Ojibwe of the key trade languages of the Great Lakes and the northern Great Plains. The popularity of the epic poem "The Song of Hiawatha", written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1855, publicized the Ojibwe culture. The epic contains many toponyms that originate from Ojibwe words. According to Ojibwe oral history and from recordings in birch bark scrolls, the Ojibwe originated from the mouth of the St. Lawrence River on the Atlantic coast of what is now Quebec. They traded widely across the continent for thousands of years as they migrated, and knew of the canoe routes to move north, west
The Song of Hiawatha 1855, "The New York Times " carried an item on "Longfellow's New Poem", quoting an article from another periodical which said that it "is very original, and has the simplicity and charm of a Saga... it is the very antipodes [sic] of Alfred Lord Tennyson's "Maud," which is... morbid, irreligious, and painful." In October of that year, the "New York Times" noted that "Longfellow's "Song of Hiawatha" is nearly printed, and will soon appear." By November its column, "Gossip: What has been most Talked About during the Week," observed that "The madness of the hour takes the metrical shape of