Book of Bonga

This is an American story that has not been told. It is a story of courage, freedom, and wilderness.

In early America, Jean Bonga escaped slavery with his wife and three children and made their way up the Mississippi River to Mackinac Island on Lake Michigan during the height of the fur trade. It was in this wilderness of the northwoods that the Bongas found freedom and left an indelible impression on the land and the people-A safe home in the wilderness.


Jean's children married into the Ojibwe tribe which mingled the blood of Africa and North America and produced men and women who had a monumental impact on the wilderness that would become Minnesota. They were interpreters and were involved with politics, the economy of the fur trade, and lead early European cartographers deep into the wild. Their story is full of intrigue and political ramifications.

From the late 1700s to the late 1800s, three generations of Bongas lived in the wilds of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. This book is incredibly important to Americans alike as it is what is best about our history-a struggle for freedom and the power of wilderness.