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
Hiawatha (1913 film) cast smeared with bronze paint" was a target for ridicule. Laemmle's story ended with Hiawatha and Minnehaha happily embracing, but Moore's "Hiawatha" follows Longfellow's poem in which Minnehaha dies and Hiawatha welcomes the arrival of the missionary, who converts the Indians to the Christian faith. In 1910, Laemmle followed up his 1909 version of "Hiawatha" with the sequel, "The Death of Minnehaha". "Hiawatha" opened at New York City's Berkeley theater where it achieved "splendid sales", according to the "Moving Picture News". Moore distributed "Hiawatha" selling the film by states rights to 12 states. A review in "Moving Picture World" praised