Henry Rowe Schoolcraft and the Native Copper of the Keweenaw

The Keweenaw copper district of northern Michigan is unique. All other copper mining regions of the world produce primarily ores of copper compounds, but for more than a century that began in the 1840s the Keweenaw produced copper from one mineral: native copper. A major contribution toward recognizing and understanding the importance of this form of copper was made by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft. His travels through Lake Superior occurred at a time when native copper was believed to have no economic importance by those who represented the newly emerging professional tradition in geology. Although their opinions caused him some uncertainty, the observations he made on the Cass expedition of 1820 formed the basis for his important insights into the possibilities that native copper held for future mining. Perhaps better known for his work on the ethnology of the American Indians and his discovery of the source of the Mississippi River, Schoolcraft's reports and publications on the copper of the Keweenaw brought that region to the attention of the country and helped to provide an accurate assessment of its true potential.