals and other historical documents, this paper reveals how the story of one family’s migration and settlement in the region was appropriated by settler colonial narratives. The settler record distorts the Bonga family’s ties to Ojibwe people, marginalizes the significance of Ojibwe dispossession to the rise of the settler state, and reinforces narratives about the democratic equality of the settler state.

The Bonga family was one of the few black families in southwest Ojibwe country in the 18th and 19th centuries, and their family history of intermarriage with Ojibwe Indians, success in the fur trade, and rise to prominence as individuals of relative wealth and status among both whites and Indians make them remarkable figures in local history. The twentieth century literature on Minnesota history, which overwhelmingly tells a story of Anglo-American settlement and nostalgic narratives about French fur traders, includes the Bonga family, especially George Bonga, as colorful figures. Based upon nineteenth century historical sources that give inaccurate accounts of the Bonga family’s migration to the region, the narratives are largely romanticized and legendary tales about their astounding physical feats and amusing personal traits. Little information is ever offered on how their lives were intertwined with and marked by the processes of Indian removal, treaties, legal definitions of race, and the federal “civilizing” program.