Author: Nicholas Louis Sifferath

Nicholas Louis Sifferath was a nineteenth-century Catholic priest who prepared religious instruction for Indigenous readers in the Great Lakes region. A Short Compendium of the Catechism for the Indians was printed by C. Wieckmann in Buffalo in 1869 and uses the Ottawa language. The concise question-and-answer form belongs to missionary publishing that combined teaching, translation, and Native-language literacy. Frederic Baraga supplied an approbation for the edition, a role distinct from Sifferath's credited work on the text. Copies preserved in major institutional collections now allow the volume to be studied as both a religious manual and a historical language document. Its wording reflects the objectives and assumptions of nineteenth-century Catholic missions, so the book also requires attention to the colonial setting in which it was produced. Sifferath's authorship and Baraga's ecclesiastical approval together explain the different responsibilities represented in this compact Ottawa-language publication.