Friderik Irenej Baraga (1797–1868) was the most prominent Slovenian missionary of the first half of the 19th century as well as a pious literature writer and an ethnographer. He was doing missionary work among North American native tribes for twenty-five years, first among the Ottawa tribe in L'Arbre Croche on Lake Michigan, and later also along the Grand River. As he opposed the liquor dealers and the government, who were forcibly evicting these tribes from their territories, he had to retreat to the regions around Lake Superior, where he then worked among the Chippewa tribe in La Pointe, L'Anse, and Fond de Lac. Baraga's “Description of the Customs of North American Native Tribes” was the first history book on the indigenous population of the area published in Europe. In addition to various devotional works and prayer books, he also published the first grammars of the Chippewa and Ottawa languages.

The collection consists of Baraga's works as well as biographical and other studies about his life and work.