Painting Indians and Building Empires in North America, 1710–1840 9780520947498, 9780520266315

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A H M A N S O N • M U R P H Y F I N E

A R T S

I M P R I N T

   has endowed this imprint to honor the memory of       

.

   

who for half a century served arts and letters, beauty and learning, in equal measure by shaping with a brilliant devotion those institutions upon which they rely.

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Art Endowment Fund of the University of California Press Foundation, which was established by a major gift from the Ahmanson Foundation.

Painting Indians and Building Empires in North America

Painting Indians and Building Empires in North America 1710–1840 William H. Truettner Senior Curator, Smithsonian American Art Museum

U n i v ersity of Ca lifor n i a Press Berkeley   Los Angeles   London

University of California Press, one of the most distin­ guished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its ac­ tivities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and insti­ tutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 2010 Smithsonian American Art Museum Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Truettner, William H.   Painting Indians and building empires in North ­A merica, 1710-1840 / William H. Truettner.     p. cm.   Includes bibliographical references and index.   isbn 978-0-520-26631-5 (cloth : alk. paper)   1.  Indians in art.  2.  Art—Political aspects— North America.  3.  United States—Territorial expansion.  I.  Title. n8217.i5t78  2010 758'.997000497—dc22 2010008373 Manufactured in Hong Kong 19  18  17  16  15  14  13  12  11  10 10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of a nsi /n iso z39.48-1992 (r 1997) (Permanence of Paper).

To Alan and Alex and in memory of Roger, for support and friendship over a professional lifetime

Contents

Acknowledgments  ix Introduction  1 Chapter 1.  Looking beyond Mohawk Warriors  7 Chapter 2.  Noble Savagery as an Invention of British Imperialism  18 Chapter 3.  Noble Savage Imagery, 1710 to 1820s  28 Chapter 4.  The Rise of Republican Indians  61 Chapter 5.  Painting Republican Indians, 1800 to 1840s  70 Notes  121 List of Illustrations  147 Index  151

Acknowledgments

This book began as a lecture, grew slowly into a long article, and then kept growing until it reached the white-elephant stage—that is, a manu­ script too long for an article and too short for a book. At that point I showed the manuscript to several colleagues; they urged me to continue writing. Reluctantly I did, but soon enough I realized that I had sufficient material to tell a longer story. Thus the article ended up in its present form. Those most responsible for seeing me through the process were Ellen Miles, Cynthia Mills, Roger Stein, and Alan Wallach, familiar names to all in the American art field. Ellen and Cynthia were particularly helpful as the manuscript reached a final-draft stage; both showed me how to smooth out a rough beginning and how to follow with chapters that had more clarity and definition than those in earlier drafts. I am also grateful to Judy Metro, who kindly read the manuscript on her own time and then suggested publishers I might send it to. That singular effort eventually led me to University of California Press and to Stephanie Fay, whose response to the manuscript—prompt, warm, and generous—was what every author hopes for. In the meantime, Peter Nabokov advised on anthropological matters and made a valiant effort to shorten my paragraphs. And subsequently, two readers for UC Press ix

x   /   Acknowledgments

(one of them was Martin Berger; the other chose to remain anonymous) offered support and good suggestions for improving the manuscript. Next in line was home support from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM), which began with Judith Holloman in the Intern Program office, who located two graduate students, Mary Savig and Katherine Conaty, with daunting computer skills. To my amazement, Mary and Katherine managed to gather off the Internet in several weeks all but a few of the illustrations necessary to accompany drafts I sent to prospective publishers. After the book contract was signed, chief curator Eleanor Harvey came through with funds to gather the final round of illustrations and permission forms. That job, surely the most demanding of the entire pre-publication process, fell to Jennifer Bau­ man and Deborah Earle. They deserve not only my deepest thanks but gold medals as well for diplomacy and patience in dealing with under­ staffed museum rights and reproduction departments. Other SAAM/ Smithsonian Institution colleagues to whom I’m indebted are Eliza­ beth Anderson, Riche Sorenson, Douglas Wilde, and general counsels Rachelle Brown and Alyssa Reiner. Special thanks also to the SAAM/ National Portrait Gallery library staff—Cecilia Chin, Douglas Litts, for­mer reference librarian Pat Lynagh, Stephanie Moye, and Alice Clarke— who for years have allowed me to camp out on their premises. Numerous other colleagues in the field, museum and academic, who went out of their way to supply information and/or thoughtful advice were Kevin Muller, Lisa Strong, Wendy Bellion, Frank Goodyear, Julie Schimmel, Nancy Anderson, Guy Jordan, Carol Clark, Rick Stewart, Deborah White, Marsha Gallagher, Margaretta Lovell, Elizabeth Chew, Rowena Houghton Dasch, Robert Torchia, Carole Klein, Wil­ liam Sturtevant, William Merrill, Ives Goddard, Ted Brasser, and Emma Floyd. Those equally forthcoming with illustrations and permission forms were Darlene Dueck, Penelope Smith, Adam Findley, Lori Iliff, Sarah Cucinella-McDaniel, Susan Marshall, Peter Reiss, John Hart Jr., Jill Slaight, Keri Butler, Andrea Ashby, Susan Drinan, Susan Newton,

Acknowledgments   /   xi

Ruth Bowler, Erin Clements Rushing, Daria Wingreen-Mason, Louise King, Verity Clarke, and Anna Harrison. No author survives the editing process without a sympathetic (and reliable) interpreter of manuscript preparation guidelines. Eric Schmidt at UC Press performed admirably in that role. Sue Heinemann took over from there, organizing the manuscript for further editing by Sheila Berg, who did a remarkable job of clearing out unnecessary commas, misspellings, and redundant phrases. Never have I felt in more compe­ tent hands. Nor, when reaching out to a broad group of colleagues, could I have wished for a warmer reception. From the beginning of this project to the end, countless old friends in the field have come through with references that I might have missed or with illustrations of works that I had lost track of. It’s meant a great deal to me; I am deeply grateful to all of you.

Introduction

No aspect of North America intrigued seventeenth-century European explorers and settlers more than the numerous Indian tribes they en­ countered, especially those that remained beyond the economic and cultural orbit of the nascent colonies. By the early eighteenth century, however, tribes that had previously occupied the eastern seaboard were no longer so “untouched”; they had either been destroyed or become subcultures within colonial boundaries. But the area beyond those boundaries was still unlimited (or so it seemed at the time), and numer­ ous other eastern tribes, along with those that lived farther west, en­ countered few whites in their everyday lives. The eastern tribes inhab­ ited the woodlands that stretched from the seaboard colonies, north and south, to the Mississippi River, and the western tribes (at least the ones best known to the colonists) lived across the Mississippi, along the upper reaches of the Missouri River. The woodland tribes, although they maintained their traditional ways, hunting and trapping furs for their livelihood, were also key players in colonial affairs up to the Revo­ lutionary War and for a short time afterward in postwar security alli­ ances of the new United States government. The tribes along the Upper Missouri assumed a more prominent role during the first half of the nineteenth century, when the fur trade came to their doorstep. In one 1

2   /   Introduction

way or another, they engaged the (mostly) white traders and trappers who came upriver from St. Louis, seeking beaver in the streams that flowed down the eastern slopes and through the interior valleys of the Rocky Mountains. Encounters between these Indians and whites newly arrived in their world, whether in the East or the West, almost always began with ac­ commodation, especially when there was the promise of commercial gain for both sides, or they could join ranks to fight a common enemy. Over time, however, an increasing number of disagreements would come to outweigh the shared benefits, and long-submerged hostility and misunderstanding would surface. Most often the disagreements turned on treaties and land grants that dispensed Indian land (or land Indians had occupied for generations) to white settlers. But attending such transactions was the deeper issue of cultural difference, the root cause of the bitter feelings that time and again fractured Indian-white relations as the frontier moved west across the country. Both sides recognized that their lives were driven by separate and unwavering visions of the future. The Indians wished to retain their traditional ways, to live as they had lived for centuries. White people were committed to a belief in progress, to building a nation in which their political and cultural standards prevailed. The predictable shift between accommodation and its tragic alternate, long and desperate wars of attrition (usually con­ ducted by whites invading Indian lands), has been the focus of historians for many years. There seems to be a never-ending curiosity about the problematic relationship between the two races, perhaps inherited from those who first experienced the difficulty and confusion of trying to assess difference. This book deals with only a small part of that history, the role white artists (mostly portrait painters but some with an impressive talent for landscape) played in attempting to bring the two sides together. More to the point, it addresses the artistic and cultural import of two different campaigns of painting Indians in North America. The first, extending over most of the eighteenth century, was directed at Mohawk and other

Introduction   /   3

Iroquois leaders, who fulfilled for their portrait audiences the role of Noble Savages. The second, running through the first four decades of the nineteenth century, consisted mostly of Upper Missouri Indian im­ ages, taken among tribes such as the Osage, Mandan, Sioux, Blackfoot, and Crow. These tribes are reconsidered here under the title Republican Indians, so as to separate their more ethnographic artistic personalities from their eighteenth-century counterparts, whose ideal appearance was calculated to bolster their image as “noble,” in spite of the trailer that still defined them as “savage.” These two campaigns have been selected for a variety of reasons but primarily because they represent, collectively, the extraordinary range of North American Indian images produced over these centuries and because the campaigns are closely connected, if not in style then in ideo­ logical content. Each was conceived, directly or indirectly, to accompany attempts to expand white hegemony across North America, first by the British and then by the Americans, and to deftly manage Indian response each time expansion was contemplated. The short-term impact of these two series of images might be said to have benefited both Indians and whites, although in different ways. Over the long run, however, pictur­ ing Indians enabled white patrons to gain a lasting advantage over their Indian subjects. How and why that happened is explored in the story that follows. Even before Europeans began recording the landscape of North America, they drew and painted the Indians who were living there. During the eighteenth century, these images were more often made in London studios than in the newly discovered lands beyond the Atlantic seaboard. Except for a few curious missionaries, who supplemented their journals with illustrations, and an occasional sketch by military officers, who placed Indians in their topographic surveys, on-location images of native North Americans were taken infrequently and unsystemati­ cally. Practical reasons to some extent account for this. Skillful Londontrained painters were obviously not in abundance in the colonies until later in the eighteenth century, when merchant-patrons began calling

4   /   Introduction

for portraits of themselves and their families. But the London scene was different. British monarchs and crown officials, eager to secure imperial advantage in North America, were quick to see Indians as part of this strategy. So from about 1710 on, the British shuttled prominent chiefs and warriors back and forth between the colonies and London, combin­ ing treaty making and image making in a way that appeared to further the interests of both parties. The British continued to increase their influence in North America, and the Indians who participated gained additional status as foreign emissaries, especially when they returned home with favorable treaties and/or generous gifts for their tribes. Among the Indians who benefited most from this arrangement were the Mohawks, a powerful, well-organized tribe that dominated the Iro­ quois Confederacy, whose lands stretched from Albany west to Niagara Falls, the area of North America most coveted by both the English and the French. Through Mohawk (and Iroquois) lands ran a combination of overland and water routes that reached deep into the western ­interior—​ into what was then the richest fur-trapping area in the world. Before and during the eighteenth century, a fortune in furs was brought to market over these routes, which eventually ended in fur-trading centers such as Quebec or Albany, for shipment to Europe. Later, by the middle of the eighteenth century, white settlers traversed these same routes, seeking productive new farmland in the Old Northwest. The success of British state diplomacy during the eighteenth cen­ tury, at least up to the Revolutionary War, must have impressed the post­revolutionary American government, notably Presidents Washing­ ton and Jefferson, who faced an equally formidable combination of tribes in the Ohio Country and along the Upper Missouri River. Ohio Country Indians proved difficult to buy off with elaborate negotiations, but those who lived along the banks of the Missouri during the first decades of the nineteenth century were the special concern of Jefferson, who sought to strengthen ties with them after he completed the Louisiana Purchase. These tribes controlled passage along the river, as well as the main overland routes that ran nearby. Their goodwill (or lack of it)

Introduction   /   5

determined how much access white Americans (explorers, fur trappers, and settlers) would have to the Far West during Jefferson’s administra­ tion and those that immediately followed. Once more, portrait diplo­ macy became a way to deal with these tribes; delegations were periodi­ cally brought downriver, shunted through various portrait studios in Washington, and returned to their villages, sometimes with their por­ traits in hand and almost always with a discreet warning about the need to share the West (and its extensive resources) with their white friends. Sooner rather than later, however, the West that for centuries had be­ longed to Indians, and whose immense size and rich supply of buffalo had been the measure of their security, would be appropriated by an advancing tide of whites. Consequently, the heyday of the Upper Missouri tribes was, if anything, considerably shorter than that of the Mohawks. Many studies have preceded this one about paintings done during these two campaigns, but none have tied them together, even loosely, as efforts connected to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century nationbuilding schemes in North America, first on the part of the British and then the new American government. But that’s only part of the story that needs to be told. White attitudes toward Indians shifted noticeably between these two campaigns, from one that encouraged the upward mobility of native tribes to one that tied them to a level of human development far below that of white Americans. And nowhere is this progression more obvious than in a comparison of the two groups of paintings, not only subject by subject, but also through a line-by-line analysis of meaning and difference. Thus these images become more problematic than ever. One can’t quite say that either set was made to disadvantage Indians; instead we can sometimes see a white painter or patron identifying with Indian subjects, projecting himself as a wouldbe primitive, untouched by the conventions of white society. And al­ most always, those primitive attributes were employed as a measure of Indianness, or a white man’s conception of Indianness, a fiction that often helped curious whites put aside their own deep-set convictions of difference.

6   /   Introduction

Sooner or later, however, the need to subject that fiction to the reality of empire, and to the conquest of Native Americans, became apparent. And that should cause viewers to register more clearly the tentative state of ideal Indian images made during the time frame this book covers. But if these images can now be seen in a new critical setting, with more closely defined cultural boundaries, they are by no means diminished as works of art. Indeed, one could easily argue the opposite, claiming that their aesthetic and historical appeal has never been taken more seri­ ously. Images that feature conventionally posed figures dressed in strik­ ingly detailed native attire reveal aspects of Indian-white relations that in recent years have come under close scrutiny. These new insights, many dependent on leads from related disciplines, call on us to see Indian images on a wider stage, performing in ways that the artists who painted them probably never anticipated. This doesn’t necessarily remove these images from a documentary role, but it does require us to search them for additional meanings, more complex and challenging than those previously assigned.

ch a pter on e

Looking beyond Mohawk Warriors

In 1760, not long after the young American artist Benjamin West arrived in Rome, a friend took him to a reception at the villa of Cardinal Albani, a dominant figure among European literati resident in the city at that time. West seems to have created quite a stir at the reception, especially among those who wished to gauge his response to the artistic achieve­ ments of the ancient world—​achievements that had occurred when the New World was still the domain of savages. West’s virtue, of course, was that Albani’s circle already imagined him as something of a “sav­ age,” or if not quite so rude in appearance and disposition, then largely untouched by the deliberations of those who surrounded him at the reception. But that impression would not last long. Several leading lights at the reception came up with a novel scheme to test the young artist’s knowl­ edge of antiquity—​or, perhaps one should say, to discover the level of grace and intellect that someone like West could have acquired in colo­ nial America. In any case, they proposed that West meet them the next morning at the Vatican, before a representative work from the ancient world. From that point on the story becomes a familiar triumph for the artist, as well as for his colonial upbringing. At the appointed hour, we are told, West and his audience proceeded through the Vatican hall­ 7

8   /   Looking beyond Mohawk Warriors

Figure 1.  Apollo Belvedere. Roman copy of a Hellenis­ tic bronze original made by the Athenian sculptor Leochares, ca. 350–​325. White marble. Cortile del Belvedere, Museo Pio Clementino, Vatican Museums, Vatican State. Photo: Vanni/Art Resource, N.Y.

ways to a small chamber, within which was the celebrated Apollo Belvedere (fig. 1). With his audience pressing around him, perhaps a bit too eager to catch his response, West is supposed to have hesitated for a moment. And then, with disarming candor, he compared the Apollo Belvedere to a Mohawk warrior.

Looking beyond Mohawk Warriors   /   9

That response won the day for West; his quick wit and the bold, New World aesthetic he applied to the statue apparently convinced those present that he was already an artist of singular promise, well on his way to a successful European career. At least that’s the way West’s biographer, John Galt, tells it. And, indeed, so compelling is Galt’s version of the story that it has over time (and with dutiful repetition in art history texts) acquired the authority of Scripture. That in itself may make some scholars uneasy, but if further investigation of the circumstances sur­ rounding the story considerably complicates what Galt has written, one can also find compelling reasons to believe that West did not entirely invent his moment of celebrity in Rome. Long before West fed Galt the story, he had repeated it elsewhere, no doubt hoping to embellish his early career in America and Rome. Galt touched it up further, as we shall note, but what in hindsight appears to be the most telling part of the story remained unchanged: West man­ aged to conflate, in one dramatic moment, his cultural baptism in Rome with political events in North America.1 That means, of course, that he must have come to Rome well informed about current Indian affairs in the colonies and, further, that he could not have tossed off his famous comment without somehow recognizing the connection he was mak­ ing. But if that’s the case, why does his encounter with the Apollo Belvedere remain one of the least investigated chapters of American art history? Only recently has a scholar in the field taken note of the role Mohawks played in North American colonial politics during and after the Revo­ lutionary War, surely one helpful lead for unpacking West’s remark.2 But the Apollo Belvedere incident also raises a broader issue: the need to explore how deeply, and over an extended period of time, British and (subsequently) U.S. imperial designs on North America informed the cultural and political orientation of New World Indian images. Mohawk (and Iroquois Confederacy) influence on events in the colonies during most of the eighteenth century was considerable, and so was the shorter but no less effective power wielded by Upper Missouri tribes over the new American republic during the first half of the nineteenth century.

10   /   Looking beyond Mohawk Warriors

How that influence played out, first on eighteenth-century British artists who painted Mohawks (and other Iroquois subjects) and subsequently on postcolonial American artists who painted Upper Missouri Indians, is what I wish to pursue in this book. And that brings us back to Cardinal Albani’s villa. We might recall that West’s encounter with the Apollo Belvedere took place when he was only twenty-two, an artist of modest accomplishment, and more or less an innocent when compared to the formidable group gathered around him that day. As Galt tells the story, when the keeper threw open the doors of the chamber to reveal the statue, West was so “surprised” (and perhaps a bit off balance, although clearly he had previewed the moment for Galt) that he paid homage to the statue’s classical beauty not in the formulaic words of a connoisseur but by exclaiming, “My God, how like it is to a young Mohawk warrior.” At first, West’s audience was somewhat mortified, not used to having “the most perfect work among all the ornaments of Rome” compared to a New World savage. West, however, immediately rose to the occasion. Through his translator, he explained that the Mohawks were no ordinary Indians: they were educated, ac­ complished with bow and arrow, admirably nimble, and beautifully formed. The last, he continued, was the result of an active life. Constant exercise “expands” their chest, “while . . . quick breathing . . . dilates the nostrils with that apparent consciousness of vigour which is so nobly depicted in the Apollo.” To secure the comparison, West is then sup­ posed to have said, “I have seen them often, standing in that very atti­ tude, and pursuing, with an intense eye, the arrow which they had just discharged from the bow.” The audience was “delighted,” according to Galt, “and allowed that a better criticism had rarely been pronounced on the merits of the statue.”3 Galt’s account of West’s triumph, though retold with considerable flair, must be questioned in at least a few particulars. West may have seen a Mohawk or two, but he certainly never hunted with them or watched their chests expand and their nostrils flare. Geography would have precluded that, as well as the fear generated by reports of Indian-

Looking beyond Mohawk Warriors   /   11

white conflict taking place on the Pennsylvania frontier when West was growing up in Philadelphia. Galt (or West) must also have invented the bow and arrow episode. No self-respecting Mohawk warrior had hunted with anything but a musket or a rifle since the beginning of the eigh­ teenth century, when trade with the British and French kept them well supplied with firearms. But if Galt embellished details, it’s hard to believe that he missed the larger point (which perhaps even he didn’t fully un­ derstand): West had probably used the term “young Mohawk warrior” not just to reference a well-formed North American Indian, but for more specific reasons. In 1760, at the conclusion of the French and Indian War, the Mohawks (allies of the British during the last years of the war) had a well-deserved reputation for being both fierce warriors and capable diplomats, a combination that enabled them to hold their own against Europeans and colonials who coveted their immense and strategic land­ holdings west of Albany, along the Mohawk River. So when West drew a parallel between Mohawk warriors and the Apollo Belvedere, he was surely acknowledging the tribe’s prestige and power among British colonials. But more to the point, he may have been raising Mohawks to a higher standard: their way of life, in the wilderness of upper New York and Canada, was presumed by some to be the North American version of that age-old literary fiction—​t he Noble Savage. noble savages and republican indians Those who assigned the mythical status Noble Savage to North American tribes such as the Mohawks were mostly Europeans—​British colonials, French missionaries, and romantic writers living in England and France. Although they cast such Indians as innocent primitives, living peacefully in the dense woodlands that ranged from the eastern seaboard to the Alleghenies, rival colonial powers had, by the early eighteenth century, already claimed much of the surrounding land. As a result, many of these eastern tribes (from the Mohawks in the north to the Cherokees and the Creeks in the south) were at best part-time Noble Savages, regularly

12   /   Looking beyond Mohawk Warriors

conscripted by competing European powers (and sometimes by other Indian tribes) to deal with the real-world problems of trying to protect their land and fur trade routes from further conquest. If this somewhat modified their stance as innocents, no one seemed to mind; indeed, the North American wilderness was thought to provide Noble Savages with a certain nature-learned cunning when it came to defending themselves against their enemies, white or red. And yet Noble Savages were rarely referred to or pictured as “wild.” Instead they were usually shown in hybrid dress—​an often deliberate mix of Indian and white costumes, presumably meant to acknowledge their degree of enlightenment. After numerous bloody battles with so-called Noble Savages during the Revolutionary War, their reputation as ideal Indians began to wane, and for a time such Indians seem to have vanished from North America. But by the beginning of the nineteenth century, another group, which I propose to call Republican Indians, came along to take their place. Republican Indians, who flourished on the Great Plains during the early years of the American republic (and were admired by a New York re­ publican elite), were no less a mythical construction than Noble Savages, but the former are more familiar to us today; collectively they form the stereotype we think of as American Indians. They are generally associ­ ated with the first decades of the nineteenth century, an active period of territorial expansion, and with a West in which white Americans were gaining their first tentative foothold.4 These Indians were, in a sense, the Mohawks of their day: they lived near overland trails to the South­ west or along the Upper Missouri River, main corridors for the fur trade and eventually for restless pioneers traveling to rich agricultural lands in Texas and the Far West. To some extent Republican Indians could monitor if not control these two activities, vital to the development of the young nation. When we see them in pictures today, they wear cloth­ ing that appears to be ethnographically correct, made of hides and fur and decorated with feathers, beads, and animal parts. They are also shown riding horses, hunting buffalo, taking part in religious ceremo­ nies, and fighting other Plains tribes.

Looking beyond Mohawk Warriors   /   13

Regardless of perceived identities and geographic designations that appear to pin down Noble Savages and Republican Indians to more tangible circumstances, neither can be readily understood except through the images that represent them. Or, to put it another way, the two groups can only be fully realized as images. These appeared on the pages of illustrated books; in prints, sometimes bound into portfolios; and in paintings, done in both watercolor and oil. The oils, in particular, car­ ried a message (more or less disguised as an ideology) that closely deter­ mined the purpose for which each would be used. If one compares Joseph Brant (1786; fig. 2 [also fig. 18]) by Gilbert Stuart to George Catlin’s later portrait of Old Bear (1832; fig. 3), for example, it quickly becomes clear that they were created for different audiences, whose concerns about Indian life in North America were only distantly related. Brant (the Noble Savage) was the leader of the Mohawk tribe in 1786, well educated, articulate, and a formidable warrior, but he had sided with the British during the American Revolution. Having cast his lot the wrong way, he was in London when the portrait was painted, pleading for removal of himself and his tribe to crown lands in Canada. Stuart’s British patron, however, did not want to see Brant as a defeated Indian, bereft of his nobility, but as a tragic hero, with a classical lineage that reached back to Greece and Rome. Thus his Indianness was diluted, almost to the point of extinction. Old Bear, on the other hand, an iconic Republican Indian, is depicted by Catlin as a persuasive and powerful Mandan medicine man. Painting in 1832, with a renewed “authenticity” of pur­ pose, Catlin was determined to show Old Bear as an untouched example of native life on the Upper Missouri. His Indian regalia—and indeed his pose (no doubt prescribed by Catlin)—is that of a man unaccustomed to facing a white man with a paintbrush. He has also escaped the unhappy consequences that history had visited upon Brant: no obvious judgment of fate yet imperils him. But neither is he free to abandon his Indian habits and customs; he is instead deeply a part of Mandan tribal life. And his future, although it will be different from Brant’s, is nevertheless circumscribed, predictable, and written into every detail of his portrait.

14   /   Looking beyond Mohawk Warriors

Figure 2.  Gilbert Stuart, Joseph Brant, 1786. Oil on canvas, 231 ⁄ 2 × 24 in. (59.7 × 60.9 cm). Collection of the Duke of North­u mberland, Syon House, U.K.

The period during which such images were produced, or appeared in a variety of media, ranges from about 1710 to 1840. The stylistic and cultural turning point between those two dates falls almost exactly at 1800, when Enlightenment beliefs that found their way into portraits such as Stuart’s Brant gave way to a more romantic era, in which Catlin’s Old Bear, with its aura of scientific accuracy, became the standard for

Figure 3.  George Catlin, Mah-tó-he-ha, Old Bear, a Medicine Man (Mandan), 1832. Oil on canvas, 29 × 24 in. (73.7 × 60.9 cm). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison Jr.

16   /   Looking beyond Mohawk Warriors

representing Indians. In broader historical terms, this period begins with colonial wars between England and France, mostly over how to divide eastern North America, and intertribal warfare in upper New York, Canada, and the Ohio Country, at first promoted by one European power or another to gain a larger share of the fur trade. The period also covers the rapid expansion of colonial settlement up to and over the Appalachians, the war for independence fought by these colonists, and the growth of urban centers, commerce, and empire that followed. Distinguishing between these two major traditions of imaging North American Indians, one belonging to the eighteenth century, the other to the first half of the nineteenth century, might at first seem to separate and nationalize them. Noble Savages, even though they appear to double as North American Indians, are essentially a British invention, driven by the need to understand and control the real Indians who occupied land the British coveted in North America. Republican Indians, on the other hand, are an American invention, deeply rooted in the post–​ ­Revolutionary War culture of the United States. Throughout their reign, and for decades afterward, Republican Indians assumed the image of alternate frontiersmen—​tenacious, skillful, and courageous fighters, who, if lacking a civilized temperament, nevertheless transferred their positive virtues to the formation of an American character.5 But painters of Republican Indians also fulfilled another agenda. Their images helped to further expansionist designs on western lands occupied by actual tribes that, recast as Republican Indians, were easier to discount as future citizens of the United States. How this happened is taken up in the second part of this book. What should be emphasized for now is that uniting these two apparently sepa­ rate modes of representation is a continuing unspoken resolve to dis­ mantle traditional Indian life or, alternatively, to render it static and unchanging and therefore incapable of surviving in a progressive white society. In time, and roughly in historical sequence, these complemen­ tary motives passed from patron to artist, with the latter subtly encoding the notion of transient Indian status (transient because in neither case

Looking beyond Mohawk Warriors   /   17

would Indians last long as Indians) into the content and design of the works he or she produced. Forms that conveyed this transient status may well have migrated from one tradition to the other; it may also be the case that American colonials, who had observed how successfully the British used paintings of Indians to further their aims in North America, were persuaded to adopt a similar program during the early republic. And among those colonials, if anyone saw clearly the link between this earlier phase of artistic imperialism and its final flowering along the banks of the Upper Missouri, it was probably Thomas Jefferson, whose purchase of the Louisiana Territory in 1803 committed the nation to westward expansion.6

ch a p ter t wo

Noble Savagery as an Invention of British Imperialism

Despite the cultural momentum that raised Mohawks to the realm of Noble Savages in colonial North America, most recent scholars, both British and American, have seen the Noble Savage myth and related imagery as a European export, only distantly related to everyday life in North American Indian communities.1 Not literally, of course; the material on which Noble Savage imagery depended often came from America, in the form of New World journals and exploration accounts. But if these originally had an ethnographic flavor, it didn’t last long. European authors expertly spun the material into Rousseauian fables in which “savages,” who retained deep in their souls the goodness of child­ hood, lived lives of redeeming virtue until they finally (and tragically) came in contact with “civilized” society.2 Few of these authors, needless to say, had come to America, sampled the wilderness, observed tribal life, or tried to understand Indians as anything other than alternate white men, free of the social boundaries imposed by European society. And yet West’s statement suggests that the Mohawks, dominant figures in North American colonial history, might be a special case, or at least one in which we can understand how creating ideal Noble Savages from everyday Indian life could also become a strategic form of conquest. Unlike the fugitive Natchez of Chateaubriand’s imagination, this was 18

Noble Savagery as Invention   /   19

a tribe among which white settlers, commercial agents, and British colonial administrators circulated with relative freedom. Moreover, the Mohawks were the subject of numerous local accounts, written by close observers of their everyday lives. But these too created myths, inspir­ ing an impressive run of portraits and history paintings that began in 1710 and ran through the early decades of the nineteenth century. Gilbert Stuart’s masterful portrait of the Mohawk chief Joseph Brant (see fig. 2), the premier Noble Savage of North America, is one indication of the power and duration of those myths. Another, several levels down from the realm of high art, is the dress chosen by the patriot shopkeepers and craftsmen who participated in the Boston Tea Party. To signal their defiance of British rule, they wore faux Mohawk leggings and blankets while dumping hundreds of barrels of tea into the harbor. For the first part of this book, however, West’s quote is my point of departure, as much for what it doesn’t say as for what it does. By all accounts, the Mohawks of West’s time enjoyed a unique posi­ tion among northeastern Indian tribes. This was in part due to their lead position in the Iroquois Confederacy, a group of five tribes that had come together in the sixteenth century (a sixth, the Tuscarora, joined at a later date) to avoid fighting among themselves and to protect their homeland, which stretched from Mohawk territory, just west of Albany, clear across northern New York to the area around Niagara Falls, home of the Seneca, the westernmost tribe in the confederation.3 But Mohawk power was also based on the tribe’s extensive (and strategic) landholdings within confederacy boundaries. Mohawk land and water routes were the gateway to the Old Northwest. The British on their eastern boundary and the French to the north and west could not carry out military objec­ tives or control lucrative fur trade routes without the consent of (or warriors drafted from) the Mohawks.4 In addition, the rich land along the Mohawk River attracted speculators, in particular, wealthy British colonials and patroon families on the Upper Hudson—​t he Livingstons, De Lanceys, Schuylers, and Van Rensselaers—​who were convinced that white settlement would move west, along the river valley, when and if

20   /   Noble Savagery as Invention

they could persuade the Mohawks to sell. By the 1750s, under some pressure, the tribe began to release large tracts of land to speculators, but the Mohawks’ commercial savvy and their clout with colonial ad­ ministrators was such that that they rarely received less than fair market value in these transactions.5 The final measure of the Mohawks was their prowess as warriors. Their distinctive scalp lock, a challenge to those who wished to remove it, helped to stoke their reputation. But beyond the menacing hairstyle, there is ample evidence that they were fierce and uncompromising when pursuing enemies, red or white, and the most effective fighting force within the confederacy. And yet that’s not exactly what comes through in West’s comments. Warriors have splendid bodies, he says, kept in shape by vigorous activity. And from there he moves on to Noble Savage characteristics, extrapolated not from accounts of Mohawks brutally murdering their enemies but from ideal comparisons of their body type to an iconic piece of ancient sculpture. And that raises additional ques­ tions. What did West, a native of Philadelphia, know about American Indians, particularly about the Mohawks in 1760, and how was he able to put together that knowledge with a belief in the transcendent quality of classical sculpture? Neither West nor Galt says much about the response of the artist to Indian affairs in the northern colonies before he left for Rome. But the Mohawk reference is, first of all, a sure sign that West knew of their role in military campaigns (siding first with the French, then with the Brit­ ish) during the previous decade and of efforts made to unify colonial response to continuing frontier skirmishes with Indians. In 1754, for example, representatives from eight of the thirteen colonies had met in Albany to devise a plan for common defense. Mohawks and other Iro­ quois, whom the English wanted to be “friends” of the union, had at­ tended, along with Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Hutchinson from Pennsylvania. After considerable debate, and with the tacit approval of the Iroquois, Franklin and Hutchinson drew up a plan for union (sub­

Noble Savagery as Invention   /   21

sequently rejected by other colonial legislatures) that was preceded by the famous “Join, or Die” snake cartoon, published in Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette.6 Closer to home, marauding tribes from Ohio continued to harass settlers in western Pennsylvania. British and colonial forces under General Braddock responded, attacking French and Indian forces at Fort Duquesne (the present-day site of Pittsburgh) in 1755. The next year, West was in the frontier town of Lancaster, painting a portrait of a leading gunsmith who had supplied arms to Pennsylvania troops that had fought with Braddock.7 Even before such events, however, West must have had some contact with Indians who lived near Philadelphia. Most likely they were Dela­ ware, whose remaining eastern land began north of the city and ran almost to the New York border. In the past, the Delaware had allied themselves with the Mohawks for protection, but after the 1740s, bands remaining in the East had come under the influence of Moravian and Quaker missionaries, who encouraged them to lead a more domestic, settled way of life.8 And peaceful Indians, one might think, would have attracted West, who was raised by Quaker parents. But logic, in this case, gets us only so far. When confronted with the balance and com­ posure of the Apollo Belvedere, West was reminded not of a peaceful Delaware but of a Mohawk warrior, whose image he must have thought more heroic, more like that of great classical sculpture.9 the iroquois confederacy as a route to noble savagery Colonial administrators and commercial agents from abroad had been dealing with the Iroquois Confederacy since the early seventeenth cen­ tury, hoping to increase their share in the New York–​Canadian fur trade. But such a business-as-usual approach didn’t prompt either whites or Indians to look more closely at each other until empire building in North America began in earnest at the end of the seventeenth century. By then, the Dutch had lost out, leaving an uneasy balance between the British,

22   /   Noble Savagery as Invention

French, and Iroquois, none of whom could prevail without assistance from another. So whites and Indians were left to negotiate with each other on nearly equal footing. But the process that guided their negotia­ tions was altogether different. The British and French got their orders through a colonial bureau­ cracy; the Iroquois arrived at their decisions in a more roundabout way. Led by the Mohawks but not bound to follow them were the five other member tribes of the confederacy, united only by their willingness to speak with a common voice. Sometimes that was possible, at other times it was not, mainly because the confederacy was not a federal union—​t hat is, no one person (or chief) had central authority. And yet the confed­ eracy was not really a loosely constructed democracy either, although it was charged to consider the welfare of all individual members, re­ gardless of tribe, clan, or gender. Authority, such as it was, resided in a Grand Council, whose members (mostly chiefs) were appointed by ma­ triarchs who presided over various intertribal clans. Equal weight was given to heredity and talent in selecting council members; both, it was assumed, were needed for stable leadership. The council, however, had no power beyond what it could muster in debate. Each of the six tribes had to be persuaded to accept council recommendations, whether or not they conflicted with individual tribal laws and customs. What is surpris­ ing to us today is that such a system, seemingly composed of nothing but checks and balances, actually functioned. But function it did, for more than three centuries, granting the Iroquois, the Mohawks in par­ ticular, almost mythic status among eighteenth-century commentators on North American Indians.10 Those commentators—​Enlightenment scholars, fur trade officials, colonial administrators, and leading citizens in northeastern and midAtlantic colonies—​were, to say the least, intrigued by and admiring of a governing structure that brought a certain unity to Iroquois decision making. These included Cadwallader Colden, a New York colonial gov­ ernment official; James Adair, an English trader who lived among Indi­ ans on the southern frontier; William Johnson, an Irish baronet who

Noble Savagery as Invention   /   23

became commissioner of Indian Affairs for the northern colonies and lived among the Mohawks as an honorary member of the tribe; Father Joseph-François Lafitau, a scholarly French Jesuit who traveled in Ca­ nada, mostly among border tribes; Benjamin Franklin; and Thomas Jef­ fer­son. Of this group, Colden spent more time investigating the con­ federacy than all the rest combined, the results of which appeared in The History of the Five Indian Nations (published in 1727, a more widely read second edition came out in 1747; the title seems to have discounted the Tuscarora as latecomers). Colden, whose assumptions about the formation of New World native governments were indebted to John Locke, was convinced that precon­ tact conditions in the New World had encouraged native tribes to de­ velop open, fair-minded societies, as if virgin soil were a natural incuba­ tor of political union (and of Christianity, which Colden presumed would follow). As he wrote in his History, the confederacy reached back to early forms of humane government, with each of its tribes (or nations) func­ tioning as individual republics but governed by men “whose Authority and Power” were vested “wholly in the Opinion the rest of the [Iroquois] Nation have of their Wisdom and Integrity.”11 Over time, Colden pre­ dicted, the “bright and noble genius” of those in charge would enable the Iroquois to rise above their current station (still, of course, far below that of white Europeans). But in a final burst of enthusiasm, Colden wrote, “When Life and Liberty came in Competition . . . I think our Indians have out-done the Romans.”12 Once the Mohawks had risen to a prominent position in New World politics, their cultural brand was also accorded higher status. Enlighten­ ment thinkers and image makers in Europe and the colonies began to see them as Indians whose accomplishments, real or imagined, matched those of literary Noble Savages. Indeed, North America’s supply of such mythic Indians appeared to greatly exceed those found elsewhere in the known world.13 And in America, noble savagery seemed to have reached a higher state, both as a way of life that offered freedom within a selfgoverning society and as a fertile ground for planting Christian values.

24   /   Noble Savagery as Invention

Locke again pointed to these tentative advances as a way to judge New World tribal formations. The instinct to band together, he believed, was both an inherent right and a constructive process, as long as those in­ volved were permitted a degree of independence.14 Hence, in the eyes of those writing about noble savagery in America, the Mohawks already had a claim: they were a more-than-equal partner in a confederacy formed to settle differences between various Iroquois tribes. Humane social instincts, common to all such nascent endeavors, operated to make the confederacy a model social organization. It had the potential to work, in other words, because it was voluntary, flexible, and respectful of tribal differences—​a governing body that, according to Locke, never lost sight of its obligation to benefit all those it served. For Colden, this was the base on which to build a progressive cultural argument. “The Greeks & Romans,” he wrote, “once as much Barbarians as our Indians now are, deified the Hero’s [sic] that first taught them the Vertues, from whence the Grandeur of those Renowned Nations wholly proceeded.”15 West’s response to the Apollo Belvedere, a little over a de­ cade later, would be unthinkable without understanding the import of Colden’s remark. The heroes of Greece and Rome—​what they believed, how they comported themselves—​gave meaning to the forms of classical sculpture, not only as exemplars of a mature society, but also as classical heroes in the making. And the Iroquois, Colden assured his readers, were indeed nascent classical heroes. So when West nominated classical sculpture as the artistic language best suited to reveal the mental and physical attributes of a young Mohawk warrior, he was following a party line he had probably learned before leaving the colonies, perhaps from Colden himself.16 If Colden was one of the earliest observers of Indian life in this coun­ try to express such views, others were not far behind. And a surprising number of them focused on Mohawks (or the Iroquois) when trying to frame Indians as intelligent, resourceful, and capable of higher human achievement. Franklin, for example, familiar with Colden’s description

Noble Savagery as Invention   /   25

of the confederacy, had encouraged the colonies to follow suit, focusing on what they had in common rather than on their differences.17 The British journalist and pamphleteer Thomas Paine, who had come to the colonies in 1774, at Franklin’s invitation, also admired the Iroquois. Representatives of the confederacy, whom he met three years later, while trying to persuade them to side with the colonists during the Revolu­ tionary War, he pronounced exemplars of “the natural and primitive state of man.”18 And William Johnson, who lived among the Mohawks for most of his adult life, was so deeply embedded in their culture that a friend once described him as a white Noble Savage: Something in his natural temper responds to Indian ways. The man holding up a spear he has just thrown, upon which a fish is now im­ paled; the man who runs, with his toes turned safely inward, through a forest where a greenhorn could not walk; the man sitting silent, gun on knee, in a towering black glade[;] . . . the man who can read a bent twig like an historical volume,

and so on. Johnson, in other words, was made out to be an upwardly mobile Natty Bumppo, a man whose knowledge and skills, although to some extent forest learned, were still capable of guiding him to a higher, more productive life.19 During his long and effective stewardship of Mohawk affairs, Johnson was also credited with refining the civic culture of the tribe. In 1772, two years before Johnson died, William Tryon, governor of New York, paid a visit to the Mohawk Valley. The Indians there, he wrote, “appear to be actuated as a community by principles of rectitude that would do honor to the most civilized nations. They are, indeed, in a civilized state.”20 James Adair, who lived among tribes on the Mississippi frontier, came north to see Johnson in 1768, seeking his endorsement for a book Adair was writing on North American Indian manners and customs. But surely Adair also wanted a firsthand look at the famed Iroquois Confederacy, which he planned to describe in the book. He seems to have struck out

26   /   Noble Savagery as Invention

with Johnson, but otherwise he came away starry-eyed. History of the American Indian, published in 1775, extends confederacy beliefs and practices to cover Indian life throughout the colonies. “The whole [Iro­ quois] constitution breathes nothing but liberty,” he wrote, “and when there is equality of condition, manners and privileges, and a constant familiarity in society, as prevails in every Indian nation, and through all our British colonies, there glows such a cheerfulness and warmth of courage in each of their breast[s], as cannot be described.”21 The Revolution, understandably, ushered in a less sunny appraisal of Indian life. Jefferson, while a staunch defender of North American In­ dian mental and physical attributes, seems to have all but dismissed Adair’s views, replacing them with those of a future president keenly aware of the sacrifices that would have to be made in the course of build­ ing a continental empire. In the appendix to Notes on the State of Virginia, published in 1785, only ten years after Adair’s volume, Jefferson turned to a well-known speech by the Indian Logan, delivered at a peace treaty in 1774, to prophesy the downward path of Indian-white relations.22 Logan was the son of an Iroquois chief from northern Pennsylvania, who led a group from his father’s tribe west, after the French and Indian War, to settle in the Ohio Country. Few whites lived there when Logan arrived, but more came over the years, increasing tension between the local Indians and a growing number of settlers, indifferent to the land claims (often guaranteed by previous government treaties) of the Indians. One evening, while Logan watched, a party of white men shot and killed his pregnant wife and other members of his family as they stepped from their canoes to the bank of the Ohio River. Logan went on a rampage, murdering and scalping at least thirteen whites before his anger subsided. His lament, which followed, begins with the familiar line, “I appeal to any white man to say, if he ever entered Logan’s cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat,” and ends on the poignant note that few of Logan’s tribe are left to join him in mourning his family. The transition is in­ structive, commencing with a high moment of Noble Savage rhetoric (the generous and honorable Logan) and ending with a dramatic warning

Noble Savagery as Invention   /   27

of racial extermination. Over the next decades, passages from the speech were endlessly reprinted (it appeared in Washington Irving’s Sketch Book as well as numerous editions of McGuffey’s Reader), but its repeti­ tion seemed to have had less effect as time went on, especially among those willing to separate nostalgia for vanishing tribes from a dedicated effort to prevent further destruction.23

chapter three

Noble Savage Imagery, 1710 to 1820s

Jefferson was not alone, of course, in seeing a darker future for Indianwhite relations. Before (and after) the Revolution, many leading citizens, government officials, and rank-and-file colonists had a less favorable view of Indian life. This was sometimes based on actual or secondhand experience (especially for those who lived near the frontier or served in state militias), or it surfaced in illustrations (figs. 4 and 5) appearing in British and American publications that characterized Indians as savages, incapable of civilized behavior.1 So for every stirring tribute to the Iro­ quois’s enlightened self-government, superior statecraft, and military prowess, one can find a ritual listing of opposing opinions. Not enough to change the minds of those who promoted the idea of noble savagery, I would argue, but even such advocates as Colden and Franklin had mo­ ments of doubt. Colden would, on occasion, condemn the Iroquois as “a poor and barbarous people, under the Darkest Ignorance.”2 And Frank­ lin, after witnessing a dance by rum-soaked Delaware and Iroquois, following a conference in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, wrote that “darkcolored bodies, half naked,” seen only by the gloomy light of a bonfire, “came closest to resembling scenes from hell” that he could imagine.3 Add to those comments that came from all sides about Mohawk conduct in warfare, and one finds a sizable body of negative opinion. But in the 28

Noble Savage Imagery   /   29

Figure 4.  An Indian Warrior Entering His Wigwam with a Scalp. Etching by Barlow from Thomas Anburey, Travels through the Interior Parts of America. In a Series of Letters by an Officer (London: William Lane, 1789). Courtesy of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

long run it didn’t seem to affect the Mohawks’ reputation. That appar­ ently rested less on anecdotal remarks about their savage ways than on the tribe’s resolve to play a dominant role in eighteenth-century North American politics. That role, as I noted earlier, was undertaken partly as an act of selfpreservation. Diplomacy was the one sure way to resist, at least tempo­ rarily, British designs on North America. So the Mohawks continued to bargain, and the British, increasingly eager to have the Mohawks on their side, offered them benefits that exceeded those of any other tribe

30   /   Noble Savage Imagery

Figure 5.  Illustration from William P. Edwards, Narrative of the Capture and Providential Escape of Misses Frances and Almire Hall . . . who were taken prisoners by the Savages, at a Frontier Settlement, near Indian Creek . . . (New York, 1833). Courtesy of the Rare Book and Special Collections Divi­ sion, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

in North America.4 The Mohawks, for example, were promised generous annual gifts, a percentage of profits generated by fur trade activities on their land, a fair price for land sales to colonists and Europeans, and protection from marauding Canadian tribes. In addition, the British rec­ognized the Mohawks as a sovereign people, not under the rule of the crown. When Mohawk chiefs came to London to make treaties, they were considered visiting royalty—​as if they were New World kings com­ ing to meet their Old World counterparts. A round of state-sponsored balls and dinners accompanied these visits, as well as a stop at one or more of London’s famous portrait studios, where the Indians were

Noble Savage Imagery   /   31

dressed and posed in a flattering manner and painted with a gravity that literally became the public (and British-designed) image of private treaty making. When they returned to North America, copies of these portraits (or prints after them) were sometimes sent along.5 Depending on where they were hung, in an Iroquois longhouse or in one or more colonial government buildings, the portraits continued to uphold the role of the sitters as either tribal chiefs or Noble Savages. Any survey of Anglo-American Noble Savage images should begin with a few general observations. Patronage for such images came from an elite group, mostly British aristocrats or high government officials interested in colonial affairs. Despite favorable estimates of Indian life offered by leading figures in the colonies and the early republic, few seem to have acquired portraits of Indians, and only Jefferson and Charles Willson Peale displayed Indian artifacts, the former at Monticello, the latter in his Philadelphia museum.6 Portraits and history paintings that include Mohawks (and portraits of other Iroquois leaders) tend to domi­ nate this survey, although a few images of Cherokees and Creeks, much larger southeastern tribes, also appear, again because the British needed their help to build strategic military alliances.7 The key Mohawk pictures were painted by West and Stuart, both born in the colonies and trained abroad, West in Rome and Stuart in London, by West. One wonders if West didn’t pass along his interest in Indians to his young student, al­ though once Stuart returned to the United States few commissions for Indian portraits seem to have come his way.8 The most characteristic aspect of the Noble Savage portraits that follow (and of Noble Savage portraits in general, whether of Indians or white men impersonating Indians) is their ethnographic informality. Enlightenment observers were often more interested in measuring rela­ tive “improvement” among individual Indians and tribal cultures than in a careful record of dress, artifacts, dwellings, or customs.9 The most obvious sign of this in portraiture might loosely be called cross-dressing, a reference to the combination of Indian and white articles of clothing worn by an individual (Indian or white) that signified his (or her) social

32   /   Noble Savage Imagery

Figure 6.  William Hodges, Cherokee Indian, 1791. Oil on canvas, 291 ⁄ 2 × 243⁄ 8 in. (75 × 62 cm). Reproduced by kind permission of the President and Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

mobility, whether on the frontier or at a fashionable London recep­ tion. The custom is hard to overlook when comparing works by two eighteenth-century English artists: William Hodges’s Cherokee Indian (fig. 6) and Thomas Hardy’s image of the white man William Augustus Bowles (fig. 7), who made his home with the Creeks for twenty years.10 The Cherokee is less dashing and has darker skin, but common to both is the dramatic studio look of the sitters and the mix of Indian and white accessories—​dress shirts, gorgets, earrings, headdresses, and blankets—​

Noble Savage Imagery   /   33

Figure 7.  Thomas Hardy, William Augustus Bowles as an Indian Chief, 1791. Oil on canvas, 291 ⁄ 2 × 243⁄ 8 in. (75 × 62 cm). Upton House, The Bearsted Collection (The National Trust). © NTPL/Angelo Hornak.

to emphasize their liminal status. The style of both portraits is also similar: half-length, with figures brought close to the picture plane, each more or less directly confronting the viewer with firmly modeled, even features and a self-assured gaze. Threatening looks, gestures, or poses rarely make their way into Noble Savage portraiture. The most one might see is an occasional war club, spear, or rifle, mostly used to rein­ force a standard classical pose. Noble Savages, we should also remember,

34   /   Noble Savage Imagery

Figure 8.  Gustavus Hes­selius, Lapowinsa, 1735. Oil on canvas, 33 × 25 in. (83.8 × 63.5 cm). Courtesy of The His­tor­ical Society of Penn­ sylvania Collection, Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia.

are progressive Indians (or white men willing to test their cultural ad­ vantage). Like their dress, they have the potential to cross racial bound­ aries; indeed, they appear to have a rare talent for surviving simultane­ ously in both white and Indian worlds. The flexible nature of these sitters, to some extent dictated by the conventions of English studio portraiture, also separates them from the few Indian portraits painted earlier in the colonies. The more straightforward appearance of the Delaware chief Lapowinsa (fig. 8), painted by Gustavus Hesselius in Philadelphia in 1735, tells us how much the two approaches differ.11 Even a brief survey of Noble Savage imagery must start with four monumental portraits of Indian “Kings” (three were Mohawks, the fourth was a Mohican), the first ever painted by white artists of North American Indian subjects.12 The kings, summoned to London in 1710 by Queen Anne, were participating in what would become a standard

Noble Savage Imagery   /   35

ritual of British diplomacy. But their visit was special in at least one way: the queen ordered state portraits of the Indian emissaries, initiating a practice that would be continued (by British monarchs or ranking of­ ficials) well into the next century. One can only guess that the four kings were so crucial to the queen’s plans for North America that she was willing to pay generously for timely and loyal service to the crown. And yet for the Mohawks, the trade-off was questionable. The portraits might acknowledge their short-term advantage, and serve to boost their selfesteem, but they also made the Mohawks party to long-term British designs on North America. And that, to say the least, would never work to the Indians’ advantage. The 1710 visit, during what is now called Queen Anne’s War, was no exception. The war was fought mainly on the European continent be­ tween England and France, but during the four kings’ visit, crown mili­ tary advisers persuaded them to muster a force of Mohawk-led Iroquois warriors to harass the French in northern New England while the British launched a naval attack on Montreal and Quebec, the major North Amer­ ican fur-trading centers. The Mohawks did their part, but the British campaign failed to materialize; about all that remains of the elaborate plan are the portraits, supplied by John Verelst, billed as “a noted FacePainter” in his day. Our view of Verelst’s ability may be more modest, but he did manage to favor each king with a suitably classical pose, drawn directly from late-seventeenth-century British portraiture. More interesting are the settings of each portrait—​dense forest in­ teriors, presumably meant to represent the New World—​and the cos­ tumes of the four kings. Hendrick (fig. 9), the grand or head chief, wears a black court suit (Queen Anne was in mourning) and European shoes with buckles; the others are dressed in white shirts cut and gathered to look like classical tunics, over which long, red robes are draped, an imaginative attempt to make the kings’ status match that of European royalty (fig. 10).13 But what Verelst (or the London tailor who designed the costumes) came up with may also have been a compromise—​New World kings with an art historical lineage. Shortening the shirts to

Figure 9.  John Verelst, Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Row (Christianized Hendrick), 1710. Oil on canvas, 36 × 257⁄ 16 in. (91.5 × 64.5 cm). Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa, Acc. No. 1977–​35–​4 , Repro. No. C-092414. Acquired with a special grant from the Canadian Government in 1977.

Figure 10.  John Verelst, Sa Ga Yeath Qua Pieth Tow (Christianized Brant), 1710. Oil on canvas, 36 × 257⁄ 16 in. (91.5 × 64.5 cm). Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa, Acc. No. 1977–​35–​2, Repro. No. C-092418. Acquired with a special grant from the Canadian Government in 1977.

38   /   Noble Savage Imagery

Figure 11.  Sir Peter Lely, Henry Sidney, Earl of Romney, ca. 1650. Oil on canvas, 263⁄ 8 × 20 in. (67 × 51 cm). By kind permission of Viscount De L'Isle from his private collection at Penshurst Place, U.K.

knee-length tunics make three of the kings (absent their lethal weapons) look like figures whose ancestors might also have occupied Arcadia (fig. 11), although one much tamer than the wild scenery from which the kings emerge. Indian artifacts add an additional exotic note: Hen­ drick holds a wampum belt, woven to signify the agreement arrived at between the Mohawks and the British. The others wear decorated belts and moccasins and elaborate earrings. In the lower register of each paint­ ing is an animal (a wolf for Hendrick; a bear for the king named Brant, the grandfather of Joseph Brant). In addition, Brant (the grandfather) proudly displays across his face, chest, and arms a spectacular tattoo. Otherwise, except for mildly aboriginal face types and darker skin tones, the figures don’t necessarily stand out as Indian. And Verelst has to some extent separated them from the wilderness backdrop that sym­ bolically marks their origins. Unlike others in that backdrop, who re­

Noble Savage Imagery   /   39

main hunters and warriors in a darker past, the four kings stand on a narrow stage between primitive life and the fashionable London diplo­ matic circuit, noteworthy examples of noble savagery in transition. From this so-called stage, their exotic appearance allows them to travel for­ ward in cultural time without entirely abandoning their formative base—​nature in the New World. But a court suit and pseudoclassical garments, which at this point signify the enlightened world the kings are entering, only obscure the dangers set in motion by this kind of portraiture. The sitters are, in effect, navigating between two cultures, their transient status subject to those in control of the portrait process. From such a position, their ability to secure an enduring political base in the New World will be challenging and uncertain if not impossible. The French, along with the British, were also trying to enlarge their influence among the Indians of New York and lower Canada. But their campaign, with a few exceptions, never had an aggressive artistic comple­ ment. Instead, it depended on written accounts by Jesuit missionaries and other New World explorers, who occasionally illustrated native peoples, customs, and historical events. Iroquois chiefs meeting to recite the laws of the confederacy, from Moeurs des sauvage amériquains by Father Joseph-François Lafitau, is one of the best known of these illustrations (fig. 12). Lafitau had lived among the Iroquois for six years, and, like Colden, he believed that social hierarchies were dynamic and progres­ sive. Human societies passed through the levels of these hierarchies at different rates; Lafitau’s aim was to mark their progress over time for comparative purposes, on the assumption that some societies had taken longer than others to mature.14 The Iroquois Confederacy, he claimed, had reached the level of ancient Greek civilization (a judgment made obvious in the figures and dress of the illustrations accompanying his text) but was still well below the achievements of fifth-century b.c. Greece or the Roman republic. Benjamin West’s paintings of Mohawks, or Mohawk-related subjects, were less tied to such a closely scripted theoretical base, but he remained true to a broader assumption linking Indians and classical antiquity. Not

40   /   Noble Savage Imagery

Figure 12.  Iroquois leaders assembled to recite the laws of the Five Nations Confederacy. Engraving from Joseph-François Lafitau, Moeurs des sauvages amériquains comparées aux moeurs des premiers temps (Paris: Saugrain l’Aîné et Charles ­Estienne Hochereau, 1724). Courtesy of the Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Washington, D.C.

long after he arrived in Rome, he painted his first Indian picture (fig. 13), a commission that came his way through Joseph Shippen, a prominent young Philadelphian (and veteran of the French and Indian War) who had accompanied West to Rome.15 Acting on instructions from the future owner, Shippen told West to paint a detailed picture of an Amer­ ican Indian, armed and prepared for war, with face paint and feathers in his hair. What came forth was a handsome classical figure taken from the Apollo Belvedere, wearing moccasins and a long fringed blanket wrapped loosely around his waist, who rather self-consciously displays ad­ ditional Indian accessories: a tomahawk (tucked in his blanket), powder horn, knife pouch, beaded bag, and headdress, the last an elaborate dis­ play of feathers attached to the warrior’s topknot. The headdress looks

Noble Savage Imagery   /   41

Figure 13.  Benjamin West, Savage Warrior Taking Leave of His Family, ca. 1760. Oil on canvas, 239⁄ 16 × 19 in. (60 × 48 cm). Reproduced by kind permission of the President and Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

mostly fanciful; the other accessories are perhaps Mohawk, or from one of several northeastern tribes. West’s image must have passed as an actual Indian for his time; to our eye the classical forms and drapery, supple­ mented by a few Indian artifacts, are more characteristic of the crossdressing that has so far designated Noble Savage imagery. One might also read the subject (Savage Warrior Taking Leave of His Family), painted

42   /   Noble Savage Imagery

in about 1760, the year the French and Indian War concluded, as comple­ menting British Indian policy in North America. The savage warrior, heeding the call to defend his home and family against French forces, is also a Noble Savage, fighting to secure a place for the British and their allies in postwar North America.16 Over the next decade, West did three more paintings in which Indians are included; in each the Indians are more clearly identifiable as Mo­ hawks, and the subjects, although indirectly acknowledging the artist’s colonial origins, are fairly open in serving the cause of transatlantic imperialism. The first shows an incident that occurred during the last years of the French and Indian War (fig. 14). The intrepid William John­ son, leading a force of local militia and Mohawk warriors along the shore of Lake Champlain, was attacked by French soldiers under the command of a Montcalm lieutenant, Baron Ludwig August von Dieskau. Johnson fended off the attack, then turned and routed the French. In the final moments of the battle, Dieskau was about to lose his scalp when Johnson (according to some accounts) intervened.17 West’s Indian, wearing the same knife pouch and beaded bag as in the previous picture but with his classicizing appearance downplayed, looks less like a Noble Savage than before. What takes the place of his dignified appearance, however, is his response to Johnson, who formally deters the Mohawk’s advance through a series of reciprocal movements and gestures. These, in effect, tell a moral tale: the Indian’s savage instincts, arrested by the benevo­ lence of Johnson, are then directed toward the woods, where other brave men, already dead, are available for scalping. Now that may sound a bit grisly to us, but it wasn’t to West, who was more concerned with telling viewers how Noble Savages respond to moral instructions than with debating the fine points of then-current warfare. Moreover, even in the heat of battle, this Noble Savage shows himself capable of rising to a civilized standard of behavior (while guided by the finer instincts of an Irish baronet). An Indian caught up in the observance of civilized manners and customs also provides a lead into West’s great painting, The Death of

Noble Savage Imagery   /   43

Figure 14.  Benjamin West, General Johnson Saving a Wounded French Officer from the Tomahawk of a North American Indian, 1764–​68. Oil on canvas, 51 × 42 in. (129.5 × 106.7 cm). © 2010 Derby Museums and Art Gallery, U.K.

General Wolfe (fig. 15), completed in 1770, only a few years after the scene of Johnson restraining a Mohawk warrior. Prominently placed in the lower left-hand corner of the Death of Wolfe is another Indian, whose appearance, contained and thoughtful, is the compositional foil to the expiring Wolfe, whose torso, legs, and arms are already limp and lifeless. The dramatic formal dialogue staged by West, however, is not one for

44   /   Noble Savage Imagery

Figure 15.  Benjamin West, The Death of General Wolfe, 1770. Oil on canvas, 60 × 841 ⁄ 2 in. (152.6 × 214.5 cm). National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Trans­ fer from the Canadian War Memorials, 1921 (Gift of the 2nd Duke of West­ minster, England, 1918). Photo © National Gallery of Canada.

which we can find historical evidence. In fact, no Indians took part in the siege of Quebec, nor did any witness the death of Wolfe. Historians have also concluded that perhaps only one of the figures surrounding Wolfe, most of whom can be identified, was actually present at his death.18 But if the cast and arrangement of West’s picture are mostly an invention, what role can be assigned to the seated Indian, who occupies such a prominent place in the composition? Moreover, that Indian, West clearly wants the viewer to know, is a Mohawk, both because he is equipped with a bead bag and tomahawk similar to those in the previous painting and because he is elaborately marked with a tattoo that identi­ fies him as a member of the Snake or Great Serpent clan of the Mohawk.19 Another clue West deftly drops in place for then-contemporary viewers is the powder horn, suspended from a beaded strap that hangs over the shoulder of the green-jacketed ranger above the Indian. It is inscribed

Noble Savage Imagery   /   45

“Sir William Johnson / mohawk river,” surely a tribute to Johnson’s role in assembling and leading Mohawk warriors against French forces during the final years of the war. But if West wished to honor Mohawk participation in the war, he must also have realized that after the war the tribe found itself in a compromised position. With the British con­ trolling most of North America east of the Mississippi, it was no longer possible for the Mohawks to play one European power against another to secure possession of their native lands. Are we to assume, then, that the pensive warrior is mainly concerned with the diminished prospects of his tribe? Or does West pass over that while aiming at a so-called higher message? The Mohawk is, after all, observing the death of another great warrior, ritually reenacted as the deposition of Christ. And despite his subordinate position (or because of it), he is so linked to the compositional energy of the painting, as it directs the concern of the figures on the left toward Wolfe, that one has to assume the Mohawk takes his cue from those above him. Their concern, expressed through their common gaze, fastened on the dying Wolfe, is like the restraining hand of Johnson in the previous picture. The Indian perceives, if not with immediate understanding, how the ges­t ures of those whom he serves convey the tragic consequences of Wolfe’s death. But perhaps West meant to use the Indian in other ways too. The gestures of the white men surrounding Wolfe, routine and un­ exceptional expressions of grief, may not have moved visitors to the Royal Academy in London (where the painting was first exhibited) as much as the demeanor of the Indian.20 Reserved, brooding, a formidable warrior, and a stoic spectator of death, West used this figure to deliver succinctly and powerfully the imperial message of the painting: great military victories are often accompanied by tragic human loss. The last Indian West painted, six years after the Death of Wolfe, was Captain David Hill (Karonghyontye), who stands behind Colonel Guy Johnson, the subject of the portrait (fig. 16).21 Guy, who commissioned the portrait, was the nephew and son-in-law of William Johnson, heir to a portion of his uncle’s extensive landholdings along the Mohawk River, and successor to his uncle as superintendent of Indian Affairs for

Figure 16.  Benjamin West, Colonel Guy Johnson and Karonghyontye (Captain David Hill), 1776. Oil on canvas, 791 ⁄ 2 × 543⁄ 8 in. (202 × 138 cm). Andrew W. Mellon Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Image Cour­ tesy of the Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington.

Noble Savage Imagery   /   47

the Iroquois Confederacy. (After the Revolution, the title would cover only remnants of the confederacy tribes that had settled in Canada.) David Hill, a Mohawk chief, had accompanied Johnson to London, presumably to negotiate with British officials who wished to keep the Mohawks on their side during the Revolutionary War. Hill has dressed up, with richly detailed native accessories and a fringed blanket, worn classical style, to achieve a level of exoticism suitable for a London por­ trait studio. Johnson, on the other hand, has dressed down, to look less military and more like an elegant frontiersman.22 Beaded sashes, deer­ skin leggings, moccasins, and a beautifully decorated fur blanket taste­ fully mediate the authority of his red military jacket. Johnson’s clothing, more than Hill’s, seems to suggest a willingness to cross boundaries, although any such initiative is confounded by the two prominent verti­ cals in the picture: the rifle Johnson holds in his left hand, near the plane of the picture, and the long-stemmed decorated pipe Hill holds in his right hand. The implied difference between the two artifacts is recapitulated in the power relationships between the white man and the In­dian, unless West, revealing carefully guarded feelings about the colonies, may have been subtly urging Johnson to make peace, not war. If so, the shadowy figure of Hill may represent Johnson’s alter ego, al­ though that would be imposing on the complacent Johnson a complexity not otherwise evident. A more likely reading of the portrait fixes Hill as a subordinate, cast in the role of a body servant—​r igid, formal, his face directed slightly toward Johnson but betraying no sign of emotion. Given Hill’s impor­ tant role in the negotiations, he seems all too ready to submit his re­ sponsibility to Johnson—​to allow Johnson’s judgment about Mohawk alignment during the war to supersede his own. But that again tells us how the concept of noble savagery served imperialism: British artists naturalized the process by which figures like David Hill recognized and received the superior wisdom of mentors like Johnson. And Johnson, in turn, assumes the role of mentor with perfect equanimity, surveying his world (though hardly acknowledging Hill) from a rough-hewn seat, or woodland throne, seemingly carved from the giant rock that looms above

48   /   Noble Savage Imagery

him. Studio light, playing across his features, substantial figure, and richly textured clothes, reinforces his authority. So do the graceful angular repeats of Johnson’s arms and legs, a touch of refinement denied to the stiff forms of Hill’s upright body. But for all the difference we observe between the two, they are framed by the same rock and bound together formally by gestures and poses that respond to one another. Johnson’s mission, after all, was literally to keep Hill by his side. He suc­ ceeds in the portrait, and he apparently also succeeded in the real world. Hill, Brant, and other Mohawk chiefs sided with the British dur­ ing the war. But after the war, they paid dearly for their allegiance. The new federal government in Washington and an empowered New York State bureaucracy seized tribal lands, forcing Mohawks to relocate to Canada or to join other Iroquois on reduced parcels of land in western New York or, even farther away, in the Ohio Country.23 With Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of Joseph Brant, Noble Savage imag­ ery reaches new heights. Brant was the brother of William Johnson’s common-law wife, Molly; a prominent Mohawk chief; a leader of the Iroquois warriors allied with the British during the Revolution; and, subsequently, an accomplished diplomat, who twice went to London to seek restitution of Iroquois land lost during the Revolution.24 On the first trip (1776), he sat to George Romney (fig. 17).25 On the second (1786), at the request of the duke of Northumberland, a veteran, like Brant, of the French and Indian and Revolutionary Wars, he sat to Stuart (fig. 18).26 On both trips, Brant’s “polished” manners, pleasing appear­ ance, and fluent command of English made a deep impression at court and among crown officials. Clearly, this was not lost on him. In the Romney and Stuart portraits, he dresses the part so splendidly that one suspects he was no less adept at manipulating his image than were the two artists, both of whom (as well as patrons?) produced a Brant allied to the British cause. Indeed, Romney and Stuart have stressed noble and played down savage, to the point that the latter barely exists. Except for the tomahawk Brant holds in his left hand in the Romney portrait and the slightly swarthy color of his skin in Stuart’s image, he could easily

Noble Savage Imagery   /   49

cross the line as an exotically dressed white man, with a mildly subversive tendency to challenge racial boundaries. Romney’s work in particular—​ three-quarter length, with Brant’s face, wearing a discreetly self-satisfied expression, turned toward the viewer—​closely follows the conventions of aristocratic British portraiture. A change of costume and an accom­ modating background would easily convert the sitter into an English gentleman. What makes Brant by Stuart an even more exceptional portrait is that such a conversion doesn’t happen as easily, despite the standard pose and the sitter’s impressive demeanor. Hanging from a blue ribbon around Brant’s neck is the gorget, received from George III in 1776, that appears in the earlier portrait. But in the Stuart portrait, a medallion of George, contained in a brass locket, is attached to the bottom of the gorget. The entire piece looms much larger that it did in the Romney portrait, not just because Brant is closer to the picture plane, but because the gorget and medallion are strikingly set off against the fringed black shawl he wears around his shoulders. Equally striking is Brant’s red cap, adorned with feathers, in effect the only item in the portrait that can be classified as halfway Indian, even though it has a faintly regimental look, not un­ like the cap held in Guy Johnson’s right hand. Brant’s face, positioned between that cap and the gorget below, and between the vividly contrast­ ing red and black colors, encourages us to see him between two different worlds. But now, uncomfortably so. No longer does his expression have a hint of self-satisfaction; age, resignation, even world-weariness seem to have touched and re-formed his features. Either Brant performed for Stuart or Stuart, with a keen understanding of the post–​Revolutionary War plight of the Mohawks, has introduced a premature note of tragedy into Noble Savage portraiture. British imperial ambitions now conflicted with Mohawk efforts to preserve their valuable homeland, a circum­ stance made evident when one compares the Romney and Stuart por­ traits. Romney’s Brant has options; on the eve of the Revolution, the British need his support. He moves with confidence between white and Indian worlds. Ten years later, Brant has more medals, but these, awarded

Figure 17.  George Romney, Joseph Brant ( Thayendanegea), 1776. Oil on canvas, 50 × 40 in. (127 × 101.6 cm). National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Transfer from the Canadian War Memorials, 1921. Photo © National Gallery of Canada.

Figure 18.  Gilbert Stuart, Joseph Brant, 1786. Oil on canvas, 231 ⁄ 2 × 24 in. (59.7 × 61 cm). Collection of the Duke of Northumberland, Syon House, U.K.

52   /   Noble Savage Imagery

Figure 19.  Gilbert Stu­ art, Joseph ( Thayendanegea) Brant, 1786. Oil on canvas, 30 × 25 in. (76.2 × 63.5 cm). Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York. Photograph by Richard Walker.

for faithful service in a war that almost destroyed his people, have proved meaningless, emblems of a lost cause. What he needs instead is a home­ land, a postwar refuge to make up for what the Mohawks had lost after the Revolution. But the fate of his tribe (perhaps signaled by his somber dress) was no longer his to decide. After months of bargaining, he was given crown lands in Canada (amounting to a fraction of what the Mo­ hawks had once owned in the colonies) on which to settle the remnants of his tribe. In a second portrait by Stuart (fig. 19), also painted in 1786, Brant has an even more wistful look. His gaze is no longer directed at the viewer but seemingly at an unknown, dispiriting future, in which his hybrid status would become more fiction than reality.27 The Brant iconography continues through the end of the century with less imposing examples. None of the subsequent portraits are by British artists, an indication of his diminished role in North American geopolitics; several are by European artists (e.g., Fig. 20), who perhaps

Noble Savage Imagery   /   53

Figure 20.  William Berczy, Thayendanegea ( Joseph Brant), Chief of the Six Nations, ca. 1807. Oil on canvas, 241 ⁄4 × 18 in. (61.8 × 46.1 cm). National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Photo © National Gallery of Canada.

wished to trade on Brant’s former notoriety; and at least two are by American artists (figs. 21 and 22), who seem to have regarded Brant (along with other Iroquois chiefs) as an elder statesman, consulted from time to time on how to deal with the Indians who still remained in the East or their more belligerent counterparts in the Ohio Country. William Berczy, a Saxon-born painter who went to Canada as a land agent in

54   /   Noble Savage Imagery

Figure 21.  Charles Willson Peale, Joseph Brant, 1797. Oil on canvas, 25 × 21 in. (63.5 × 53.3 cm). Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia.

1794, shows Brant (fig. 20) on the banks of the Grand River, north of Lake Erie, where he settled with his band of Mohawks (and Loyalists who had Indian wives) in 1785, the year before his final negotiations with the British. Berczy returns to a pose reminiscent of West’s 1764 classical warrior, with Brant’s gesture perhaps meant to assert further claim to his (relatively) new home. The mix of clothing worn by Brant also seems more appropriate to Canada than to London; Indian acces­ sories prevail rather than the hybrid European-Indian studio costumes he favored in the Romney and Stuart portraits. Complementing the

Noble Savage Imagery   /   55

Figure 22.  Ezra Ames, Joseph Brant, 1806. Oil on canvas, 301 ⁄ 2 × 241 ⁄ 2 in. (77.5 × 62.2 cm). Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York. Photograph by Richard Walker.

native accent of Brant’s dress are his knotted scalp lock, highlighted with red paint, and his dark-skinned facial features. Over the years, Brant sold land from his Canadian grant to other tribes, and occasionally to white settlers. On at least one occasion, Berczy was involved in these transactions, although to what extent we don’t know. All that remains of the relationship is this portrait, perhaps painted by Berczy to encour­ age more business from Brant.28

56   /   Noble Savage Imagery

The first American to paint Brant was Charles Willson Peale, during a visit by Brant to Philadelphia in 1797 (fig. 21). Brant was fifty-four at the time, still the most influential Iroquois chief on both sides of the border. But his frequent trips to the new capital and elsewhere during the 1790s, to meet government officials, had not brought him closer to securing for his tribe (or for himself ) compensation for their post­ war losses. The portrait followed the formula of others Peale made for his new museum of natural science—​a head-and-shoulders view of the sitter, with dress and appearance appropriate to the achievements that qualified him as a “noteworthy human exhibit” (Brant was the only Indian to gain that distinction).29 Brant’s Indianness is, therefore, a bit more pronounced than in the Berczy portrait, especially when Peale turned his attention to dress and accessories. We should also note that the George III medallion, still present in the Berczy portrait, has been replaced by a gorget, probably to call attention to Brant’s former status as a Mohawk warrior. Ezra Ames of Albany, the second American to paint Brant, followed in 1806 with a well-fed, complacent-looking figure (fig. 22), dressed in a hastily assembled studio costume consisting of a decorated shirt, several strands of beads, a barely noticeable headdress, and no medallion or gorget.30 Brant had insisted on being painted in Indian dress, but in this case, surely with Ames’s help, he comes off looking more like a white man tastefully outfitted in Indian costume. Portraits such as those by Peale and Ames bring us to a divide in Indian portraiture at the beginning of the nineteenth century. One trend moves on to picturing “civilized” Indians in European dress, some of whom remained in the Southeast (or east of the Mississippi); a second and dominant trend leads to a more ethnographic style of imaging, featuring Republican Indians, still living some distance from the white frontier, wearing reasonably authentic native attire. The Peale and Ames portraits are on the cusp of this division, leaning more toward eth­ nography in the way they play down cross-dressing. But despite evi­ dence of this new direction, and a diminishing supply of Indians who could qualify as Noble Savages, former conventions for painting Iroquois

Noble Savage Imagery   /   57

leaders remained in place through the first decades of the nineteenth century. Two portraits from this last phase are of Seneca chiefs, Cornplanter (fig. 23) and Red Jacket (fig. 24), neither of whom believed he could retreat to the past. So in their respective communities, they cautiously advo­ cated Christianity, education in mission schools, modern farming methods, and cottage industries. But the two chiefs were also rivals, perhaps because they had come to their leadership roles in different ways—​t he former as a warrior, the latter as an orator and peacemaker—​ and these apparently guided the conception of each portrait. Corn­ planter, painted in 1796 by F. Bartoli, a London-trained artist recently arrived in New York, was a veteran of the French and Indian War and the Revolution. After the latter, he secured land from the federal gov­ ernment in western New York, where he settled with a group of Senecas who chose not to go to Canada (and submit to Brant’s rule, who was also a rival of Cornplanter).31 Bartoli’s Cornplanter, showing the chief as a forceful leader, draws more obviously on Roman busts, via neoclassical sculpture, than do previous portraits: the chief faces the viewer directly, dressed in garments whose classical overtones are modified by fanciful Indian accessories and an oversize gorget, the latter a reminder of mili­ tary campaigns in which he had played a prominent role. His broad shoulders, surrounded by a heavy robe, provide a sculptural base for the massive head, strong features, and elaborate feather headdress. An ad­ ditional complement to his authority is the firmly grasped tomahawk pipe, a bold diagonal crossing his chest. The bowl of the pipe and the pointed blade of the tomahawk appear to symbolize both aspects of Cornplanter’s career. He remains an Indian and a warrior, but with the survival of his tribe at stake, he willingly adopted peaceful ways. Or so the portrait tries to make us believe. In fact, neither this image nor the one following, both exoticized to an unusual degree, suggests that the respective sitters have found a comfortable place in post–​Revolutionary War North America. The warrior-statesman components of Noble Savage portraiture

58   /   Noble Savage Imagery

Figure 23.  F. Bartoli, Seneca Chief, Ki-On-Twog-Ky (also known as Cornplanter), 1796. Oil on canvas, 30 × 25 in. (76.2 × 63.5 cm). Collection of The New-York Historical Society, 1867.314.

compete not only in individual works, but in comparing the portrait of Cornplanter to the final example in this survey, Robert Weir’s Red Jacket, painted in 1828. Weir, a New Yorker, and for many years the drawing master at West Point, was doubtless aware of Red Jacket’s legendary past and may even have persuaded the chief, by then well past his prime, to sit for him. When Red Jacket came to his studio, Weir seems to have focused on two principal themes: Red Jacket the orator and Red Jacket the advocate of coexistence with whites. The pose is clearly that of a

Noble Savage Imagery   /   59

Figure 24.  Robert Weir, Red Jacket, or Sa-Go-YeWat-Ha, 1828. Oil on canvas, 301 ⁄ 2 × 201 ⁄4 in. (76.2 × 51.4 cm). Collec­ tion of The New-York Historical Society, 1893.1.

classical orator (while also acknowledging more recent British and co­ lonial portraiture), but the jacket and leggings worn by the chief, fringed and tasseled to excess, were apparently of his own choosing. He had dressed himself, according to a contemporary account, in a manner “he deemed most appropriate to his character,” although he must also have thought his “costume” a stylish Indian equivalent of what New York gentry might have worn on a similar occasion.32 His facial expression, also a bit exaggerated, tells us that Red Jacket was probably more alive and resolute on canvas than he was in real life. In this and in other portrait accessories—​t he outsize Washington peace medal and the tomahawk—​ the image appears to signal the end not only of Red Jacket’s influence

60   /   Noble Savage Imagery

but that of the confederacy as well in postwar politics. The prominently displayed peace medal, a gift to Red Jacket from President Washington in 1792, and the tomahawk, less conspicuous and certainly less menac­ ing than the one held by Cornplanter, are both emblems of the past. The medal surely reminded Red Jacket of a time when he was a leading spokesman for the Senecas (and for the Iroquois); and the tomahawk, once a scepter of authority, has in this case devolved into a stage prop, supporting a weary old man.

ch a p ter fou r

The Rise of Republican Indians

To claim that Noble Savage portraiture was replaced at a certain time by the next generation of Indian painters, those who created what are called here Republican Indians, is making a neat package of what is es­ sentially a messy, drawn-out transition.1 Still, one can sense the end of the line in portraits like that of Red Jacket; their formal structure seems forced, ineffective, empty—​a pose and gestures no longer animated by a set of beliefs. Those beliefs, which developed around (and were encour­ aged by) Indian leaders such as Brant and Red Jacket, began to fade soon after the Revolution, when both the British and American governments had to deal firsthand with the badly depleted remains of the Iroquois Confederacy. Their tribal cultures may not have disappeared, but they were no longer the mythic New World communities that observers like Colden and Adair had celebrated several decades earlier. Noble Savages didn’t live next door to white farmers; they inhabited the dark forests that had once extended from the western edge of the colonies to the Mississippi River. And as long as they could negotiate with the savvy of a Brant, they lived in those forests relatively free of white control. No sooner had the magic of such an Eden disappeared, however, than a new one was discovered, this time associated with western tribes oc­ cupying another strategic area of the country—​a thousand miles of 61

62   /   The Rise of Republican Indians

buffalo-covered prairie that bordered the Upper Missouri River as it wound its way east from the Rocky Mountains. Along the river, or nearby, lived the Osage, Mandan, Sioux, Blackfoot, Crow, and numerous other Plains tribes—​t hose already referred to as Republican Indians. By the 1820s these Indians had gained a certain allure among western travelers, not for a confederate system of government or an evolving lifestyle, but for the opposite: a fixed tribal hierarchy and a more static concept of time, the latter marked by cycles, seasonal or otherwise, that if anything tended to deny change. In the eyes of many white observers, these Indians placed a premium on courage, freedom, even wildness. They were much less willing to negotiate with a now openly imperialist American government than were the Mohawks when confronted by British efforts to control the fur trade and white settlement in eastern North America a century earlier. Nor did they have more than a few decades of breathing space before rapid westward expansion began. The U.S. Army, slowly growing more powerful, had already subdued most of the Old Northwest, includ­ ing fur trade forts at Vincennes and Detroit that the British had continued to occupy after the Revolution, opening the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers to additional commerce and the Great Plains to an occasional wagon train bound for Oregon or California.2 Presidents from Jefferson to Monroe preferred to deal peacefully with these tribes, but few Washington officials of that era entertained the idea that Upper Missouri Indians represented a sovereign nation or na­ tions, with the degree of independence that Mohawks had before the Revolution. Nor by the 1820s did a growing number of Washington officials believe that Indians in areas of the country where they were surrounded by hostile white settlers, or where they were temporarily beyond such interference, were necessarily capable of moving toward assimilation, the white solution for Indian-white relations. And of the two groups, doubts as to their ability to self-improve were about evenly divided. Indians living near white communities were often in disarray, or demoralized and dissolute. But those in more remote areas, uncor­ rupted “savages” with remarkably self-sustaining tribal cultures, were

The Rise of Republican Indians   /   63

not seen as easy converts to civilization either. They presumably had little capacity to change (and indeed should not, according to some white observers, or they would lose their Indianness). And this made Upper Missouri Indians more vulnerable than the Mohawks at every turn. Whatever sympathy they evoked as an untouched, fiercely independent people had the predictable twist of making them seem less capable of adapting to a new order in the West, even if that entailed a solution that stopped short of assimilation. And from there it was only a short step to become—​in one of the more ominous and evasive phrases of the time—​a vanishing race.3 That fate finally and unequivocally separated Republican Indians from Noble Savages. The latter, after all, had more prospects; influential Enlightenment spokesmen had seen them as upwardly mobile and there­ fore able to assimilate over time. This might mean that their Indianness would also disappear but not in a “few short generations” or in a series of hostile confrontations with whites. And while Noble Savages were evolving, they could make their way in both worlds, “savage” and civi­ lized—​or so the theory went. Joseph Brant, of course, was the model; he could transform himself from a Mohawk to a British gentleman almost as easily as he could change clothes. Buffalo Bull’s Back Fat (see fig. 38), a chief of the Blackfoot and an archetypal Republican Indian on the Upper Missouri, could not. He was what he was for all time—​or at least for as long as his tribe continued to flourish. Unlike Brant’s Indianness, Buffalo Bull’s was considered a more static ethnographic ranking, an inclination toward savagery that might today be called a case of arrested development. And during the first half of the nineteenth century, that ranking designated cultural differences between Indians and whites that were all too real. Despite these changing attitudes toward Indians, elite AngloAmericans who believed in noble savagery during the eighteenth century slowly evolved into a not dissimilar group that supported Republican Indians through the first decades of the nineteenth century. No single theory can explain why this happened; it seems likely, however, that

64   /   The Rise of Republican Indians

Figure 25.  George Catlin, Eé-hee-a-duck-cée-a, He Who Ties His Hair Before, 1832. Oil on canvas, 29 × 24 in. (73.7 × 60.9 cm). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washing­ ton, D.C., Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison Jr.

early Federalists (and their Whig successors) continued to resist racially motivated attitudes toward Indians, both because of their experience in dealing with tribal remnants in the East and because of a continuing fascination with the Iroquois Confederacy, brought forward as a model of fair-minded republican rule during and beyond the Federalist period. The virtue of the confederacy, as well as the more fixed tribal hier­ archies on the Upper Missouri, according to various commentators—​ including Washington’s secretary of state, Timothy Pickering; “Leather­ stocking Tales” author James Fenimore Cooper; the painter George Catlin; and the pioneer anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan—​was that both systems were republican at their core, with authority vested in chiefs and warriors (often of distinguished lineage) who dealt fairly and responsibly with their own people and expected the same from the new government.4 Conservative white elites, who made up the top ranks of the Federalist Party (and who were distrustful of popularly elected as­ semblies), were persuaded that a ruling class should consist of what they

The Rise of Republican Indians   /   65

Figure 26.  George Cat­ lin, DeWitt Clinton, 1827. Oil on canvas, 96 × 61 in. (243.8 × 154.9 cm). Col­ lection of the City of New York. Photograph by Glenn Castellano, courtesy of the Design Commission.

were: men of substance in their respective communities, with the talent and perspective to serve all citizens equally. When this same class of white men observed (or invented) tribal deliberations, they perceived, correctly or not, a process that operated on similar republican principles. And this they extended, with some exceptions, into a personal assessment of Indian behavior, assuming that Indian leaders (especially those ex­ tolled by Cooper and Catlin, who were distanced either by time or space from then-contemporary events) conducted themselves in a manner befitting natural aristocrats. The dignified composure of Catlin’s stand­ ing male Indians make explicit their link to his earlier portraits of re­ publican statesmen (figs. 25 and 26). On the fumes of such beliefs, tribal hierarchies were used to justify and support white republican social

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hierarchies.5 But among more candid white observers, it was also noted that both were likely to become vanishing races, the Indians succumbing to westward expansion, the white republican elites, after 1828, to the leveling effects of Jacksonian democracy. Cultural constructions of tribal authority at the turn of the century affected Indian-white relations on two different fronts: the resolution of land claims following the Revolution and the regulation of the fur trade, especially on the Upper Missouri during the 1820s. Although the Iroquois and related tribes were dealt with harshly after the war, those to whom Washington delegated Indian affairs attempted to ameliorate the situa­ tion.6 Indians who wished to stay on tribal lands, such as Cornplanter and Red Jacket, were given reduced but adequate allotments for agri­ culture and hunting. And those who had moved to the Ohio Country General Henry Knox (Washington’s first secretary of war) tried to deal with in a similar manner, even surrounding their allotments with buf­ fer zones to separate them from nearby white settlements. In effect, the system did not differ greatly from the way in which the British and French had dealt with Indians before the war, although Pickering, Knox, and other federal officials were a bit less altruistic, knowing that what they were offering was at best a short-term solution: Indians would soon be forced to sell their land and either move farther west or struggle to live as outsiders in white communities. Still, the system was more hu­ mane than the one that would follow, when military campaigns began to replace diplomacy and when, by dubious legal means, tribes were forced off their native lands and sent to live on unproductive reserva­ tions across the Mis­sissippi, where eventually they became wards of the government.7 The key role of Indians in the fur trade, both before and after the Revolution, also explains why Federalist policy makers continued to believe that working with them was preferable to ignoring them or mak­ ing them into enemies who would then deal (across a very porous Cana­ dian border) with British firms in Montreal and Quebec rather than

The Rise of Republican Indians   /   67

those in Albany and New York City.8 The same had been true before the war. During the second and third quarters of the eighteenth century, furs trapped in the Old Northwest (and in some cases, farther west) were transported by Indians (or French coureurs de bois) across the Great Lakes and then through Mohawk lands to Albany, or along the St. Lawrence to Canadian depots. William Johnson, along with Albany and New York City agents, some descended from Hudson Valley patroon families, were the principal beneficiaries of the New York route. Peter Schuyler, for example, who had accompanied the four Mohawk/Mohican kings to London in 1710, was engaged in the fur trade. So were his neighbors, the Livingstons, and farther south, the De Lanceys and Van Cortlands. Over time, these families had maintained peaceful commerce with the Indians, trading furs and buying land from them when the oppor­ tunity arose, both sides opting for coexistence rather than frontier warfare. Men like Peter Schuyler, whom the Iroquois honored with the name Quidor, the Indian equivalent of Peter, would have been as reluc­ tant to cause them trouble as to pick a fight with the British (although Solomon Van Rensselaer, Peter Schuyler’s neighbor, liked to brag that his heavy dragoon sword could “slash” through an Indian skull “just like cutting a round ripe pumpkin”).9 Shortly after the Revolution, these same families, along with prosperous New York City merchants, became the political base of the Federalist Party, whose majority lasted through the Washington and Adams administrations. Indian affairs were not among the party’s top concerns, but preservation of the status quo—​a republican form of government and a republican social hierarchy—​was. Former Noble Savages, metaphorically reborn at the turn of the century as Republican Indians, came to symbolize this desire for continuity. Their image reached back to what was perceived as an earlier, preindus­ trial, more culturally unified Anglo-America, when nature still guided culture. Artists and writers committed to this belief—​Thomas Cole and William Cullen Bryant, as well as Catlin and Cooper—​used Indians to represent the values of a nature-formed society, values sustained by an

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older elite who imagined themselves back to a nascent republic, sur­ rounded by abundant, modestly tamed wilderness.10 Not all Federalists viewed Indians this way, of course, but many New York and New England elites did, enough to define a culture of preserva­ tion in which Indians played a central role. And when one begins to look for those who might have supported such a position, they are not hard to find. Portraits already mentioned of Brant (the later ones, Peale’s especially, for his portrait gallery), Cornplanter, and Red Jacket are evi­ dence that patrons hadn’t yet given up on the virtues of Indian life.11 One of Cole’s major patrons, Stephen Van Rensselaer, for whom he painted evocative, twilight views of the Van Rensselaer manor house near Troy, was a descendant of Solomon, who, when he wasn’t threatening Indians with his sword, was buying furs and land from them, the latter to increase his already sizable estates in the upper Hudson Valley. DeWitt Clinton, twice governor of New York (1817–​22 and 1824–​26), was a student of Indian history, especially knowledgeable about the Iroquois (he claimed they displayed “energies of the human character . . . in a conspicuous manner”), and a major early patron of Catlin (fig. 26).12 Clinton probably introduced Catlin to another influential figure, William Leete Stone, a biographer of Brant and owner of the New York Commercial Advertiser, a leading Federalist newspaper, which in 1832 published Catlin’s letters from the Upper Missouri, where he was observing the mother lode of Republican Indians. And when Catlin brought paintings of these Indians to New York in 1837, Philip Hone, a former Federalist mayor of the city and a compulsive observer of its cultural scene, called these “a great col­ lection . . . of portraits of Indian chiefs, landscapes, ceremonies, etc., of the Indian tribes.” Catlin’s “enthusiasm” and “zeal” were “admirable,” Hone continued. “I have seldom witnessed so interesting an exhibition.” Hone’s applause, however, raises familiar issues. He never expresses an interest in real Indians; he simply assumes that the images he is observ­ ing match the Indians Catlin painted, suggesting that Hone had no trouble seeing Plains Indians as Republican Indians. The former became reified as the latter. And the ideal images of the latter, images that ap­

The Rise of Republican Indians   /   69

parently signaled a stable, permanent Plains Indian culture, Hone wished to transfer to his own group of republican upper-class New Yorkers, whose political and cultural authority was, not surprisingly, on the wane. After describing the Indian Gallery, Hone went on to say that he, Daniel Webster (Catlin’s supporters in 1837 were more likely to be Whigs than aging Federalists), and others sat beneath “an Indian tent formed of buffalo skins,” where they consumed “buffaloes’ tongues, and venison and waters of the great spring, and smoked the calumet of peace.” Play­ ing Indian was by then a time-honored process. But it was also a way to escape time, to travel back to the past, and Hone, especially, seemed willing to do so, convinced that Catlin’s Indian Gallery was a welcome destination.13

chapter five

Painting Republican Indians, 1800 to 1840s

As the new century began, Indian portraiture in the United States re­ ceived a major impetus from the War Department, whose officials in­ vited hundreds of Upper Missouri Indians to Washington for the same reasons the British had encouraged Mohawk chiefs to visit London dur­ ing the eighteenth century. American imperialism took over from British imperialism, to service an ambitious, if at first relatively restrained, expansionist agenda, begun by Jefferson after the Louisiana Purchase and continued under the administrations of Madison, Monroe, and John Quincy Adams. To secure peaceful passage for a constant stream of fur traders, army explorers, and settlers headed west, many of whom would begin their journey with a voyage up the Missouri River, treating with individual tribes (there were no Indian confederacies on the Upper Mis­ souri) along the river was essential. War Department officials sought to reassure these Indians that (for the time being, anyway) no one was trying to dispossess them of their villages or their hunting grounds. But if these officials were treading lightly, they did wish to send a mes­ sage: if Indians continued to interrupt white traffic passing through their country, there would be consequences. The mastermind of this policy may well have been Jefferson, who had witnessed the successful use of diplomacy by the British during the colo­ 70

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nial period, and again during the Washington administration, and had apparently concluded that it was the most appropriate way to deal with Upper Missouri Indians, whose goodwill was needed to protect American lives far from U.S. military support. And Jefferson, of all the presidents involved in hosting Indians, seemed to relish the prospect; during White House receptions, he apparently ignored important white guests to spend more time with visiting Indian delegations.1 Succeeding administrations continued Jefferson’s policy, especially those that followed the War of 1812. John C. Calhoun, secretary of war under Monroe and a concerned observer of British territorial ambitions in the Northwest (driven by the fur trade), was a firm advocate of maintaining cordial relations with tribes along the Upper Missouri. And General William Clark (of Lewis and Clark), who was appointed governor of the Louisiana Territory in 1813, with only a few soldiers to call on, was another advocate of diplomacy. During the Monroe administration, Clark and his deputy, son-in-law Benjamin O’Fallon, accompanied several Upper Missouri delegations to Washington. But it was Thomas L. McKenney, in charge of Indian Affairs under Monroe, who developed a strategic protocol for these Washington visits, perhaps aiming for a republican version of the reception given by British monarchs to the four kings and succeeding Indian delegations.2 The first stop on the Washington tour indeed followed British prec­ edent: Indians visiting from the Upper Missouri were taken to tailors and cobblers (the wives went to dressmakers), where they were outfitted for their subsequent stay in the capital. Receptions and formal dinners followed, including one or several at the White House, where the presi­ dent presented to each of the Indians elaborate silver peace medals. Then came a more serious introduction to sites in and around Washington, with stops at the Capitol and other imposing federal buildings, and at the Navy Yard, where frigates saluted the visitors with round after round of cannon fire, a none-too-subtle reminder of the power whites could direct against Indians. McKenney’s itinerary also included sittings at one or more local portrait studios. Flattering likenesses were painted of many of the Indians, including a version for McKenney’s office at the

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War Department and another for the sitters, perhaps to balance the effects of aggressive white posturing. Afterward, the Indians were sent home with quiet but firm admonitions about fighting among themselves and interfering with white travel through their lands. These visits to Washington, and to other eastern seaboard cities, initiated Republican Indian portraiture. At first it took place in the studios, permanent or temporary, of notable portrait painters—​John Trumbull, Charles Willson Peale, C. B. J. Févret de Saint-Mémin, Charles Bird King, John Neagle, and John Wesley Jarvis, to name only a few. A group of precisely drawn Saint-Mémin portraits, done in 1804 and succeeding years, seem to have inaugurated this practice; they con­ stitute the first major effort to record delegations of Indians (mostly Osage chiefs and warriors) visiting Washington. Jefferson, ever alert to the tenuous hold of the United States on the Louisiana Territory and to Osage influence on the Upper Missouri, saw a chance to lobby the del­ egation. To Robert Smith, his secretary of the navy, he wrote, “We shall endeavor to impress [the Osages] . . . not only with our justice & liberal­ ity, but with our power . . . because in their quarter, we are miserably weak.” In light of that statement, one might think that Jefferson or the War Department commissioned the portraits. But the only payment on record, $83.50, went from Meriwether Lewis to Saint-Mémin in 1807, “for likenesses of the Indians . . . necessary to my publication” (in which they never appeared).3 In conception, if not in detail, the classicizing spirit of these por­ traits, especially the two illustrated here (figs. 27 and 28), reaches back to previous Noble Savage images. So does the dignified bearing of each fig­ ure. But in other ways the Osages are represented quite differently from their predecessors: their dress and accessories are, with one exception, as ethnographically precise as those of Noble Savages were imprecise, openly (if programmatically) combining Indian and white fashion. Nor does it seem as if these Osages could cross cultural boundaries as easily as their predecessors. Enlightenment science, brought forth in the form of an astonishingly accurate individual profile, denies any real prospect

Figure 27.  Charles Bal­ thazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin, Osage Warrior, 1804. Watercolor on paper, 71 ⁄ 2 × 63⁄4 in. (19 × 17.1 cm). Courtesy, Winterthur Museum, Winterthur, Delaware.

Figure 28.  Charles Bal­ thazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin, Payouska or Pawhuska, Chief of the Great Osages, ca. 1806. Black chalk and charcoal with stumping, white chalk, pastel and graphite on pink prepared paper, 23 × 171 ⁄ 8 in. (58.4 × 18 cm). Collection of The New-York Histori­ cal Society, 1860.92.

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Figure 29.  John Neagle, Big Kansas, or Caussetongua, and Sharitarische, Chief of the Grand Pawnees, 1821. Oil on canvas, 163 ⁄ 8 × 223 ⁄4 in. (41.6 × 57.8 cm). Courtesy of The Historical Society of Pennsylvania Collection, Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia.

of change—​of moving to a higher level of human accomplishment. The two profiles not only reveal but clearly accent aboriginal features. The native dress worn by the one Osage is also more alluringly savage than anything seen thus far. And Payouska, though dressed in a military jacket, doesn’t have much room to maneuver either. He gains a certain distinc­ tion from the jacket (issued by the War Department to acknowledge rank across Indian-white ruling hierarchies), but it doesn’t grant him, as Brant’s dress did, intermediate social status. Payouska will never escape his heavy aboriginal features; they will always betray him. Thus he remains an Indian, temporarily sporting white man’s military attire. John Neagle’s portraits of Big Kansas and Sharitarische (fig. 29) continue this tradition, although their studio origins are less apparent than the Osage examples. Both Indians, members of an Upper Missouri

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Figure 30.  Charles Bird King, Young Omahaw, War Eagle, Little Missouri, and Pawnees, 1821. Oil on canvas, 361 ⁄ 8 × 28 in. (91.8 × 71.1 cm). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Gift of Miss Helen Barlow.

delegation that passed through Philadelphia on the way to Washington in 1821, did indeed visit Neagle’s studio, but when he painted them, he chose to do it informally.4 The two figures are sketched rather than fin­ ished, and although they appear on canvas facing each other, they are not really composed as a pair, or even in a consistent spatial sequence. Nevertheless, each is a closely observed portrait, and despite Neagle’s impromptu brushwork, he describes Indian features, face paint, head­ dresses, and accessories in a way that forecasts fieldwork by artists such as George Catlin and Karl Bodmer that would follow a decade later. The next stop for this same group of Indians was Charles Bird King’s studio in Washington, where King seems to have adopted a similar composition (fig. 30), expanding it to include five members of the delegation, each

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designated by name or tribe (if one can trust the title) and each with distinctive face paint (which may be more invention than ethnography) and bristling, roach-cut hair.5 War Eagle, the lead figure of the group, holds a menacing war club, whose blade is directed at his throat, although the peace medal hanging around his neck, presumably a recent gift from President Monroe, modifies the club’s curiously threatening impact. Despite King’s attempt to show the sitters as separate individuals, the five Indians look remarkably alike, leading one to suspect that the image designating Republican Indians was forming at the same time the one for Noble Savages was disappearing. Writers on King also note the historical precedent for such group portraits: not only Van Dyck’s mul­ tiple views of Charles I but, lower down the social scale, Rubens’s study of negro heads and Hogarth’s drawings of his servants.6 King’s portrait is somewhere in between. The five Indians are a proud group, a com­ munity of stern, silent warriors. But the portrait urges a more program­ matic role for them. They are a community whose principal bond is revealed as a formation on canvas, in which each Indian shares his iden­ tity with the next, and all five merge into a single commanding image, undeniably and categorically Plains Indian. King no doubt admired that image—​it conveyed dignity, courage, an independent spirit—​but it also represented something of a retreat from Noble Savage imagery of the previous century. Almost intentionally, if we can judge from the repeti­ tion of forms, he seems determined to create an alternate stereotype, focusing not on individuals or shifting cultural circumstances but on common characteristics that he believed defined Indianness (the insis­ tent, uncompromising features of otherness) for roughly the first half of the nineteenth century. By the 1830s, as one gets further into Republican Indian portraiture, a romantic naturalism begins to soften the severe classical forms that characterize the work of Saint-Mémin and King. But if more individuallooking Indians emerge, they can also be seen as more human and fragile, their power as much on the line as that of the Indian delegations system­ atically recruited by the War Department to sample official Washington.

Painting Republican Indians   /   77

In some cases that system was fed by old warriors, such as Black Hawk, whose tribes or bands had lost their last battles with white men and whose overnight change of status, from villain to tragic hero, encouraged white painters to capitalize on the public sympathy they aroused. Catlin, for example, painted separate portraits of Black Hawk and his son (figs. 31 and 32) in 1832 at Jefferson Barracks, near St. Louis, where they were imprisoned after resisting federal claims to Sauk and Fox tribal lands east of the Mississippi.7 The father’s face, a solidly modeled oval, whose ge­ ometry is repeated in a series of angles and planes that form deeply un­ dercut aboriginal features, reveals age and weariness but little else. What strikes the viewer instead is the poignant contrast between those hard features and the soft, inert form of the dead hawk that lies in the crook of his left elbow. The son’s features are less harshly drawn, more open—​ his future, unlike Black Hawk’s, is not yet firmly settled. When Black Hawk and his son came to New York the next year, on a trip sponsored by the War Department, John Wesley Jarvis placed both figures in a moving double portrait (fig. 33), this time with Black Hawk in European dress, a sign of resignation that is perhaps echoed in his aging features.8 But those features, and the beaded ear decorations, tell us that Black Hawk (like Saint-Mémin’s Payouska) remains an Indian regardless of his dress. No such compromise is entertained by his son, who, standing closely behind his father, supports him as a younger double, as if he were the young Black Hawk, the leader of a strong, independent Sauk tribe, before the frontier had closed around them. Time is of the essence in this portrait, and of the two preceding. They represent in their different ways, past, present, and future, the unfolding of a white narrative about Plains Indians that inevitably takes them from their original state, savage and free, to their present condition as wards of the government. King was the last of these early-nineteenth-century painters of Indians who confined himself to an eastern studio, or who worked directly or indirectly for the federal government. But one can argue that those who followed him, Catlin, Karl Bodmer, Alfred Jacob Miller, and others, were equally effective in serving the government’s cause. They were ethnog­

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Figure 31.  George Catlin, Múk-a-tah-mish-o-káh-kaik, Black Hawk, Prominent Sac Chief, 1832. Oil on canvas, 29 × 24 in. (73.7 × 60.9 cm). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison Jr.

raphers of a sort, dedicated (Catlin on his own, Bodmer and Miller with encouragement from their respective patrons, Prince Maximilian zu Wied and the Scotsman William Drummond Stewart) to observing Upper Missouri Indians on their home grounds and to transcribing not just characteristic features and dress—​t he “true” look of a precontact Indian—​but customs and rituals as well. A more accurate record of Indian life, however, did not necessarily bring about a greater understanding of Indians. Through most of the eighteenth century, Enlightenment science had opened up a dialogue for improving man, on the assumption that

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Figure 32.  George Catlin, Náh-se-ús-kuk, Whirling Thunder, Eldest Son of Black Hawk (Sauk and Fox), 1832. Oil on canvas, 29 × 24 in. (73.7 × 60.9 cm). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison Jr.

so-called primitive societies were passing through an early stage of hu­ man development. They were, in effect, still ascending the ladder, at the top of which stood post-Renaissance Europeans, especially the AngloEuropeans who had recently settled North America. But by the early nineteenth century, a shift in attitude toward native people had begun, dampening the belief that their upward progress could continue. The historian Robert Berkhofer explains the shift as a growing re­ luctance to believe in the virtues that had formerly been attributed to Noble Savages. By the end of the eighteenth century, he observes, the

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Figure 33.  John Wesley Jarvis, Black Hawk and His Son, Whirling Thunder, 1833. Oil on canvas, 233⁄4 × 30 in. (60.3 × 76.2 cm). Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

literary primitive was being transformed “from a man of reason and good sense into a man of emotion and sensibility[,] . . . the romantic savage as opposed to the enlightened savage.” “The true Noble Savage of rationalism,” he continues, “comprehended nature’s laws through reason as well as instinct, [whereas] the romantic savage depended upon passion and impulse alone” to understand the world around him. That may be drawing too sharp a boundary between the two stereotypes; Berkhofer’s romantic savages were at first a fuzzy amalgamation of both reason and impulse. But as time went on, similar changes can be detected in the way leading Philadelphia naturalists (and scientists from abroad, such as the Swiss zoologist Alexander Agassiz, who settled in the United States in 1846) thought about Indians. Both groups became preoccupied

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with classifying humans according to an ethnography increasingly linked to a divinely ordered universe and therefore one that was no longer so tolerant of upward mobility. So-called savage and civilized races were assigned fixed and separate niches in this universe; native peoples did not necessarily pass from a lower to a higher stage (nor did they become more capable of assimilation).9 Educated, highly motivated individual Indians might still climb the ladder, but Indians as a race had fewer choices; their customs and rituals, according to many of these naturalists, were too deeply ingrained to allow them to change. And Indians who couldn’t change, who didn’t have a Brant-like capacity to cross racial and cultural boundaries, were increasingly vulnerable. In­ deed, in the eyes of many federal officials, and certainly in the eyes of white settlers who wished to occupy their land, Indians were expend­ able. Negotiating with them was only a temporary solution; finally and inevitably, there was no real place for them in the West envisioned by Jefferson and by those who succeeded him.10 Catlin and Bodmer, and to a lesser extent Miller, set out to demon­ strate that Indians were locked into an immutable past, although they surely would have denied that this was their mission. Only Catlin went so far as to call Indians a vanishing race, and he qualified his belief so often that the edge it might have had was considerably blunted. Still, the pattern of travels by the three artists exhibits an unmistakable ethno­ graphic design; Catlin led and the others followed him across the Great Plains, searching for Indians they believed were still in their primal state, more or less untouched by commerce with whites. At the outset, advice on how to reach these tribes was provided by peripatetic frontiers­ men in St. Louis, who had among them several lifetimes’ worth of in­ formation about Upper Missouri Indians. At the home of American Fur Company official Benjamin O’Fallon, for example, Bodmer and Prince Maximilian saw a group of Catlin’s paintings in spring 1833, before they began their voyage up the Missouri River.11 And on their way to the Rocky Mountains in 1837, Miller and Stewart visited General William Clark (by then governor of the Missouri Territory) in St. Louis, whose

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legendary knowledge of Indians and the West was augmented by a siz­ able museum of Indian artifacts.12 (Seven years earlier, Clark had taken Catlin under his wing, advising him where to go and what tribes to paint on his first western travels.) But the most convincing proof of a common mind-set among the three artists was their focus on “authentic” Indian subjects—​t hose that got repeated time and again. The major examples are the chiefs and tribal leaders painted by Catlin and Bodmer (and some by Miller too): tribal scenes, such as buffalo hunting, horse racing, ar­ chery contests, and mock war exercises; and villages, including lodge interiors and exteriors. In addition, all three artists recorded major fur trade centers and activities. Chief among these were scenes in and around various fur trade forts, steamers that carried trade goods up the Missouri and furs downriver, and fur trade gatherings on the Upper Missouri and in the Wind River Mountains. One can almost believe that the three artists were as dedicated to telling a story about Indian life on the Upper Missouri as they were to seeing artistic success come from their respec­ tive efforts. And by this time, the story they wished to tell could not be imagined from a Washington, D.C., or New York studio (or, needless to say, by an expatriate in London); an artist determined to represent faithfully Republican Indians had to transport his paints and canvas (or watercolor materials) to the villages where they lived. By the early 1830s, the Missouri River had been a highway to Indian country for almost one hundred years. During that time, white men had explored the river and its tributaries, trapped in areas nearby, and traded with Indians who lived along its banks. This had been done, for the most part, without significantly disturbing the nearby tribes; indeed, some chiefs, legendary figures in their own right, had encouraged the ex­ change, even providing hospitality to frequent travelers. Four Bears, a Mandan chief, was one of these, and hence a magnet for painters like Catlin and Bodmer, each of whom spent several months at his village, painting the chief and an extraordinary range of village and tribal scenes. So closely matched were Catlin’s and Bodmer’s ideas of how to present

Painting Republican Indians   /   83

Four Bears that each did half-length and full-length portraits. But Four Bears may have had his own agenda too: Maximilian noted that the chief wore different outfits every time he came to visit (one more indication of how the portrait process controlled Indian-white exchange).13 The half-lengths of Four Bears by each artist might be called the warrior images (figs. 34 and 35). The one by Catlin is broadly painted, with head, shoulders, and chest of monumental proportions. Prominent aboriginal features, a high forehead, and a steady gaze match that monumentality, while across Four Bears’s arms and upper body are battle scars and selfinflicted wounds that attest to a lifetime of courageous exploits.14 Bod­ mer chooses to emphasize these same traits with a more detailed narra­ tive. Four Bears’s lean body is taut with energy, charging the feathers that stand erect above his head. Striking patterns of paint cover his face and torso (perhaps his own contribution to his image as a fierce warrior), and his war club is firmly gripped in both hands, ready for action. As a final touch, Four Bears sports an imitation knife, fastened to his forelock, with a blade painted to look as if it were bloodstained. The knife, he told Maximilian, was a carved replica of one he had taken from a Cheyenne during an intense, hand-to-hand struggle.15 Maximilian credited Four Bears with a generous spirit and strength of character that he probably found rare among Upper Missouri Indians, but the pose of the chief and the detailed account of his appearance suggest that neither artist nor patron regarded him as little more than a savage, with an uncommonly engaging personality. The full-length portraits of Four Bears differ in the same way as the half-lengths just described. In Catlin’s full-length of the chief (fig. 36), he becomes a statue—​solid, imposing, and dignified. This was accom­ plished, Catlin admits, by stripping away on canvas “such trappings and ornaments as interfered with the grace and simplicity of his figure.”16 Four Bears, who had spent several hours preparing himself for his sitting, had perhaps overdone it, at least in Catlin’s eyes. What the artist wanted to paint was, as usual, a compromise: a heroic Four Bears, uncluttered by

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Figure 34.  George Catlin, Máh-to-tóh-pa, Four Bears, Second Chief in Mourning (Mandan), 1832. Oil on can­ vas, 29 × 24 in. (73.7 × 60.9 cm). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison Jr.

too many signs of rank, and a Four Bears who could nevertheless pass as an authentic Plains Indian. However difficult the task, Catlin seems to have succeeded, creating in the process the quintessential Republi­ can Indian. Four Bears is at once proud, colorful, and savage—​a figure of such mythic stature that only on canvas could he be fully realized and preserved. But the alternate meaning of such images, often more closely tied to actual circumstances, was ominously retrospective, a be­ lated tribute to a chief or warrior who had already outlived his moment of power. Bodmer’s full-length of Four Bears (fig. 37) is equally impressive

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85

Figure 35. Karl Bodmer, Mató-Tópe, Mandan Chief, 1833–34. Watercolor on paper, 133⁄4 × 111 ⁄4 in. (34.9 × 28.6 cm). Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, Gift of the Enron Art Foundation, 1986.

and more detailed, with the chief wearing a new shirt, “made of bighorn leather, elaborately trimmed with ermine tails, locks of hair, and long panels of bead­outlined quillwork.”17 So skillful and detailed is Bodmer’s style, and so ethnographically accurate, that each ingredient of the chief’s dress comes alive even under casual scrutiny. But for all that painstaking accuracy, or perhaps because of it, Bodmer’s Four Bears is more foreign and exotic than Catlin’s. His features are less regular, his body and head less solidly columnar, and his dress more varied and wild; altogether he ends up further removed from a conventional stereotype of romantic

Figure 36.  George Catlin, Máh-to-tóh-pa, Four Bears, Second Chief, in Full Dress (Mandan), 1832. Oil on canvas, 29 × 24 in. (73.7 × 60.9 cm). Smith­ sonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Gift of Mrs. Joseph ­Harrison Jr.

Figure 37.  Karl Bodmer, Mató-Tópe (Four Bears), Mandan Chief, 1834. ­Watercolor on paper, 161 ⁄ 2 × 115⁄ 8 in. (41.9 × 29.5 cm). Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, Gift of the Enron Art Foundation, 1986.

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Figure 38.  George Catlin, Stu-mick-o-súcks, Buffalo Bull’s Back Fat, Head Chief, Blood Tribe (Blackfoot), 1832. Oil on canvas, 29 × 24 in. (73.7 × 60.9 cm). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison Jr.

savagery. Maximilian’s mentor, the German natural history professor Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, once said that he was not sure whether primitive tribes such as the Mandan were evolving or devolving.18 One might take that statement to mean that what separates Catlin’s Four Bears from Bodmer’s image (arrived at with encouragement from Maximilian) was that Catlin saw Four Bears as a myth he could give sub­stance to on canvas, whereas Bodmer saw him as a formidably endowed Plains Indian with a future that was more openly a question mark. Another well-known Indian on the Upper Missouri, painted by both

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89

Figure 39. Karl Bodmer, Stomíck-Stosáck, Blood Blackfeet Chief, 1833. Watercolor and pencil on paper, 123⁄ 8 × 93⁄4 in. (31.4 × 24.8 cm). Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, Gift of the Enron Art Foundation, 1986.

Catlin and Bodmer, was Buffalo Bull’s Back Fat, a Blackfoot chief (figs. 38 and 39). Catlin’s description of his makeshift studio at Fort Union (an American Fur Company depot on the North Dakota– Montana border), where he painted the chief, cleverly hints at the barely repressed savagery that may have surrounded him on such occasions. “I have this day been painting a portrait of the head chief of the [Blood Tribe],” Catlin writes. He is a good looking and dignified Indian, about fifty years of age, and superbly dressed; whilst sitting for his picture he has been surrounded by his own braves and warriors, and also gazed at by

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his enemies, the Crows and the Knisteneaux, Assinneboins and Ojib­beways; a number of distinguished personages of each of which tribes have laid all day around the sides of my room; reciting to each other the battles they have fought, and pointing to the scalplocks, worn as proofs of their victories.19

No actual scalps adorn Buffalo Bull’s superbly decorated deerskin tunic, but the hair of his enemies is tucked under the embroidered band of porcupine quills that runs down each of his sleeves. Indianness (again bordering on savagery) is proclaimed by this carefully observed pattern, brought so close to the picture plane that the viewer can almost feel the tactile merging of pigment and finely realized detail. Set off by this striking sleeve design and the circular pattern of beadwork on the chief’s shirt are Buffalo Bull’s solidly carved (in brushstrokes), almost expres­ sionless features. And yet behind those features is a power that can be sensed in the line of the jaw, the high cheekbones, and the stark lock of hair that falls between Buffalo Bull’s eyes, separating their focus just enough to give the impression that he stares right through the viewer, claiming indifference to his or her presence. Bodmer painted Buffalo Bull in a different costume, suggesting that, like Four Bears, the chief may have changed garments each time he was painted, or that the artists had a hand in selecting what they thought was appropriate for the sitter. In either case, what was selected is clearly native dress, worn by each figure with a particular flair. Bodmer’s Buf­ falo Bull follows Catlin’s as an example of compelling otherness, but here the effect is achieved with more innovative aesthetic means. The blue-striped sleeve (from which scalp locks also hang) plays off beauti­ fully against the red tunic, over which is suspended a Jefferson peace medal, turned not to the presidential image but to the obverse, which features clasped hands of friendship and a crossed pipe and tomahawk. Buffalo Bull’s craggy aboriginal face (more detailed and less confronta­ tional than depicted by Catlin) is poised above the peace medal and the relatively undecorated expanse of red tunic, a contrast that subdues but does not erase telling differences the peace medal is designed to over­

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come.20 In Catlin’s portrait, Buffalo Bull’s strong features, looming above his elaborately decorated garment, accent difference; they affirm the chief’s independent racial identity, even while the portrait process attempts to mediate the potential downside of that identity. When Catlin represented distinctly aboriginal face types, they were as striking as Bodmer’s, but he was back and forth with the process. This seems to be especially true when he turned to Indian women, whom he painted with more insight and attention than any other artist of this period. A portrait of a Plains Ojibwa woman (fig. 40), another tribe that lived along the Upper Missouri, has pronounced aboriginal facial fea­ tures, so broad and heavy that she seems barely to have evolved from a prehistoric ancestor.21 But when picturing a young Mandan woman named Mint (fig. 41), whose gray hair Catlin (incorrectly) believed was a genetic inheritance from one or more “civilized races,” he was more restrained.22 Her features are those of an attractive white woman, and her dress, although clearly Indian, is stylishly complemented by colorful bead necklaces, making one think that Catlin was trying hard to trans­ form her supposed heritage into an image that distanced her from her native background. He may also have been drawing on what was called the Indian Princess mode, used by artists of that time to transform young Indian women into biracial exotics. King perfected the process in por­ traits such as Eagle of Delight (fig. 42), painted in his Washington stu­ dio in 1822. 23 Miller also adopted the genre for A Young Woman of the Flat Head Tribe (fig. 43), an Indian woman he spotted at the 1837 fur trappers’ rendezvous, whose allure, like that of Mint, encouraged him to create an image that, at least on the basis of facial features, could easily cross racial boundaries.24 Why artists such as Catlin, King, and Miller might represent Indian women with more “upward mobility” than Indian men at this particular moment is a question that surely raises another: why do so many Indian women rather suddenly appear on canvas (or in watercolors) in the new century? After all, no more than a handful of portraits of North Amer­ ican Indian women were painted during the eighteenth century; it was

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Figure 40.  George Catlin, Wife of the Six (Plains Ojibwa), 1832. Oil on canvas, 29 × 24 in. (73.7 × 60.9 cm). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison Jr.

only after white artists began traveling on the Great Plains during the first decades of the nineteenth century, observing the central role Indian women played among Plains tribes, that these artists recorded them. But if ethnographic inquiry to some extent explains the presence of women in nineteenth-century Indian galleries, the changing status of white women over these same years may also have encouraged artists to take a new look at their Indian counterparts. Most scholars agree that during the early years of the republic, women rose to new levels in the

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Figure 41.  George Catlin, Sha-kó-ka, Mint, a Pretty Girl (Mandan), 1832. Oil on canvas, 29 × 24 in. (73.7 × 60.9 cm). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Wash­ ington, D.C., Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison Jr.

social hierarchy, from near-invisibility during much of the eighteenth century to a gradual recognition of their domestic and professional skills. As newly acknowledged family caretakers, they were charged with run­ ning efficient and morally sound households. But they could also, within limits, participate in civic activities, advocating causes that might not be of primary interest to their spouses. This was especially true for upper-class women; marriage, for example, seems to have evolved into a partnership, if not of equals then at least one that recognized a larger

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Figure 42.  Charles Bird King, Hayne Hudjihini (Eagle of Delight), 1822. Oil on canvas, 103 ⁄4 × 71 ⁄ 2 in. (27.3 × 19 cm). The White House Historical Association (White House Collection), Washington, D.C.

domestic and (sometimes) public role for women.25 Might this relative change have influenced the way Catlin, Miller, and other artists viewed Indian life on the Great Plains? When wives and children, as well as prominent chiefs and warriors, began showing up in their paintings (figs. 44 and 45), surely one can argue that certain cultural beliefs, usu­ ally associated with the early republic in the East, had somehow found a convenient venue in the West. A common approach to painting Indians also led Catlin, Bodmer,

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Figure 43.  Alfred Jacob Miller, A Young Woman of the Flat Head Tribe, 1858–​60. Watercolor heightened with white on paper, 111 ⁄ 16 × 97⁄ 16 in. (28 × 24 cm). Photo © The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

and Miller to many of the same nonportrait subjects, even duplicating what they might have seen in one another’s work. Each artist, for ex­ ample, painted the interior of a Mandan lodge from almost the same angle, so that the beams supporting the earth-on-willow-branch dome, the smoke hole, and the family activities carried on within the lodge could be easily identified (figs. 46, 47, and 48). The subject became so deeply a part of Upper Missouri “ethnographic tourism” (as well as of a domestic view of primitive life) that no artist or patron could pass it up.26 Nor could they forgo a buffalo hunting scene. Catlin painted at

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Figure 44.  George Catlin, Cler-mónt, First Chief of the Tribe (Osage), 1834. Oil on canvas, 29 × 24 in. (73.7 × 60.9 cm). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Wash­ ington, D.C., Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison Jr.

least twenty variations on the subject, from buffalo on a quiet stretch of green prairie to Indians on horseback madly pursuing herds across rolling prairie bluffs, each confirming the view that Plains Indians, dependent on hunting for their livelihood, would always be considered a secondary culture.27 Bodmer followed Catlin with several scenes of buffalo grazing beside the Missouri. And Miller, no doubt with encour­ agement from Stewart, an enthusiastic hunter, painted several—​t wo so close in composition to examples by Catlin that he must have seen

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Figure 45.  George Catlin, Wáh-chee-te, Wife of ­Cler-mónt and Child (Osage), 1834. Oil on canvas, 29 × 24 in. (73.7 × 60.9 cm). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Wash­ ington, D.C., Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison Jr.

similar paintings in St. Louis or in one of Catlin’s later publications (cf. fig. 49 with fig. 50 and fig. 51 with fig. 52).28 The same holds true for Cat­lin’s Buffalo Hunt under the Wolf-skin Mask (fig. 53), a picture in which two Indians, disguised as wolves, approach buffalo scattered across the prairie. A few years later, Miller painted a variation on Catlin’s original, substituting his patron, Stewart, and a trapper for the two Indians in Catlin’s picture (fig. 54).29 And the process continued. Catlin’s Sioux Burial Ground (fig. 55), showing the artist and an Indian guide ex­

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Figure 46.  George Catlin, The Cutting Scene, Mandan O-kee-pa Cere­ mony, 1832. Oil on canvas, 23 × 273⁄4 in. (58.4 × 70.5 cm). William Sr. and Dorothy Harmsen Collection, 2001.456. Photograph courtesy of the Denver Art Museum.

amining the curious formation of skulls at the base of Butte de Mort on the Upper Missouri, Miller appropriated for another painting, in which Stewart and an Indian guide visit medicine “circles” near the Platte River (fig. 56).30 Fur trade forts were the commercial and social centers of life on the Upper Missouri, sponsoring and even encouraging interaction between whites and Indians and between Indians and Indians. That also made them centers for recording Indian life. At Fort Union, Catlin could engage and paint, in relatively secure circumstances, Upper Missouri tribes he might have been reluctant to visit on his own. Bodmer and Miller used forts for the same purpose. Catlin and Bodmer, in their

Figure 47.  Karl Bodmer, Interior of a Mandan Earth Lodge, 1833–​ 34. Watercolor and ink on paper, 111 ⁄4 × 167⁄ 8 in. (28.6 × 42.8 cm). Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, Gift of the Enron Art Foundation, 1986. Figure 48.  Alfred Jacob Miller, Indian Lodge, 1867. Watercolor on paper, 73⁄4 × 117⁄ 8 in. (19.7 × 30.1 cm). Alfred Jacob Miller fonds, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa, Acc. No. 1946–​ 130–​1, Repro. No. C-000423. Gift of Mrs. J. B. Jardine.

Figure 49. Alfred Jacob Miller, Buffalo Hunt, ca. 1838–42. Oil on wood panel, 93⁄ 16 × 1311 ⁄ 16 in. (23.3 × 34.7 cm). Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, 2003.10. Figure 50. George Catlin, Buffalo Chase, Bull Protecting a Cow and Calf, 1832–33. Oil on canvas, 24 × 29 in. (60.9 × 73.7 cm). Smithso­ nian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison Jr.

Figure 51. Alfred Jacob Miller, A Surround, ca. 1837. Wash on paper, 101 ⁄4 × 171 ⁄4 in. (26 × 43.8 cm). Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska. Museum purchase. Figure 52. George Catlin, Buffalo Chase, a Surround by the Hidatsa, 1832– 33. Oil on canvas, 24 × 29 in. (60.9 × 73.7 cm). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison Jr.

Figure 53.  George Catlin, Buffalo Hunt under the Wolf-skin Mask, 1832–​ 33. Oil on canvas, 24 × 29 in. (60.9 × 73.7 cm). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison Jr. Figure 54.  Alfred Jacob Miller, Approaching Buffalo under the Disguise of a Wolf, ca. 1837. Transparent and opaque watercolor, ink and gum arabic glazes on paperboard, 61 ⁄ 8 × 81 ⁄ 2 in. (15.6 × 21.6 cm). Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, 1966.26.

Figure 55.  George Catlin, Butte de Mort, Sioux Burial Ground, Upper Missouri, 1837–​39. Oil on canvas, 20 × 273 ⁄ 8 in. (50.9 × 69.4 cm). Smith­ sonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Gift of Mrs. Joseph ­Harrison Jr. Figure 56.  Alfred Jacob Miller, Medicine Circles, 1837. Watercolor on paper, 7 × 71 ⁄ 2 in. (17.8 × 19 cm). JKM Collection, National Museum of Wildlife Art, Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

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Figure 57.  George Catlin, Fort Union, Mouth of the Yellowstone River, 2000 Miles above St. Louis, 1832. Oil on canvas, 111 ⁄4 × 143⁄ 8 in. (28.5 × 36.6 cm). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison Jr.

respective views of Fort Union (figs. 57 and 58), show the convenient presence of local tribes; both pictures feature Indians gathered around the fort in neatly arranged camps, socializing among themselves and pre­paring to exchange furs for trade goods.31 But that also enabled these two painters to view the forts as way stations to their ultimate artistic destination—​t he western wilderness, where they could reimagine Indian life as an ancient and exotic ritual, matched by the extraordinary fea­ tures of the surrounding landscape (figs. 59 and 60). Miller’s several views of Fort Laramie (figs. 61 and 62), near the Platte River in presentday Ne­braska, are classics of another kind in this category. Both show the construction and operation of the fort in much greater detail than did

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Figure 58.  Charles Beyer and Lucas Weber (after Karl Bodmer), Fort Union on the Missouri, 1833. Aquatint, etching, engraving, and roulette; hand-colored, 93⁄4 × 129⁄ 16 in. (24.8 × 31.9 cm). Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, Gift of the Enron Art Foundation, 1986.

either Catlin or Bodmer.32 And Miller’s views of Laramie, often includ­ ing a colorful array of warriors in the foreground, are more assertive in claiming that the fur trade would, over the years, produce unlimited bounty for Indians as well as whites. That myth, in effect a will to stop time on the Great Plains, dissolved three years later, when Fort Laramie was torn down. It was replaced by a rest-and-supply stop that served travelers on the nearby Oregon Trail. The most impressive example in this series is Bodmer’s view of Fort Clark (fig. 63), on the Upper Missouri, close by the Mandan villages. Cat­ lin had stayed at the fort for two months, in August and September 1832, observing village life and painting Four Bears; Bodmer and Maximilian

Figure 59.  George Catlin, Mouth of the Platte River, 900 Miles above St. Louis, 1832. Oil on canvas, 111 ⁄4 × 143⁄ 8 in. (28.5 × 36.6 cm). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison Jr. Figure 60.  Alfred Jacob Miller, Lake Scene, 1858–​60. Watercolor on paper, 93⁄ 16 × 125⁄ 16 in. (23.3 × 31.3 cm). Photo © The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

Figure 61.  Alfred Jacob Miller, Fort Laramie, 1858–​60. Watercolor on paper, 81 ⁄ 2 × 113⁄4 in. (21.6 × 29.8 cm). Photo © The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. Figure 62.  Alfred Jacob Miller, Interior of Fort Laramie, 1858–​60. Water­ color on paper, 115⁄ 8 × 141 ⁄ 8 in. (29.5 × 35.9 cm). Photo © The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

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Figure 63.  Karl Bodmer, Mih-Tutta-Hang-Kusch, Mandan Village, 1833–​34. Watercolor on paper, 111 ⁄4 × 165⁄ 8 in. (28.6 × 42.2 cm). Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, Gift of the Enron Art Foundation, 1986.

spent the following winter there, engaged in the same way. During one brutally cold day, Bodmer must have observed and drawn (the watercolor undoubtedly came later) his signature landscape, showing Mandans carry­ ing scarce firewood and supplies across the snow- and ice-covered Mis­ souri River, with Fort Clark and their village of small, domelike lodges in the background.33 Bleak and forbidding in appearance, yet beautifully composed, the landscape consists of low horizontal bands of sky, land, and frozen river, each set off with delicate white, gray, green, and mauve tones. Against these, the foreground figures stand out as dark silhouettes, with just enough detail to fix in deep space the figures strung out across the ice, making their journey seem unbearably long and cold. Bodmer’s may have been too; after all, he had to travel the same distance and endure considerable hardship to record the scene. And at the end of the day, he would return to the fort, where conditions were foul and dis­ agreeable and his own accommodations bitterly cold; the Mandans in

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their earth lodges must have been far more comfortable. But having experienced such miserable conditions, was Bodmer better prepared to paint “real” views of the Mandan village? Do we assign Miller’s Fort Laramie to the realm of fantasy and claim that Bodmer’s work among the Mandans is a more authentic response to Indian life on the Upper Missouri? One could argue instead that the two scenes are like compet­ ing myths, or the opposite sides of a coin. On one side we see lords of the Plains, enjoying the bounty of an eternal summer. On the obverse are a primitive people, so much a part of their forbidding environment that survival is no longer a question but an instinct—​an inchoate response to hardship that makes the hunched form of the Indian on horseback in the center foreground of Bodmer’s picture barely distinguishable from the animal beneath him. Both myths were commonly applied to Plains Indians at the time, and neither could survive for long. Except as images. Thus Upper Mis­ souri tribes were subtly transformed into Republican Indians who existed in a time warp. But time on the frontier could not and did not stand still. Once traffic increased along the Oregon Trail, summer was over for Miller’s Indians. And by 1837 most of the Mandans in Bodmer’s picture (as well as Four Bears) had died of smallpox, brought upriver by American Fur Company employees servicing Fort Clark. To push the two-sides-of-a-coin argument a bit further, one might also point out that Maximilian and Bodmer, in their effort to preserve Indian life, had envisioned it as a series of museum specimens (figs. 64 and 65). Indeed, several of Bodmer’s pictures of Indian artifacts, precisely drawn and carefully arranged on a two-dimensional format, look as if they are models prepared to facilitate the eventual display of the same or similar objects.34 Catlin and Miller, on the other hand, seem more alert to the palpable loss of endangered tribes. View on the St. Peter’s River (fig. 66) by Catlin and Elk Swimming the Platte (fig. 67) by Miller are hunting scenes, set in pristine landscapes, meant to persuade viewers that this is soul-inspiring sport, a proclamation of life outside the bound­ aries of white civilization.35 But already that life is circumscribed by

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Figure 64. Karl Bodmer, Clubs and Pipes, ca. 1838. Watercolor and pencil on paper, 161 ⁄ 8 × 101 ⁄ 8 in. (41 × 25.7 cm). Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Ne­ braska, Gift of the Enron Art Foundation, 1986.

other pictures: Catlin’s Comanche Meeting the Dragoons on the south­ western prairies (fig. 68) or Miller’s fur trapper rendezvous scenes in the Wind River Mountains (fig. 69).36 And the message of these last two paintings is fatally trumped by Pigeon’s Egg Head (The Light) Going to and Returning from Washington (see fig. 71), Catlin’s now­famous nar­ rative of an Upper Missouri Indian’s fall from grace.

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Figure 65. Karl Bodmer, Artifacts, ca. 1838. Water­ color and ink on paper, 161 ⁄ 2 × 105⁄ 8 in. (41.9 × 27 cm). Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, Gift of the Enron Art Foundation, 1986.

Moralizing tales told in bifurcated or serial compositions were by Catlin’s time a well­established European tradition. But they were not without precedent in America; Thomas Cole’s Expulsion (fig. 70) pre­ ceded The Light (fig. 71) by ten years, and more popular forms of the genre came in between.37 Regardless of where Catlin picked up the idea, serial treatment of The Light’s narrative turned out to be an effec tive

Figure 66. George Catlin, View on the St. Peter’s River, Sioux Indians Pursuing a Stag in Their Canoes, 1836–37. Oil on canvas, 191 ⁄ 2 × 275⁄ 8 in. (49.5 × 70.1 cm). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison Jr. Figure 67. Alfred Jacob Miller, Elk Swimming the Platte, 1837. Oil on canvas, 213⁄4 × 27 in. (55.2 × 68.6 cm). Photo © 2010; courtesy of the Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Figure 68.  George Catlin, Comanche Meeting the Dragoons, 1834–​35. Oil on canvas, 24 × 29 in. (60.9 × 73.7 cm). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison Jr. Figure 69.  Alfred Jacob Miller, Sir William Drummond Stewart Meeting ­Indian Chief (Greeting of the Snakes and Whites, under the Mountains of the Winds), ca. 1839. Oil on canvas, 33 × 42 in. (83.8 × 106.7 cm). Gilcrease ­Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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Figure 70.  Thomas Cole, Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, 1828. Oil on canvas, 393⁄4 × 541 ⁄ 2 in. (101 × 138.4 cm). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift of Martha C. Karolik for the M. and M. Karolik Collection of American Paintings, 1815–​65. Photograph © 2010 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

means of replaying the fate of Four Bears while issuing a warning to white people about the unfortunate consequences of prolonged Indianwhite contact. The story of The Light, as Catlin tells it, has enough supporting evidence to make us believe that the image is not wholly imagined; such an Indian did arrive in Washington in fall 1831, one of a small delegation of Indians from different Upper Missouri tribes. He is at first shown in native dress, as if he were a comparative in­nocent, fresh out of Eden. In the sequential image, after sampling the highlights of Washington, he has taken up white ways, with disastrous results. His military uniform, no longer a symbol of racial hybridity, is instead a measure of his downfall, of his tragic mistake in abandoning native dress and decorum. The formal narrative is a bit more subtle. On the left, The Light stands erect and in profile, so that his aboriginal features, proud bearing, and feathered headdress are prominently displayed. Behind him

Figure 71.  George Catlin, Wi-jún-jon, Pigeon’s Egg Head (The Light) Going to and Returning from Washington, 1837–​39. Oil on canvas, 29 × 24 in. (73.6 × 60.9 cm). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison Jr.

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is the White House, symbol of official Washington (partially obscured by the blanket crossing his shoulder), looking at this point as pure and undefiled as the Indian. On the right, The Light has become a swagger­ ing dandy, a caricature of his former self, to whom he literally turns his back, so that his aboriginal features are barely visible. The bottles in his back pockets tell only part of the story. His uniform and hat, both formfitting, show how confining they are—​how European dress and customs place restrictions on Indian life. The Light’s pipe, exchanged for an umbrella, and the fan he holds tell the same story in a different way. Both are as useless as a tight-fitting uniform. The obvious conclusion to be drawn from Catlin’s picture is that Indians don’t belong in white men’s clothes, or, more to the point, In­ dians should remain Indians. The day when Joseph Brant could crossdress, or appear at receptions and balls fully attired in white men’s clothes, had long passed. The Light could no longer risk it; if he did, he was likely to make a fool of himself. Or something worse. The darker meaning of the image Catlin saves for Letter and Notes, his 1841 account of his western travels.38 There he explains that he first saw The Light in St. Louis in fall 1831, en route to Washington. The next spring, the artist and the Indian met again, this time on board the American Fur Company steamboat Yellowstone, as it proceeded upriver from St. Louis to Fort Union. The Light, still in military dress when he disembarked, was scarcely recognized by the members of his tribe who were waiting for him onshore. Nor were they prepared to believe what he said he had seen in Washington. In time, disbelief turned into hostility and fear, and one night a member of his tribe, convinced that The Light had become a menace, put a shotgun to the back of his head and pulled the trigger. Catlin often equivocated about assimilation; when reading his writings on the subject, it’s sometimes hard to know where he really stands. But the image of The Light, as he proceeds from a full-fledged Indian to a debauched misfit, goes far enough to tell us that Catlin thought the gulf between the two races was wide and deep. And that any attempt to cross over might bring about tragic consequences.

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Figure 72.  Alfred Jacob Miller, The Trapper’s Bride, 1850. Oil on canvas, 30 × 25 in. (76.2 × 63.5 cm). Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska. Museum purchase.

The Light is probably the most important image of that period to ad­ dress assimilation or its opposite, the gradual separation of the races. But Miller’s The Trapper’s Bride (fig. 72), painted a few years later (there are several versions; the earliest is dated 1841), is a close second, although

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Figure 73.  Tompkins Matteson, The Last of the Race, 1847. Oil on canvas, 393⁄4 × 50 in. (101 × 127 cm). Collection of The New-York Historical Society, 1931.1.

much less direct in presenting options. Over the years, various inter­ pretations of the painting have been proposed, all of them based on how to apply the exchange of vows between the trapper and his bride to conditions on the western frontier, or, for that matter, in Baltimore, Miller’s hometown, where he sold many versions of the picture.39 And yet, whatever the figures represent, whatever shared purpose brings them together, the strength of their relationship remains disturbingly unclear. Indeed, so hesitant and fragile is the light touch of their hands and so curiously mixed is the affection they espouse for each other that nothing about the picture convinces us that the relationship will endure, much less grow and prosper. Which raises the question: how do such warnings inform the problem of crossing racial boundaries, surely a

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theme hard to miss in the picture? Suffice to say that the outlook for success is deeply qualified. No matter how much gloss Miller applies to the subject, Indian-white relations are no stronger, no more trust­ worthy than the nakedly ambivalent relationship between the trapper and his bride. Not long after Miller painted The Trapper’s Bride, a series of doomed Indian pictures followed. These left no doubt about what was in store for western Indians; one of the best known, The Last of the Race by Tompkins Matteson (fig. 73), shows an Indian family at proverbial land’s end, star­ ing off into the sunset.40 These are pictures made after the Mexican War or during the gold rush, when white settlers were flooding into the West. They predict the destruction of the race in soothingly nostalgic terms. Later images would dispense with such equivocation, although during the 1850s, Indian hating was to some extent balanced by the Indian reform movement, which gained strength during those same years.41 But if the reform movement was dedicated to preserving Indians, it was only lukewarm about preserving their culture. Indians were urged to forgo their traditional ways and to build new lives for themselves, on or off reservations. This precluded Republican Indians from remain­ ing as they were. Even if they had survived past midcentury, con­vert­ ing mythic Indians into everyday Indians was not the aim of the reform movement. What the reformers wanted instead was to modify tribal culture, to infuse it with the kind of Christian values that would prevent the misunderstandings that had led to The Light’s violent death. To some extent they succeeded but not without an epic and disorienting social transformation on the part of western Indians.

Notes

chapter 1: looking beyond mohawk warriors 1.  The title of Galt’s biography—​The Life, Studies, and Works of Benjamin West, Esq., President of the Royal Academy of London, Subsequent to his arrival in this country: Compiled from materials furnished by Himself . . . (London, 1820)—​ would seem to confirm that West had a substantial role in shaping its contents. Susan Rather, in “Benjamin West, John Galt, and the Biography of 1816,” Art Bulletin 86 ( June 2004): 324–​45, argues that West was trying to reclaim his American heritage in the biography, after a lifetime of “insisting on his English­ ness.” The inclusion of the Apollo Belvedere incident in the biography, therefore, may be part of West’s late-in-life attempt to provide a fuller account of his youth in America. See also Ann Ury Abrams, The Valiant Hero: Benjamin West and Grand-Style History Painting (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985), 75–​80, who suggests that West’s Apollo Belvedere quote parodies Winck­ elmann’s “exuberant tribute to the Roman statue” and that the story of West’s first encounter with the statue “is actually a commentary on” Savage Warrior Taking Leave of His Family (fig. 13; see chap. 3, note 15), which she calls a painting of a Mohawk warrior and his family. 2.  Kevin R. Muller, “Pelts and Power, Mohawks and Myth: Benjamin West’s Portrait of Guy Johnson,” Winterthur Portfolio 40 (spring 2005): 47–​75. 3.  The excerpts from Galt were taken from Jules David Prown, “The Expe­ dition against Ohio Indians in 1764 under Colonel Bouquet: Two Early Draw­ 121

122   /   Notes to Pages 12–17

ings by Benjamin West,” in Prown, Art as Evidence: Writings on Art and Material Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 98–​99. 4.  For more on how the stereotype was created, see John C. Ewers, “The Emergence of the Plains Indian as the Symbol of the North American Indian,” in Ewers, Indian Life on the Upper Missouri (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968), 187–​203. 5.  Richard Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600–​1860 (Middletown, CT: Weslyan University Press, 1973), 190–​92, 205–​6. 6.  Jefferson’s interest in Indians has been written about widely in recent years, especially by Anthony F. C. Wallace (see below). And most authors have noted the generous use he made of peace medals, distributing them ( Jefferson called them “marks of friendship”) to delegations visiting Washington during his administration and, through Lewis and Clark, to numerous Indian leaders along the route the explorers traveled to the West Coast. In addition, he owned a small collection of Indian silhouettes given to him by C. W. Peale in 1806, and he surely knew of Saint-Mémin’s portraits of the 1804 Osage delegation (see chap. 5, note 3; and Stein reference below), several of whom are shown wearing Jefferson peace medals. But did Jefferson ever wish to “encourage” westward expansion with a more modest version of the portrait campaign the British had used in colonial times? At this point, no evidence says he did; it was not until Monroe’s administration that Thomas McKenney (see chap. 5, note 2) undertook the task. Still, one finds it hard to believe that a president who used peace medals so extensively and owned a few Indian portraits himself never thought to take the process to the next level. For more on Jefferson and peace medals, as a possible lead to McKenney’s Indian Gallery, see Carolyn Gilman, Lewis and Clark: Across the Divide (Wash­ ington, DC: Smithsonian Books, in association with the Missouri Historical Society, 2003), 33–​36, 221, 380; Anthony F. C. Wallace, Jefferson and the Indians: The Tragic Fate of the First Americans (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer­ sity Press, 1999), 103, 127–​29; Reginald Horsman, “The Indian Policy of an ‘Empire of Liberty,’ ” in Frederick E. Hoxie, Ronald Hoffman, and Peter J. Albert, eds., Native Americans and the Early Republic (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia for United States Capitol Historical Society, 1999), 49–​51; Klaus Lubbers, “Strategies of Appropriation in the West,” American Art 8 (summer–​fall 1994): 79–​95; Susan R. Stein, The Worlds of Thomas Jefferson at Monticello (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with the Thomas Jef­ ferson Memorial Foundation, 1993), 212–​14, 244–​45; Francis Paul Prucha,

Notes to Pages 18–19   /   123

“Presents and Delegations,” in Wilcomb E. Washburn, ed., Handbook of North American Indians 4 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988), 238–​44; Wilcomb E. Washburn, The Indian in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), 90–​93; and Francis Paul Prucha, Indian Peace Medals in American History (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1971), 16–​33, 48–​53, 73–​103.

chapter 2: noble savagery as an invention of british imperialism 1.  See especially Ter Ellingson, The Myth of the Noble Savage (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 80–​86, 99–​106, 117–​18; Hugh Honour, The New Golden Land: European Images of America from the Discoveries to the Present Time (New York: Pantheon Books, 1975), 118–​37; and Hoxie Neale Fairchild, The Noble Savage: A Study in Romantic Naturalism (1928; reprint, New York: Russell & Russell, 1961), 97–​139. 2.  Ellingson, The Myth of the Noble Savage, 199–​206; Robert F. Berkhofer Jr., The White Man’s Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present (New York: Vintage Books, 1978), 74–​8 0; and Roy Harvey Pearce, Savagism and Civilization: A Study of the Indian and the American Mind (Balti­ more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), 136–​43, who uses Crèvecoeur as an example of a European primitivist inventing idyllic lives for North American Indians. 3.  The original five tribes, listed geographically from east to west, were Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. There is considerable debate as to when the confederacy was founded. Dates range between 1400 and 1600, with a few earlier and later. For a full discussion, see Elisabeth Tooker, “The League of the Iroquois: Its History, Politics, and Ritual,” in Bruce G. Trigger, ed., Handbook of North American Indians 15 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1978), 418–​22. 4.  For more on the Mohawk’s strategic position, see Alan Taylor, The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderlands of the American Revolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 3–​22, 34–​45; Finan O’Toole, White Savage: William Johnson and the Invention of America (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), 73–​79; Daniel K. Richter, Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 166–​68; Robert V. Hine and John Mack Farragher, The American West: A New Interpretive History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), chaps.

124   /   Notes to Pages 20–21

2–​4; Bruce E. Johansen, Forgotten Founders: How the American Indian Helped Shape Democracy (Boston: Harvard Common Press, 1982), 42–​52; William N. Fenton and Elisabeth Tooker, “Mohawk,” in Handbook of North American Indians 15, 466–​76; Bruce G. Trigger, “Early Iroquoian Contacts with Europeans,” in Handbook of North American Indians 15, 344–​56; Gary B. Nash, Red, White, and Black: The Peoples of Early America (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1974), 239–​48, 262–​68; and Patricia Bonomi, A Factious People: Politics and Society in Colonial New York (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), 40–​45. Also helpful are William J. Eccles, “The Fur Trade in the Colonial Northeast,” in Handbook of North American Indians 4, 324–​44; Thomas Elliott Norton, The Fur Trade in Colonial New York, 1686–​1776 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1974), chaps. 3–​5; and Wilcomb E. Washburn, The Indian and the White Man (New York: Anchor Books, 1965), 144–​53. 5.  For more on Mohawk land sales, see Taylor, Divided Ground, 34–​40, 142–​45, 227–​28; and O’Toole, White Savage, 76, 281–​82, who surveys William Johnson’s immense landholdings. Bonomi, A Factious People, 207–​8, says some Indian land was acquired through questionable dealings. Dixon Ryan Fox, The Decline of Aristocracy in the Politics of New York, 1801–​1840 (1919; reprint, New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1965), 122–​25, lists prominent Federalists who pur­ chased (or whose families already owned) large tracts of land west of Albany. 6.  See Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), 158–​62; Johansen, Forgotten Founders, 62–​76; and Pennsylvania Gazette, no. 1324, May 9, 1754, 2. If the Iroquois could bring six nations together under a single government, Franklin thought the colonies ought to be able to do the same. See note 17 below. 7.  For West’s visit to Lancaster, see Prown, “The Expedition against Ohio Indians in 1764,” 102. Skirmishes (often escalating into open warfare) along the border of western Pennsylvania continued from 1754 to 1763. These caused untold hardships for Philadelphia merchants, as well as settlers, and were widely reported in the city. When Quebec fell, for example, and it was thought that threats along the border would diminish, Philadelphia “was illuminated, Bon­ fires were lighted, and other Demonstrations of Joy shewn” (see Matthew C. Ward, Breaking the Backcountry: The Seven Years’ War in Virginia and Pennsylvania, 1754–​1765 [Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004], 194–​95). For more general coverage (including Iroquois involvement in Pennsylvania politics of this period), see Ward, Breaking the Backcountry, chaps. 3, 4, and 5. Accounts of border warfare also appeared frequently in the Pennsylvania Gazette. On February 23, 1758 (no. 1515, 1), for example, William Denny, governor of the

Notes to Pages 21–24   /   125

Pennsylvania colony, wrote that “His Majesty’s Enemies [the French and their Indian allies] are daily committing the most Cruel Ravages on our Frontiers, and carrying on Designs which threaten this and the neighbouring Colonies with total ruin.” 8.  The location of these eastern bands of Delaware is noted in Wallace, Jefferson and the Indians, 180–​82; and in Anthony F. C. Wallace, King of the Delawares, Teedyuscung, 1700–​1763 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1949), 31–​55. See also Ives Goddard, “Delaware,” in Handbook of North American Indians 15, 220–​24; and Nash, Red, White, and Black, 134–​45. In addition to Galt, West’s correspondence with his friend and early patron, Dr. Jonathan Morris, seems to confirm the artist’s early attachment to Pennsylvania (presumably Delaware) Indians (see Ann Uhry Abrams, “Benjamin West’s Documentation of Colonial History: William Penn’s Treaty with the Indians,” Art Bulletin 64 [March 1982]: 61–​62). 9.  Muller, “Pelts and Power,” 63–​64, also points out that Mohawk warriors, under the command of William Johnson (see chap. 3, notes 17 and 18), had helped bring about British victory in the French and Indian War. 10.  The best description of this complex system of government is found in Arthur C. Parker, “The Constitution of the Five Nations, or the Iroquois Book of the Great Law,” New York State Museum Bulletin, no. 184, April 1, 1916 (reprint, Ohsweken, Ont.: Irocrafts, 1991), 7–​64. See also Johansen, Forgotten Founders, 21–​32; Tooker, “The League of the Iroquois,” 418–​30; and Horatio Hale, ed., The Iroquois Book of Rites (Philadelphia: Brinton’s Library of Aboriginal American Literature, no. 11, 1883; reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1969), 9–​92. 11.  Cadwallader Colden, The History of the Five Indian Nations, Depending on the Province of New-York in America (1727, 1747; reprint, Ithaca, NY: Great Seal Books, 1958), xx. 12.  Cited in Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence, 199–​200. Slotkin also places Colden’s views in a helpful discussion of Locke’s theories about man in a natural state (see 200–​201). 13.  See Berkhofer, The White Man’s Indian, 74–​75; and Honour, The New Golden Land, 118–​37. 14.  Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence, 200. 15.  Colden, The History of the Five Indian Nations, vii. 16.  William Smith, a leading classical scholar in Philadelphia, began in­ structing West in Greek and Roman history about 1756 (see Prown, Art as Evidence, 102). And Colden’s study of the Iroquois was widely known among colo­ nials such as Franklin and Jefferson, who were deeply interested in the history

126   /   Notes to Pages 25–28

and culture of North American Indians (see Johansen, Forgotten Founders, 63). It seems likely that both Smith’s instruction and Colden’s book played a role in West’s subsequent response to the Apollo Belvedere. 17.  An extended description of the Albany Plan can be found in Leonard W. Labaree, ed., The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964), 209–​16. See also note 6 above. 18.  John Keane, Tom Paine: A Political Life (Boston: Little, Brown, 1995), 148. 19.  Cited in Johansen, Founding Fathers, 50. 20.  James Thomas Flexner, Lord of the Mohawks: A Biography of Sir William Johnson (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), 293. 21.  Cited in Johansen, Founding Fathers, 40. Adair, however, was not credit­ ing the British for the good behavior of North American Indians. Just the opposite; he believed Indians were decent and honest because they remained outside the influence of corrupt colonial officials (see Pearce, Savagism and Civilization, 47). 22.  The full text of Logan’s speech appears opposite p. 1 in Wallace, Jefferson and the Indians. See also Richter, Looking East from Indian Country, 212–​14; and Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 351–​62, which provide a more extensive account of conditions in the Ohio Country that pro­ voked Logan’s attack. 23.  See Wallace, Jefferson and the Indians, 1–​13, for a discussion of how ­Logan’s speech predicted the fate of Indians in the Ohio Country (and, sub­ sequently, in the trans-Mississippi West), subject to continuing pressure from white settlement.

chapter 3: noble savage imagery, 1710 to 1820s 1.  There were, of course, a number of eighteenth-century philosophes (Buf­ fon, de Pauw, Raynal, Voltaire, and others) who had no patience with Noble Savage theories and who argued that the environment of North America pro­ duced unhealthy and inferior native peoples (see Ellingson, The Myth of the Noble Savage, 106–​9, 111–​17, 163–​64; Wallace, Jefferson and the Indians, 120–​22; Harry Liebersohn, Aristocratic Encounters: European Travelers and North American Indians [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998], 30–​32; Ray Allen Bil­ lington, Land of Savagery / Land of Promise: The European Image of the American

Notes to Pages 28–31   /   127

Frontier in the Nineteenth Century [New York: W. W. Norton, 1981], 12–​14; Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence, 202–​5; Berkhofer, The White Man’s Indian, 42–​43; Honour, The New Golden Land, 131–​33; and Fairchild, The Noble Savage, 328–​38, who notes Samuel Johnson’s distaste for the idea of noble savagery). Everyday accounts of “savagery” were also abundant, both on the frontier (see Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence, 94–​115, who investigates Indian-white hostility revealed in captivity narratives) and during numerous colonial wars (see Washburn, The Indian in America, 126–​69). But not all those with enlight­ ened views of Indian life were deterred by frontier horror stories. Reginald Horsman (Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial AngloSaxonism [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981], 105–​7) proposes a middle ground for those who lived on the eastern seaboard and who “thought in Atlantic and universal terms.” Their sense of perspective, he argues, enabled them to separate the theoretical issues of Indian-white relations from anecdotal accounts of Indian-white behavior on the frontier. 2.  Colden, The History of the Five Indian Nations, vi. 3.  Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin, 157. For more on Indian behavior at the Carlisle conference, see Labaree, ed., The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, 197–​99. 4.  Mohawk benefits (some real, some questionable) are covered in Taylor, Divided Ground, 27–​28, 38–​45; Muller, “Pelts and Power,” 54–​56, 63–​64; Timo­ thy J. Shannon, “Dressing for Success on the Mohawk Frontier: Hendrick, William Johnson, and the Indian Fashion,” in Peter C. Mancall and James H. Merrell, eds., American Encounters: Natives and Newcomers from European Contact to Indian Removal, 1500–​1850 (New York: Routledge, 2000), 352–​76; Johansen, Forgotten Fathers, 45–​47; Nash, Red, White, and Black, 239–​48, 262–​68; and Washburn, The Indian in America, 85–​86, 90–​91. Gifts continued to accompany treaty negotiations through most of the nineteenth century (see Herman J. Viola, Diplomats in Buckskin: A History of Indian Delegations in Washington City [Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981], 28–​30). 5.  Kevin Muller, “From Palace to Longhouse, Portraits of the Four Indian Kings in a Transatlantic Context” (American Art 22 [fall 2008]: 26–​49), explains in greater detail the political significance of such portraits, including the dis­ tribution to North America of prints after the originals. Sets of these prints (or mezzotints) were subsequently sent to the colonies, some of which were framed and hung in places of honor in tribal longhouses. Other sets, also framed, were intended for the statehouses of the seven colonies that were adjacent to or nearby Iroquois tribal lands. In each statehouse, the four prints were prominently

128   /   Notes to Page 31

displayed, both to signal the status of the four kings as independent New World sovereigns and to remind colonial officials that upholding alliances with the Iroquois was crucial to maintaining Britain’s “burgeoning” North American empire. Two large murals (ca. 1720) flanking the stairway of the Warner House in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, taken from the prints, are discussed in Joyce Geary Folk, ed., The Warner House: A Rich and Colorful History (Portsmouth, NH: Warner House Association, 2006), 23–​26, 49–​52. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich believes that the two murals, and other subjects painted on the staircase walls, may represent the theme of “danger averted,” suggesting that the previous threat of a combined French and Indian attack on the New Hampshire frontier was lessened by the new English-Mohawk alliance. See also Richard H. Saunders and Ellen G. Miles, American Colonial Portraits, 1700–​1776 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press for National Portrait Gallery, 1987), 84–​87; John G. Garratt (with the assistance of Bruce Robertson), The Four Indian Kings (Ottawa: Public Archives Canada, 1985); and Richmond P. Bond, Queen Anne’s American Kings (1952; reprint, New York: Octagon Books, 1974). 6.  Jefferson displayed the artifacts (including a beautifully decorated Man­ dan chief’s robe) in the entry hall at Monticello, along with mounted heads of a buffalo and a bighorn sheep and a large pair of elk antlers, all brought back from the Lewis and Clark expedition. In an adjacent space (the parlor behind the entry hall) were portraits of eighteenth-century luminaries (Locke, Bacon, and Newton) whom Jefferson particularly admired, the whole representing an assemblage of “trophy heads” from which the new nation had drawn strength and inspiration. For more on the decoration of the entry hall (and adjacent rooms) at Monticello, see Margaretta M. Lovell, “Trophy Heads: The Public Use of Portrait Painting in the Late Eighteenth Century,” paper presented at “American Art in a Global Context: An International Symposium,” held at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, September 2006; and Roger B. Stein, “Mr. Jefferson as Museum-Maker,” in Envisioning America: Arts in the Jeffer­ sonian Republic (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010). See also Susan R. Stein, The Worlds of Thomas Jefferson, 64, 66, 67–​68; and Castle McLaughlin, Arts of Diplomacy: Lewis & Clark’s Indian Collection (Seattle: Uni­ versity of Washington Press for Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnol­ ogy, Harvard University, 2003), 312–​15. Despite Jefferson’s interest in Indians, and his belief in their potential to become productive future citizens, one sus­ pects that he knew they were no more likely to survive westward expansion than the animals whose heads and horns already hung in his entry hall. As he

Notes to Pages 31–34   /   129

had observed earlier in Notes on the State of Virginia, the Indian population of Virginia had declined by nearly two-thirds since the census of 1669 (see Stein, The Worlds of Thomas Jefferson, 68; and notes 8 and 11 below). 7.  Several Creek and Cherokee delegations went to London in the 1760s (see Honour, New Golden Land, 125). 8.  So far, only one reference to an Indian portrait by Stuart has come to light, a small print after a lost portrait of Snapping Turtle, a chief of the Miami tribe, kindly brought to my attention by Ellen Miles. Stuart shows the chief in mixed Indian and European dress (see Frederick Webb Hodge, ed., Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico [Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1907], pt. 1, 771; and Hine and Farragher, The American West, 122–​23). The portrait was commissioned by James McHenry, a resident of Philadelphia, in 1798 (see Charles Merrill Mount, Gilbert Stuart, a Biography [New York: W. W. Norton, 1964], 220, 351n). 9.  “Improvement” was a term applied to those Indians who appeared to be moving up the ladder of human development, from savagery to barbarism to civilization (although few would ever reach the final step). Later, during Wash­ ington’s administration and continuing through and beyond Jefferson’s, the term was more often used to gauge individual or tribal progress toward assimila­ tion (see chap. 4, note 3). Mixed Indian-white dress, worn by both Indians and white men on the frontier, also helped the two parties toward a “middle ground,” where diplomatic and commercial negotiations could be carried on with a di­ minished awareness of underlying cultural differences (see Timothy J. Shannon, “Dressing for Success on the Mohawk Frontier,” 352–​61; White, The Middle Ground; and note 6 above). 10.  For more on William Hodges and Thomas Hardy and the subjects of the two portraits, see Honour, The New Golden Land, 134–​35; and Honour, The European Vision of America (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press for Cleveland Museum of Art, 1975), nos. 185, 187. Stephanie Pratt, American Artists in British Art, 1700–​1840 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005), 105–​9, adds more information about Hodges, Hardy, Bowles, and the Cherokee subjects, noting that the last two remain unnamed, despite their individualized features. 11.  For more on the portrait of Lapowinsa, as well as an extensive bibliog­ raphy on Gustuvas Hesselius and his work, see Saunders and Miles, American Colonial Portraits, 153–​55. One example that may prove an exception to the Hesselius style of Indian portraiture is Gilbert Stuart’s Snapping Turtle (see note 8 above).

130   /   Notes to Pages 34–44

12.  Muller (“From Palace to Longhouse”) provides a full and fascinating account of the portraits themselves and of the diplomatic ritual that preceded and followed the actual sittings. See also note 5 above. 13.  According to Muller (“From Palace to Longhouse,” 4), the costumes were supplied by a London “playhouse-tailor,” charged with inventing a mode of dress that would identify the kings as New World royalty. 14.  For more on Lafitau, see Wallace, Jefferson and the Indians, 109–​13; Liebersohn, Aristocratic Encounters, 21–​23; Honour, The New Golden Land, 124– ​25; and Johansen, Founding Fathers, 39–​40. For a translation of Lafitau’s book, see William N. Fenton and Elizabeth L. Moore, eds., Customs of the American Indians Compared with the Customs of Primitive Times (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1974). 15.  Prown, Art as Evidence, 104–​5, dates the painting about 1760, on the basis of the Shippen letter. Other sources, without providing evidence, assign a later date. See chap. 1, note 1, for additional commentary on the painting. 16.  R. S. Stephenson, Clash of Empires: The British, French & Indian War, 1754–​1763 (Pittsburgh: Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Cen­ ter, 2005), 47–​55, 67–​68. The same year Savage Warrior was painted, the British acknowledged Iroquois help in the French and Indian War by naming Mohawk and Onondaga two armed sloops that carried troops down the St. Lawrence to attack Montreal (see O’Toole, White Savage, 230). 17.  See Helmut von Erffa and Allen Staley, The Paintings of Benjamin West (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 210–​11. O’Toole (White Savage, 142–​ 47, 247) tells a somewhat different story, which does not include the dramatic encounter West depicts. But Johnson apparently did intervene when Dieskau, wounded and unable to defend himself, was at the mercy of several Mohawk warriors, intent on taking revenge. O’Toole also turns the encounter into a moralizing tale, with civilization triumphing over savagery. Pratt (American Indians in British Art, 81), following the account of the incident in von Erffa and Staley, says that West was unable to sell the Johnson painting. 18.  Von Erffa and Staley, The Paintings of Benjamin West, 212, provides an exhaustive review of attempts to identify the cast of the painting, from West’s own time to more recent publications, and note that the powder horn acknowl­ edges Johnson’s role in the war. Honour, The New Golden Land, 130, goes further, saying that the Mohawk warrior may “commemorate the part played by the Five Nations in the war against the French.” See also O’Toole, White Savage, 239–​40; and Vivien Green Fryd, “Reading the Indian in Benjamin West’s Death of General Wolfe,” American Art 9 (spring 1995): 73–​85. The latter claims, on

Notes to Pages 44–47   /   131

the basis of a confusing reference to the portrait of Colonel Guy Johnson, that the figure above the Indian is William Johnson, but von Erffa and Staley cast doubt on that identification. More helpful is Fryd’s information, taken from Galt, that George III passed up the first version of the Death of Wolfe because the figures were in contemporary (as opposed to classical) dress (see note 20 below). After the painting achieved a certain popularity, however, the king ordered a second version for the royal collection. In the meantime, the first version, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1770, was bought by Lord Grosvenor (later Earl Grosvenor), a courtier close to George III, and presumably a staunch supporter of empire. 19.  Prown, Art as Evidence, 99. 20.  According to Martin Myrone, “Modern-life scenes from West’s Death of Wolfe onwards delivered elevated subject matter” to a broad audience not familiar “with ancient literary and historical themes” (see David Solkin, ed., Art on the Line: The Royal Academy Exhibitions at Somerset House, 1780–​1836 [New Haven: Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2001], 80). Perhaps West included the Indian to appeal to this new audience. The earl of Chatham (William Pitt), when reviewing the picture, thought the faces of the surrounding officers registered too much “dejection.” “As English­ men,” he said, they “should forget all traces of private misfortunes, when they had so gloriously conquered for their country.” This quote was kindly supplied by Emma Floyd, librarian, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, Lon­ don, from its Archive of Royal Academy Exhibition Reviews, 1760–93. 21.  Muller, in “Pelts and Power,” provides a careful analysis of the portrait, while considering Johnson in the complex political landscape of pre–​Revolution­ ary War British North America. See also Leslie Kaye Reinhardt, “Colonel Guy Johnson and Karonghyontye (Captain David Hill),” in Ellen Miles, ed., American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1995), 321–​28, for an exceptionally thorough catalogue entry on the por­ trait, including the discovery of the identity of the Indian, previously thought to be Joseph Brant. Extensive bibliographies accompany both Muller’s article and Reinhardt’s catalogue entry. 22.  For another view of Hill, this time by a contemporary female, Anne Powell, sister of the chief justice of Upper Canada, who encountered the chief in 1789 while observing an Indian council near Fort Erie, see Rinehardt, “Colo­ nel Guy Johnson,” 326. According to Ms. Powell, Hill was already several rungs up the social ladder, and then some. “One man,” she wrote, “called to . . . mind some of Homer’s finest heroes. . . . [H]e was a chief of great distinction[,] . . .

132   /   Notes to Page 48

he spoke English with propriety, and returned all the compliments that were paid him with ease and politeness. . . . [H]e was not only the handsomest but the best drest man I saw.” How like a Mohawk warrior, indeed! The real thing, according to Ms. Powell, seems to have been much more attractive than the Apollo Belvedere. 23.  See Taylor, Divided Ground, 120–​50, for more on the dispersal of the Mohawks. 24.  The most recent biography of Brant (Isabel Thompson Kelsay, Joseph Brant, 1743–​1807: Man of Two Worlds [Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1984]) provides a full account of his role in Mohawk affairs, before, during, and after the Revolution. See also the additional sources cited in Muller, “Pelts and Power,” 48. 25.  A brief entry on the Brant portrait appears in Humphry Ward and W. Roberts, Romney: A Biographical and Critical Essay with a Catalogue Raisonné of His Works (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1904), vol. 2, 135, which notes that the portrait was commissioned by the second earl of Warwick and that Brant (according to another source) is shown “meditating a war against the United States.” See also Myron Laskin Jr. and Michael Pantazzi, eds., Catalogue of the National Gallery of Canada: European and American Painting, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1987), 255–​56, for a more complete bibliography. J. R. Fawcett Thompson (“Thayendanegea the Mohawk and His Several Portraits: How the ‘Captain of the Six Nations’ Came to London and Sat for Romney and Stuart,” Connoisseur 170 [ January 1969]: 50–​51) says that Brant was “sought after” during his visit to London but doesn’t say why the earl of Warwick asked the chief to sit for Romney. Stephanie Pratt (American Indians in British Art, 97) notes that Brant’s costume, “in its combination of English and Woodland elements, speaks of Brant’s own position between two worlds.” But the costume’s “seeming eclecticism,” she continues, would have been out of place at the bargaining table in London. Rather, it signified Brant’s former role as a “cultural mediator.” 26.  The most recent information on the Stuart portrait is contained in Carrie Rebora Barratt and Ellen G. Miles, Gilbert Stuart (New Haven: Yale University Press for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004), 68–​71. Barratt notes that when visiting London in 1785, Brant “donned English suits for some occasions, full Iroquois chieftain garb for others, and even a combination when it suited.” Elizabeth Hutchinson, in a paper titled “ ‘The Costume of His Nation’: Joseph Brant’s Masquerades,” presented at “Objects in Motion: Art & Material Culture across Colonial North America,” University of Delaware,

Notes to Pages 52–56   /   133

April 2008, focuses more closely on Brant’s dress habits, arguing the difficulty of separating Iroquois and English worlds at the time. Instead, she says, sitters like Brant were consciously affecting an identity that merged their indigenous and cosmopolitan circumstances. Beth Fowkes Tobin, in Picturing Imperial Power: Colonial Subjects in Eighteenth-Century British Painting (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999), 81–​109, probes more deeply into the psychologi­ cal effects of “cultural cross-dressing,” among both Indians and whites in British North America. Indians who mixed their dress, she argues, caused European viewers to experience a kind of “mimetic vertigo”—​a dislocation (and subse­ quent loss of “mastery”) brought on by seeing the West mirrored in the appear­ ance of Others. White men who practiced cross-dressing, on the other hand, were clearly not attempting to subvert “imperial hegemony.” They were more often appropriating native power and cultural resources for their own use on the frontier. 27.  Information on the second version of Brant by Stuart, also commissioned by a British soldier-statesman who, like Northumberland, had served in North America, appears in Barratt and Miles, Gilbert Stuart, 71. Other, more general references can be found in the registrar’s files at Fenimore House Museum, New York State Historical Association, Cooperstown; and in Pratt, American Indians in British Art, 98–​99. 28.  Kelsay, Joseph Brant, 569–​72, goes further into Berczy’s role as a land agent. For brief notes on Berczy’s artistic career, see R. H. Hubbard, The National Gallery of Canada: Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture 3: Canadian School (Ottawa: University of Toronto Press, 1960), 16. 29.  Brant later claimed that he “met with a . . . cool reception” in Philadel­ phia and that he “did not see any of the great men.” Even so, he managed to dine one evening with Aaron Burr, the comte de Volney, Talleyrand, and the French minister Pierre August Adet. See Charles Coleman Sellers, Portraits and Miniatures by Charles Willson Peale (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 42, pt. 1, 1952), 40–​41. Sellers describes the portrait of Brant as “full of mildness and hope . . . for the betterment of his people.” See also Taylor, The Divided Ground, 331–​38; and Kelsay, Joseph Brant, 573–​78. 30.  See Kelsay, Joseph Brant, 645, for a brief account of when and why the portrait was painted. See also Theodore Bolton and Irwin F. Cortelyou, Ezra Ames of Albany: Portrait Painter (New York: New-York Historical Society, 1955), 37, 44, 138, 210. More general references can be found in the registrar’s files at Fenimore House Museum, New York State Historical Association, Cooperstown.

134   /   Notes to Pages 57–61

31.  For brief notes on the artist and subject, see Catalogue of American Portraits in the New-York Historical Society 1 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974), 427. For more on Cornplanter, see Taylor, Divided Ground, 247–​49; and Wallace, Jefferson and the Indians, 289–​91. 32.  For more on Red Jacket’s several visits to Weir’s studio, see Catalogue of American Portraits in the New-York Historical Society, 688–​89. See also Wil­ liam H. Gerdts, Robert Wier: Artist and Teacher of West Point (West Point, NY: Cadet Fine Arts Forum of the Unites States Corps of Cadets, 1976), 13, 26, who notes that the portrait, owned by Samuel Ward, appeared as an engraving in the Talisman, a literary annual associated with the Sketch Club, which included among its members artists, writers, and prominent New York art collectors, such as Jonathan Sturges, Charles Leupp, and Luman Reed. Ward moved in the same elite circles (see chap. 4, note 11).

chapter 4: the rise of republican indians 1.  Poised rather uncomfortably between these two traditions is John Vander­ lyn’s tribute to French neoclassicism, The Murder of Jane McCrea, painted in Paris in 1804. The subject represents a last gasp of Mohawk iconography, me­ morializing in the form of a history painting a gruesome event that took place during the Revolutionary War. Jane McCrea, a Tory from New Jersey, was traveling north across the New York frontier to join her fiancé, an officer in General Burgoyne’s army, when she was murdered and scalped (or found dead and scalped), presumably by Mohawk warriors allied with the British. Vanderlyn tells the story in no uncertain terms, driving home the point that by 1804 it was difficult for many Americans to see the Mohawks in a favorable light, much less as Noble Savages. And yet so well known was the story by this time that one suspects Vanderlyn was censuring not just the Indians for foul play, but the British—​t he real villains—​who during the war had paid the Mohawks gener­ ously for scalps taken on such occasions. One might also argue that Vanderlyn’s patrons and friends during the years he spent in Paris—​A aron Burr, Joel Barlow ( Jefferson’s ambassador to France and the author of the poem from which the image was taken), and Robert Fulton—​shared anti-British feelings at the time, even though each had resided in England for a few years after the war. If Jane McCrea doesn’t fit the Noble Savage category, however, neither does it rest comfortably among Republican Indian images of a few years later, despite the ethnographically correct look of the Indians. More telling is the behavior of

Notes to Pages 62–64   /   135

those same Indians; instead of assuming the role of proud, free spirits of the wilderness, beyond the reach of white people, these Indians are consumed with hatred toward them, showing no mercy even to a helpless young female (a point that surely was not lost on Vanderlyn’s audience). Perhaps the best that can be done for Jane McCrea at this point is to assign it transitional status, heavily influenced by residual feelings about the war and not yet affected by the promise of westward expansion. During the 1790s, while training as an artist in New York, Vanderlyn joined the Sons of Tammany, a patriotic society that confirmed its American identity by appearing at meetings in full Indian dress. Occasional examples of their dress, such as the leggings worn by the Mohawks in Jane McCrea, may have eventually found their way to Vanderlyn’s studio. For more on the painting, see Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, American Paintings before 1945 in the Wadsworth Atheneum (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), vol. 2, 765–​74; and Samuel Y. Edgerton Jr., “The Murder of Jane McCrea: The Tragedy of an American Tableau D’Histoire,” Art Bulletin 47 (December 1965): 481–​92. 2.  Following the Jay Treaty of 1794, the British formally withdrew from frontier posts south of the Great Lakes. The local tribes, allies of the British, were then pressured by federal authorities to sell much or all of their land to local white settlers (see Richter, Facing East from Indian Country, 224–​27). 3.  Much of the controversy over Indians’ capacity for self-improvement (a period euphemism that measured their potential for assimilation) becomes evi­ dent in the discussions leading up to the Indian Removal Act of 1830. One after another, those who professed sympathy for Indian rights and property claims, such as Thomas McKenney and, to a lesser extent, Lewis Cass and William Clark, were persuaded to go along with Jackson’s Indian policy. See especially Anthony F. C. Wallace, The Long Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993), 11 ff., 45–​46; Brian W. Dippie, The Vanishing American: White Attitudes and U.S. Indian Policy (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1982), 47–​48; and Prucha, American Indian Policy, 224–​49. Also helpful are Steven Conn, History’s Shadow: Native Americans and Historical Consciousness in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 30–​31, who notes that hopes for assimilation “had largely faded by the early national period”; Philip J. Deloria, Playing Indian (New Haven: Yale Univer­ sity Press, 1998), 63–​65; Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence, 354–​60; Berk­ hofer, The White Man’s Indian, 145–​66; and Washburn, The Indian in America, 162–​69. See chap. 5, note 9. 4.  After a treaty negotiation with the Senecas, for example, Pickering said

136   /   Notes to Page 66

in a letter to President Washington: “A man must be destitute of humanity, of honesty, or of common sense who should send them [the Senecas] away dis­ gusted. He must want sensibility if he did not sympathize with them on their recital of the injuries they have experienced from white men” (cited in Taylor, Divided Ground, 244). Cooper treated “good” Indians, such as Tamenund in The Last of the Mohicans, with similar regard (see Vernon Scott Dimond, “Eloquent Representatives”: A Study of the Native American Figure in the Early Landscapes of Thomas Cole, 1825–​1830 [Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms no. 9829888, 1998], 147–​51). Catlin was deeply enamored of Upper Missouri chiefs and the way they wielded their power (“Nature’s proudest, noblest men,” he called them in Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indians [1844; reprint, New York: Dover Publications, 1977], vol. 2, 155–​56); and Morgan’s careful investigation of Iroquois kinship laws revealed that Indian society was far more structured and complex than anyone had previously real­ ized (see Carl Resek, Lewis Henry Morgan: American Scholar [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960], 21–​44; and Deloria, Playing Indian, 68–​69, 78, 89–​91). See note 5 below. 5.  Using Tamenund as an example (see note 4 above), Dimond draws a par­ allel between the traditional values of the aging chief and those of Federalist “sachems,” whose power was on the wane. Catlin (Letters and Notes 2, 239–​40) positions the governing bodies of Upper Missouri tribes somewhere between a democracy and an aristocracy, with the influence of names and families “strictly kept up . . . yet . . . free from the influences of wealth.” European aris­ tocrats Maximilian zu Wied and William Drummond Stewart, who, respec­ tively, sponsored the western tours of Karl Bodmer and Alfred Jacob Miller, praise the valor and dignity of Plains tribes. And others from a similar back­ ground, such as Crèvecoeur and Tocqueville, frequently note that the tribal structures of North American Indians were similar to those of well-born Eu­ ropeans. The subtext of these remarks is, of course, that further political change will turn both Plains Indians and traditional white elites into vanishing races (see Liebersohn, Aristocratic Encounters, 37–​60, 92–​112, 159–​62). 6.  The best survey of Indian policy after the war is Reginald Horsman, Expansion and American Indian Policy, 1783–​1812 (1967; reprint, Norman: Univer­ sity of Oklahoma Press, 1992). Horsman (55–​62) makes the point that during the years immediately following the war, the government sought to treat Indians in a way that corresponded with the ideals of the new nation. More recently, Bethel Saler has taken a similar position (see “An Empire for Liberty, a State for Empire,” in James Horn, Jan Ellen Lewis, and Peter S. Onuf, eds., The Revo-

Notes to Pages 66–68   /   137

lution of 1800: Democracy, Race, and the New Republic [Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2002], 369–​70). See also Taylor, Divided Ground, 237–​407; Hine and Farragher, The American West, 118–29; and Wallace, Jefferson and the Indians, 161–​275. According to a recent biography of John Jay, however, problems still arose with Indian land sales. In 1795, shortly before Jay became governor of New York, his second cousin, Philip Schuyler, purchased “vast tracts of lands” from various Iroquois tribes for very little and sold them to white settlers for enormous profits, despite a federal law that prohibited such transactions. After he became governor, Jay did little to change things (Walter Stahr, John Jay: Founding Father [New York: Hambledon and London, 2005], 347–​48). When whites dealt with Indians during this same period, the disparity between ideals and everyday practice was not uncommon (see Richard White, “Fictions of Patriarchy: Indians and Whites in the Early Republic,” in Hoxie, Native Americans and the Early Republic, 73–​74). 7.  See Richard White, “It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own”: A New History of the American West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), 85–​94; Washburn, The Indian in America, 209–​32; and Francis Paul Prucha, American Indian Policy in the Formative Years: The Indian Trade and Intercourse Acts, 1790–​1834 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), 139–​87. 8.  For more on the fur trade, see chap. 2, note 4; and Hine and Farragher, The American West, chap. 5. Also helpful are O’Toole, White Savage, 65–​66, 75, 78–​79; Shirley Christian, Before Lewis and Clark: The Story of the Chouteaus, the French Dynasty That Ruled America’s Frontier (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004), 99–​100; Gilman, Lewis and Clark, 19, 21, 34, 39, 54, 116, 245; Norton, The Fur Trade in Colonial New York, esp. chaps. 3 and 4; and Bonomi, A Factious People, 40–​45. 9.  Bonomi, A Fractious People, 60 ff. For more on Peter Schuyler and on Solomon and Stephen Van Rensselaer, see, respectively, John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography (New York: Oxford Univer­ sity Press, 1999), vol. 19, 460–​64; and vol. 22, 243–​45. 10.  For more on Cole’s use of landscape to highlight moralizing historical themes, see Alan Wallach, “Landscape as History,” in William H. Truettner and Alan Wallach, eds., Thomas Cole: Landscape into History (New Haven: Yale University Press for the National Museum of American Art, 1994), 51–​77. Dimond (“Eloquent Representatives,” 106–​66) explains how Cole used Indians and Indian subjects in his early landscapes to complement historical themes associated with “wild nature.” See also previous references to Dimond’s work in notes 4 and 5 above. Bryant’s first Indian poems (such as “An Indian at the

138   /   Notes to Pages 68–71

Burial Place of His Fathers,” 1824–​25) amounted to a deeply nostalgic return to the national past. And Catlin’s Upper Missouri chiefs and warriors were archaized into primitive peoples, whose mixture of goodness and savagery was a constant reminder of their natural heritage (see Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 69–​80). The Indians of Colden, Adair, John Heckewelder (an influ­ ential Moravian missionary who lived among the Delaware from 1771 to 1810), James Hall (of McKenney and Hall), and Washington Irving also drew their virtue (as well as their defects) from nature. Accounts of Indian life written by the above are briefly summarized in Pearce, Savagism and Civilization. 11.  Samuel Ward, a prosperous, well-connected New York banker, for whom Cole painted The Voyage of Life, also commissioned, or purchased soon after it was painted, Weir’s Red Jacket (see chap. 3, note 32). 12.  Evan Carnog, The Birth of Empire: DeWitt Clinton and the American Experience, 1769–​1828 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 120–​23; and DeWitt Clinton, A Memoir on the Antiquities of the Western Parts of the State of New-York (Albany: I. W. Clark, 1818). The Clinton quote appears in Collections of the New York Historical Society (New York: Van Winkle and Wiley, 1814), vol. 2, 10. 13.  Allan Nevins, ed., The Diary of Philip Hone, 1828–​1851 (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1927), 290–​91. See also Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 36; and Fox, The Decline of Aristocracy in the Politics of New York. George Catlin’s father, Putnam, a Revolutionary War veteran and a self-styled farmer-squire who fi­ nally settled in Great Bend, Pennsylvania (near the New York State border), was an ardent Federalist and later a Whig, who supported William Henry Har­ rison in 1840. George followed his father’s lead but distantly, from abroad, for the next thirty years. In 1849 Webster almost persuaded the Senate to buy Catlin’s Indian Gallery (see William H. Truettner, “Vanishing with a Trace: Art and Indian Life in the Gilcrease Souvenir Album,” in George Catlin’s Souvenir of the North American Indians [Tulsa, OK: Gilcrease Museum, 2004], xxvi–​x xvii, note 22; and Brian W. Dippie, Catlin and His Contemporaries: The Politics of Patronage [Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990], 133–​35).

chapter 5: painting republican indians, 1800 to 1840s 1.  Wallace, Jefferson and the Indians, 128. In dealing with the Upper Missouri tribes, Jefferson at first espoused a kind of benevolent imperial diplomacy. We must become their “fathers and friends,” he wrote to Lewis and Clark, and make

Notes to Pages 71–76   /   139

them see the benefits of belonging to a larger commercial empire (see McLaugh­ lin, Arts of Diplomacy, xvii). 2.  For those final touches, see especially Herman J. Viola, The Indian Leg­ acy of Charles Bird King (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press; New York: Doubleday, 1976), 12–​13, 22–​43. Also helpful are Herman J. Viola, Thomas L. McKenney: Architect of America’s Early Indian Policy, 1816–​1830 (Chi­ cago: Swallow Press, 1974), 6–​46, 116–​34; and Viola, Diplomats in Buckskin, 172–​78. Lee Clark Mitchell notes that McKenney’s portrait collection (which included Indian artifacts) was part of a larger, nineteenth-century effort to record and preserve vanishing races. McKenney acknowledged as much: his “Archives,” he said, would provide information for generations “long after the Indians will have been no more” (see Mitchell, Witnesses to a Vanishing America: The ­Nineteenth-Century Response [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981], 117–​18). 3.  Altogether, Saint-Mémin painted eight portraits of Upper Missouri In­ dians, the first in 1804, and several more from delegations that came to Wash­ ington over the next few years. For more information on the individual portraits, see Ellen G. Miles, Saint-Mémin and the Neoclassical Portrait Profile in America (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press for the National Portrait Gallery, 1994), 142–​58. See also Wallace, Jefferson and the Indians, 127–​29, 264–​ 66; Viola, Diplomats in Buckskin, 172–​78; and, for the diplomatic symbolism of Payouska’s military uniform, McLaughlin, Arts of Diplomacy, 44–​45. 4.  See Robert Torchia, John Neagle: Philadelphia Portrait Painter (Philadel­ phia: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1989), 112–​13, who notes that Neagle’s Indian portraits were praised for their ethnographic accuracy by the eminent zoologist John D. Godman (see note 9 below) and other members of the sci­ entific community in Philadelphia. There was a dark side to the praise, however. Samuel G. Morton, the leading craniologist of the period, referred to a similar portrait by Neagle as embracing numerous “characteristic [Indian] traits[,] . . . the retreating forehead, the low brow, etc., the dull and seemingly unobservant eye, the large nose, the high cheek bones, full mouth and face.” Despite the unfinished look of these two heads, Torchia thinks that Neagle may have first sketched members of the delegation in pencil and then painted oil studies (like this one) of several of the same Indians. 5.  Viola, The Indian Legacy of Charles Bird King, 22–​43, provides a full account of the Indians’ visit to Washington (see also note 2 above). The painting was first exhibited under the current title at the National Academy of Design in 1838, when it belonged to the Virginia artist John Gadsby Chapman, a former

140   /   Notes to Pages 76–77

King studio assistant. The accuracy of the title has recently been questioned by Rowena Houghton Dasch, a University of Texas graduate student writing on King’s “picture gallery” in Washington. In Dasch’s dissertation, “ ‘Now Exhibiting’: Charles Bird King’s Picture Gallery, Fashioning American Taste and Nation 1824–​61,” she notes that the first three names in the title of the painting don’t match the names of any Indians in the 1821 delegation. 6.  Julie Schimmel suggests that all five Indians’ faces may be modeled after those of two members of the delegation (see “Inventing the Indian,” in Wil­ liam H. Truettner, ed., The West as America: Reinterpreting Images of the Frontier, 1820–​1920 [Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press for the National Museum of American Art, 1991], 153–​54). Dasch (see note 5 above) sees the influence of phrenology in King’s conception of the five Indian heads. And Francis K. Pohl raises questions about the face paint designs and robe positions of the five Indians; these, she says, may signify beliefs and customs among the Indians little understood by present-day viewers. Pohl’s observations appear in her textbook, Framing America: A Social History of American Art (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2002), 110–​12. The basic text on King is Andrew Cosen­ tino’s The Paintings of Charles Bird King (1785–​1862) (Washington, DC: Smith­ sonian Institution Press for the National Collection of Fine Arts, 1977). A discussion of Young Omahaw appears on pp. 63–​67 and 186. Cosentino lists numerous other Indian paintings by King, some of which show a degree of cross-dressing. These are generally portraits of Creeks and other Indians from the South, who years earlier had adopted European dress as part of their native attire. Many of King’s Indian paintings were reproduced in Thomas L. McKen­ ney and James Hall’s The Indian Tribes of North America (1837–​44) (see Viola, The Indian Legacy of Charles Bird King, 68–​87), three-volume sets of bound lith­ ographs that illustrated the principal chiefs and warriors of tribes mainly in the Ohio Country, in the South, on reservations across the Mississippi, and on the Upper Missouri. In biographical notes accompanying the plates, written by James Hall, a midwestern lawyer-politician and historian of frontier life, Indians are treated with sympathy and respect but also as a “barbarous people,” fatally unable to abandon their nomadic way of life (see McKenney and Hall, The Indian Tribes of North America, with Biographical Sketches and Anecdotes of the Principal Chiefs, ed. Frederick Webb Hodge [Edinburgh: John Grant, 1933], vol. 1, 5). See also Pearce, Savagism and Civilization, 118–​20; and Berkhofer, The White Man’s Indian, 88–​89. 7.  For more on the Blackhawk war, see Wallace, Jefferson and the Indians, 336–​37; and Alvin M. Josephy Jr., Patriot Chiefs: A Chronicle of American Indian

Notes to Pages 77–81   /   141

Resistance (1961; reprint, New York: Penguin Books, 1978), 211–​53. For more on Catlin’s portraits of Black Hawk and his eldest son, Whirling Thunder, see Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 23, 143–​44. Black Hawk’s subsequent tour of eastern cities is covered in Viola, The Indian Legacy of Charles Bird King, 90–​101. 8.  A letter from Harold E. Dickson to Mrs. Robert S. Lanier, M. Knoedler & Co., December 29, 1948, in the Gilcrease Museum files says that the por­ trait came to his attention only weeks before his book ( John Wesley Jarvis, Amer­ican Painter, 1780–​1840 [New York: New-York Historical Society, 1949]) was sent to press, too late apparently to make the deadline, since the portrait does not appear in the checklist at the back of the book. In the letter, however, Dickson endorses the portrait as a late work, one of the last the artist painted. Dickson also says that Jarvis may have sought out Black Hawk, assuming that the chief’s notoriety would help sell the portrait. An article from Virginia Cavalcade 35 (summer 1985): 12, also in the Gilcrease files, claims that the portrait was painted in spring 1833 at Fort Monroe, Norfolk, Virginia, where Black Hawk and other Sauk warriors were held in custody after transfer from Jefferson Barracks (see note 7 above). Shortly after the portrait was completed, Black Hawk, Whirling Thunder, and the others were released and sent on tour. 9.  The initial quote is from Berkhofer, The White Man’s Indian, 78–​79. Clas­sifying New World flora and fauna according to Enlightenment standards continued into the first decades of the nineteenth century, but romantic savages never regained the status of Noble Savages. Instead, they were subjected to a more pronounced effort to categorize Indians as a race—​to quantify their level of development with data that had rarely been applied to assessing “primitive” peoples in the past. What drove this new program was not so much a new methodology as a new belief system. Philadelphia scientists, the best and brightest in the young nation, turned from broad-based secular studies to the narrower task of finding order in God’s universe and to discovering why Indians had remained in a primitive state (still under the sway of passion and impulse) while other races had pro­ gressed. The end result of this search, claimed the Maryland natural philosopher Samuel Tyler, was to reaffirm the existence of the Creator and to discover the laws and the relationships that he had set in motion (see Daniels reference [74 ff.] below). Thus, facts, observations, and experiments became part of a system more tightly built than ever, an “edifice” that was based on faith as much as reason, and therefore less permissive of change than before. Ordering God’s universe also put a higher priority on data gathering than

142   /   Notes to Page 81

had Enlightenment science. When George Catlin completed his Indian Gal­ lery in 1838, he claimed that he had “visited forty-eight tribes, the greater part of which I found speaking different languages, and containing in all 400,000 souls. I have brought home safe, and in good order, 310 portraits in oil, all [of Indians] painted in their native dress . . . and also 200 other paintings . . . of their villages—​t heir wigwams—​t heir games and religious ceremonies—​t heir dances—​t heir ball plays—​t heir buffalo hunting . . . as well as a very exten­ sive . . . collection of their costumes” and artifacts (see Catlin [vol. 1, 4] below). But if Catlin proceeded as a conscientious ethnographer, with high praise for many of the Plains tribes he visited, he also believed that they and other Indians in remote areas of the West had changed little over the past centuries. That was their virtue; they still remained in their original state. At the same time, he thought them so wedded to their traditional ways that increased contact with white civilization would, in time, cause wholesale destruction of their culture. And whether Catlin was right or wrong, Philadelphia scientists and federal offi­cials, sometimes unintentional allies, often made his prediction come true. In an age that believed so strongly in progress and at the same time managed to fix Indians in a static category of human development, the tension created would soon bring an unfortunate conclusion to the Indian problem. In his two-volume American Natural History, published in 1826–​28, John God­ man, the leading zoologist in Philadelphia, wrote, “When free in his native wilds,” the Indian “displayed a form worthy of admiration and a conduct which secured him respect,” but “the civilized aboriginal has sunk into a case of hopeless apathy, incapable of anything better than an imitation of the worst vices of the worst men” (see Godman reference below). What Godman says, in so many words, is that removed from his “native wilds” (his place in God’s universe), the Indian would not survive for long. A few decades later, that opinion was more forcefully reiterated by historian Francis Parkman, who wrote: “The Indian is hewn out of a rock. . . . You cannot change the form without destruction of the substance . . . he and his forest must perish together” (see Conn reference below). The preceding account of trends in Philadelphia science during the first decades of nineteenth century was mostly taken from George H. Daniels, American Science in the Age of Jackson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), esp. chaps. 3–​5 and pp. 74, 103. Also helpful were George W. Stocking Jr., Victorian Anthropolgy (New York: Free Press, 1987), 9–​19; Berkhofer, The White Man’s Indian, 40–​55; and Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny, 116–​32. For quotes, see Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 1, 4, 61; John D. Godman, American

Notes to Pages 81–91   /   143

Natural His­tory (1826; reprint, Philadelphia: R. W. Pomeroy, 1842) vol. 1, 28; and Conn, History’s Shadow, 207. Wallace ( Jefferson and the Indians, 326–​29) points out that Jefferson’s sympathy toward Indians was often contradicted by his aggressive policy of taking over their lands. 10.  Wallace ( Jefferson and the Indians, 226, 273–​75) argues that Jefferson began the policy of Indian removal (to lands west of the Mississippi) that finally culminated in the Jackson administration. If so, one wonders (along with Wal­ lace) how Jefferson ever thought that assimilation had a chance. See also Hors­ man, Expansion and American Indian Policy, 106–​14. The plight of Indians in the trans-Mississippi West was not entirely ignored at the time, however. Early advocates of Indian reform were already trying to help those who had been forced to leave their homelands east of the Mississippi. (see note 41 below). 11.  William H. Goetzmann, “The Man Who Stopped to Paint America,” in Karl Bodmer’s America, Joslyn Art Museum (Omaha: University of Nebraska Press, 1984), 9–​10. Maximilian also met William Drummond Stewart in St. Louis, in spring 1833. The latter is supposed to have persuaded the prince not to go west by the Santa Fe Trail but to take a steamboat up the Missouri. Helpful information about O’Fallon and his collection of Catlin paintings, which de­ scended through his daughter Emily to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, appears in The O’Fallon Collection of American Indian Portraits by George Catlin (New York: Sotheby’s, December 2, 2004), 11–​14, nos. 1–​31. 12.  “Rough Draughts for Notes on Indian sketches,” by Alfred Jacob Miller, a manuscript (registration no. 4016.2100) in the Gilcrease Museum Archives in Tulsa, recounts a visit by Miller and Stewart to William Clark in spring 1837, during which the “renowned gentleman then far advanced in years” gave them advice on their overland trip to the Wind River Mountains. Lisa Strong kindly called my attention to this item. 13.  Karl Bodmer’s America, 308. 14.  Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 180. 15.  Karl Bodmer’s America, 14–​17, 309. 16.  Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 23, 26, 92, 103, 178–​79. 17.  Karl Bodmer’s America, 14–​17, 308. 18.  Ibid., 5–​6. 19.  Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 184. For more references to Buf­ falo Bull, see 20, 48, 124. 20.  Karl Bodmer’s America, 13, 261. 21.  Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 87, 198–​99. 22.  Ibid., 74, 181; Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 1, 93–​94.

144   /   Notes to Pages 91–96

23.  See Viola, The Indian Legacy of Charles Bird King, 25, 32, 34–​35, and other references on p. 149; Cosentino, The Paintings of Charles Bird King, 66–​67, 168–​69, believes that the face of Pocahontas in John Gadsby Chapman’s Capitol mural, The Baptism of Pocahontas, was modeled after King’s Eagle of Delight. Pocahontas, the daughter of Powhatan, an Algonquin chief who ruled over Indian lands surrounding the Jamestown colony, was considered an Indian princess by the colony’s original settlers. She eventually married John Rolfe, a principal of the colony, returned to England with him, and died giving birth to a son, Thomas Rolfe, from whom several “Old Virginia” families claim de­ scent. By the 1820s Pocahontas’s image as an Indian princess had gained wide acceptance, encouraging artists to represent other attractive female Indians in a similar manner. 24.  Ron Tyler, ed., Alfred Jacob Miller: Artist on the Oregon Trail (Fort Worth, TX: Amon Carter Museum, 1982), fig. 90, 299. The initial image was presum­ ably sketched in 1837. 25.  For relatively recent commentary on the status of women during the early years of the republic, see Linda K. Kerber, Toward an Intellectual History of Women (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 117–​78; and Jeanne Boydston, “Making Gender in the Early Republic,” in Horn, Lewis, and Onuf, eds., The Revolution of 1800, 240–​63. Another view, focusing specifically on native women during the early years of the republic, argued that raising the condition of these women from field laborers to domestic caretakers would eventually encourage Indian families to become more productive and respon­ sible citizens (see Theda Perdue, “Native Women in the Early Republic: Old World Perceptions, New World Realities,” in Hoxie, ed., Native Americans and the Early Republic, 112–​22). 26.  On the procession of white visitors to Mandan sites along the Missouri River, see Alfred W. Bowers, Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization (1950; reprint, Moscow: University of Idaho Press, 1991), 8–​20; and John Francis McDermott, “Up the Wide Missouri: Travelers and Their Diaries, 1794–​1861,” in J. F. McDermott, ed., Travelers on the Western Frontier (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970), 3–​78. John C. Ewers observes that Catlin “broke the trail” for succeeding artists who wished to see “the West and its people . . . with their own eyes” (see Ewers, “George Catlin: Painter of Indians and the West,” reprint from the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1955, 501–​5). 27.  Regardless of white men’s fascination for buffalo hunting, they had reservations about tribes that were almost solely dependent on hunting to secure their livelihood. All such tribes they assigned to a nomadic hunting category,

Notes to Pages 97–116   /   145

several steps below other tribes that had permanent homes and raised crops (see Daniel Justin Herman, Hunting and the American Imagination [Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001], 37–​63, 222). 28.  Tyler, Alfred Jacob Miller, 315, 317–​18; and Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 260, 263. 29.  Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 115, 260, 307; and Tyler, Alfred Jacob Miller, fig. 97, 319–​20. 30.  Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 280; and Tyler, Alfred Jacob Miller, 350–​51. 31.  Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 20, 110, 126, 137, 252; and Karl Bodmer’s America, 11, 191. See also Brandon K. Ruud, ed., Karl Bodmer’s North American Prints (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press for the Joslyn Art Museum, 2004), 273. 32.  Tyler, Alfred Jacob Miller, figs. 56 and 57, pp. 254–​55, 257. The water­ colors shown are later versions of those Miller did in 1837, when traveling with Stewart. 33.  Karl Bodmer’s America, 11, 13–​14, 284. For more on Fort Clark and the fur trade, see Virginia L. Heidenreich, ed., The Fur Trade in North Dakota (Bismarck: State Historical Society of North Dakota, 1990). 34.  Karl Bodmer’s America, 336, 339. 35.  Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 35–​36, 239; and Tyler, Alfred Jacob Miller, fig. 100, pp. 321–​22. 36.  Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 31–​32, 242–​43; Tyler, Alfred Jacob Miller, 29–​32, 53, 60, 62–​68, 263–​64. 37.  For more on Cole’s Expulsion, see Alan Wallach, “Thomas Cole: Land­ scape and the Course of American Empire,” in Truettner and Wallach, eds., Thomas Cole, 42–​46, 81–​82. Both Cole and Catlin probably drew on similar bi­ furcated moralizing images. Some had appeared in American prints or periodi­ cals up to this time, but in England, beginning with Hogarth and Rowlandson, there had been a steady stream (see Diana Donald, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III [New Haven: Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 1996]). 38.  For more on The Light’s visit to Washington and his subsequent fate, see Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 1, 55–​57; vol. 2, 194–​200, pl. 271–​72; Viola, The Indian Legacy of Charles Bird King, 88–​91; and John C. Ewers, Indian Life on the Upper Missouri (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968), 75–​9 0. For information on the image of The Light, see Truettner, The Natural Man Observed, 18–​20, 280.

146   /   Notes to Pages 118–119

39.  According to Lisa Strong’s recent study of the artist’s work (Sentimental Journey: The Art of Alfred Jacob Miller [Fort Worth, TX: Amon Carter Museum, 2008], 123–​61), The Trapper’s Bride can be variously interpreted as (1) a commer­ cial transaction, providing the trapper with support and security from his wife’s tribe; (2) a symbolic projection of the relationship between Miller’s Baltimore patrons and the frontier; (3) a ceremony (possible only on the frontier) optimisti­ cally promoting the amalgamation of races; (4) a gender negotiation; and (5) a sexual fantasy, indulged in by elite white males, vicariously experiencing a crossover relationship. The argument presented in the text borrows from Strong’s third option. 40.  Julie Schimmel (The West as America, 169) describes the picture as “a romantic fade-out of Indian life,” a subject with wide appeal among American Art-Union members, to whom it was distributed as a print in 1847. Underlying such nostalgia, of course, was the position of race-conscious Americans who believed that the continued presence of Indians (as well as Hispanics and blacks) would weaken the dominant Anglo-Saxon strain of the population (see Hors­ man, Race and Manifest Destiny, 272). 41.  For the literature on Indian hating, see Pearce, Savagism and Civilization, 224–​32. The basic text on the reform movement is Robert Winston Mardock, The Reformers and the American Indian (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1971). The first chapter is especially helpful. See also Dippie, The Vanishing American, 81–​106.

Illustrations

1. Apollo Belvedere (Roman copy of a Hellenistic bronze by Leochares) 2. Gilbert Stuart, Joseph Brant, 1786 3. George Catlin, Mah-tó-he-ha, Old Bear, a Medicine Man (Mandan), 1832 4. An Indian Warrior Entering His Wigwam with a Scalp, etching by Barlow from Thomas Anburey, Travels through the Interior Parts of America, 1789 5. Illustration from William P. Edwards, Narrative of the Capture and Providential Escape of Misses Frances and Almire Hall . . . , 1833 6. William Hodges, Cherokee Indian, 1791 7. Thomas Hardy, William Augustus Bowles as an Indian Chief, 1791 8. Gustavus Hesselius, Lapowinsa, 1735 9. John Verelst, Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Row (Christianized Hendrick), 1710 10. John Verelst, Sa Ga Yeath Qua Pieth Tow (Christianized Brant), 1710 11. Sir Peter Lely, Henry Sidney, Earl of Romney, ca. 1650 12.  Iroquois leaders assembled to recite the laws of the Five Nations Confederacy, engraving from Joseph-François Lafitau, Moeurs des sauvages amériquains comparées aux moeurs des premiers temps, 1724 13. Benjamin West, Savage Warrior Taking Leave of His Family, 1760 147

8 14 15

29 30 32 33 34 36 37 38

40 41

148   /   Illustrations

14. Benjamin West, General Johnson Saving a Wounded French Officer from the Tomahawk of a North American Indian, 1764–68 15. Benjamin West, The Death of General Wolfe, 1770 16. Benjamin West, Colonel Guy Johnson and Karonghyontye (Captain David Hill), 1776 17. George Romney, Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea), 1776 18. Gilbert Stuart, Joseph Brant, 1786 19. Gilbert Stuart, Joseph (Thayendanegea) Brant, 1786 20. William Berczy, Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant), Chief of the Six Nations, ca. 1807 21. Charles Willson Peale, Joseph Brant, 1797 22. Ezra Ames, Joseph Brant, 1806 23. F. Bartoli, Seneca Chief, Ki-On-Twog-Ky (also known as Cornplanter), 1796 24. Robert Weir, Red Jacket, or Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha, 1828 25. George Catlin, Eé-hee-a-duck-cée-a, He Who Ties His Hair Before, 1832 26. George Catlin, DeWitt Clinton, 1827 27. Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin, Osage Warrior, 1804 28. Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin, Payouska or Pawhuska, Chief of the Great Osages, ca. 1806 29. John Neagle, Big Kansas, or Caussetongua, and Sharitarische, Chief of the Grand Pawnees, 1821 30. Charles Bird King, Young Omahaw, War Eagle, Little Missouri, and Pawnees, 1821 31. George Catlin, Múk-a-tah-mish-o-káh-kaik, Black Hawk, Prominent Sac Chief, 1832 32. George Catlin, Náh-se-ús-kuk, Whirling Thunder, Eldest Son of Black Hawk (Sauk and Fox), 1832 33. John Wesley Jarvis, Black Hawk and His Son, Whirling Thunder, 1833 34. George Catlin, Máh-to-tóh-pa, Four Bears, Second Chief in Mourning (Mandan), 1832 35. Karl Bodmer, Mató-Tópe, Mandan Chief, 1833–34 36. George Catlin, Máh-to-tóh-pa, Four Bears, Second Chief, in Full Dress (Mandan), 1832 37. Karl Bodmer, Mató-Tópe (Four Bears), Mandan Chief, 1834

43 44 46 50 51 52 53 54 55 58 59 64 65 73 73 74 75 78 79 80 84 85 86 87

Illustrations   /   149

38. George Catlin, Stu-mick-o-súcks, Buffalo Bull’s Back Fat, Head Chief, Blood Tribe (Blackfoot), 1832 39. Karl Bodmer, Stomíck-Stosáck, Blood Blackfeet Chief, 1833 40. George Catlin, Wife of the Six (Plains Ojibwa), 1832 41. George Catlin, Sha-kó-ka, Mint, a Pretty Girl (Mandan), 1832 42. Charles Bird King, Hayne Hudjihini (Eagle of Delight), 1822 43. Alfred Jacob Miller, A Young Woman of the Flat Head Tribe, 1858–60 44. George Catlin, Cler-mónt, First Chief of the Tribe (Osage), 1834 45. George Catlin, Wáh-chee-te, Wife of Cler-mónt and Child (Osage), 1834 46. George Catlin, The Cutting Scene, Mandan O-kee-pa Ceremony, 1832 47. Karl Bodmer, Interior of a Mandan Earth Lodge, 1833–34 48. Alfred Jacob Miller, Indian Lodge, 1867 49. Alfred Jacob Miller, Buffalo Hunt, ca. 1838–42 50. George Catlin, Buffalo Chase, Bull Protecting a Cow and Calf, 1832–33 51. Alfred Jacob Miller, A Surround, ca. 1837 52. George Catlin, Buffalo Chase, a Surround by the Hidatsa, 1832–33 53. George Catlin, Buffalo Hunt under the Wolf-skin Mask, 1832–33 54. Alfred Jacob Miller, Approaching Buffalo under the Disguise of a Wolf, ca. 1837 55. George Catlin, Butte de Mort, Sioux Burial Ground, Upper Missouri, 1837–39 56. Alfred Jacob Miller, Medicine Circles, 1837 57. George Catlin, Fort Union, Mouth of the Yellowstone River, 2000 Miles above St. Louis, 1832 58. Charles Beyer and Lucas Weber (after Karl Bodmer), Fort Union on the Missouri, 1833 59. George Catlin, Mouth of the Platte River, 900 Miles above St. Louis, 1832 60. Alfred Jacob Miller, Lake Scene, 1858–60 61. Alfred Jacob Miller, Fort Laramie, 1858–60 62. Alfred Jacob Miller, Interior of Fort Laramie, 1858–60 63. Karl Bodmer, Mih-Tutta-Hang-Kusch, Mandan Village, 1833–34 64. Karl Bodmer, Clubs and Pipes, ca. 1838 65. Karl Bodmer, Artifacts, ca. 1838

88 89 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 99 100 100 101 101 102 102 103 103 104 105 106 106 107 107 108 110 111

150   /   Illustrations

66. George Catlin, View on the St. Peter’s River, Sioux Indians Pursuing a Stag in Their Canoes, 1836–37 67. Alfred Jacob Miller, Elk Swimming the Platte, 1837 68. George Catlin, Comanche Meeting the Dragoons, 1834–35 69. Alfred Jacob Miller, Sir William Drummond Stewart Meeting Indian Chief (Greeting of the Snakes and Whites, under the Mountains of the Winds), ca. 1839 70. Thomas Cole, Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, 1828 71. George Catlin, Wi-jún-jon, Pigeon’s Egg Head (The Light) Going to and Returning from Washington, 1837–39 72. Alfred Jacob Miller, The Trapper’s Bride, 1850 73. Tompkins Matteson, The Last of the Race, 1847

112 112 113

113 114 115 117 118

Index

Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations. Abrams, Ann Ury, 121n1 Adair, James, 22, 25, 61, 138n10; History of the American Indian, 26; 126n21 Adams, John, 67 Adams, John Quincy, 70 Agassiz, Alexander, 80 Albani, Cardinal, 7, 10 Albany, 4, 11 American Fur Company, 81, 89, 109, 116. See also fur trade and trapping American Revolution. See Revolu­ tionary War Ames, Ezra: Joseph Brant, 55, 56 Anburey, Thomas, Travels through the Interior Parts of Amerca In a Series of Letters by an Officer, 28 Anne, Queen of Great Britain, 34; Queen Anne’s War, 35 Apollo Belvedere (Leochares), 8, 8, 9, 10, 11, 21, 24, 40, 121n1, 125–26n16, 132–33n22 artistic imperialism, 17. See also por­ trait diplomacy assimilation (Indian-White): impossi­

bility of, 81; as solution to cultural conflict, 62, 66, 129n9, 135n3, 143n10; as tragedy, 63, 114–116, 117, 119, Assinneboin tribe, 90 authenticity, in portraiture, 13, 56, 82, 84, 109 Barlow, An Indian Warrior Entering His Wigwam with a Scalp, 29 Barlow, Joel, 134n1 Barratt, Carrie Rebora, 132–33n26, 133n27 Bartoli, F., Seneca Chief, Ki-On-TwogKy (also known as Cornplanter), 57, 58 Berczy, William, Thayendanegea ( Joseph Brant), Chief of the Six Nations, 53, 53, 56 Berkhofer, Robert, 79, 141n9 Beyer, Charles, Fort Union on the Missouri, 104, 105 Big Kansas (Caussetongua), 74, 74 Blackfoot tribe, 3, 62, 63, 89. See also Buffalo Bull’s Back Fat

151

152   /   Index

Black Hawk (Múk-a-tah-mish-o-káhkaik), 77, 78, 80, 141n8 Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich, 88 Bodmer, Karl, 75, 77, 78, 81, 82, 94, 96, 98, 108–9, 136n5; Artifacts, 109, 111; Clubs and Pipes, 109, 110; Fort Union on the Missouri, 104–5, 105; Interior of a Mandan Earth Lodge, 99; Mató-Tópe (Four Bears), Mandan Chief, 82–85, 85, 87, 88; Mih-TuttaHang-Kusch, Mandan Village, 105, 108–9, 108; Stomíck-Stosáck, Blood Blackfeet Chief, 89–90, 89 Boston Tea Party, 19; Mohawk dis­ guise, 19 Bowles, William Augustus, 32, 33, 129n10 Braddock, General Edward, 21 Brant, Joseph (Thayendanegea), 13, 38, 48, 54–56, 57; as icon, 52; as model of Indian-white assimilation, 63, 116, 132–33n25, 133n27, 133n28; portraits of, 13, 14, 14, 19, 48–49, 50, 51, 52–55, 52, 53, 54, 55, 61, 68, 132n25; as tragic hero, 13 Brant (Sa Ga Yeath Qua Pieth Tow), grandfather of Joseph, 37, 38 Britain: anti-British sentiment, 134– 35n1; colonies, 4, 9; diplomacy with Iroquois, 9–10, 21, 45, 48, 61, 66, 70–71, 127–28n5, 130n16; imperial­ ism of, 4, 18, 42, 47, 49, 70, 132– 133n26; military of, 35; monarchy, 4, 34–35, 61; North American ex­ pansion of, 3, 9, 16, 19, 71; see also London, portrait tours Bryant, William Cullen, 67, 137–38n10 Buffalo Bull’s Back Fat (Stu-mick-osúcks), 63, 88, 89, 89–90 buffalo hunt. See hunting Burr, Aaron, 133n29, 134n1 Calhoun, John C., 71 Cass, Lewis, 135n3

Catlin, George, 64, 67, 68, 138n13, 145n37; as ethnographer, 75, 77– 78, 81, 142n9, 144n26; Indian Gal­ lery of, 68–69, 138n13, 142n9; re­ lationship with General William Clark, 82; on Upper Missouri, 136n4, 136n5, 138n10; works: Buffalo Chase, 100; Buffalo Chase, a Surround by the Hidatsa, 101; Buffalo Hunt under the Wolf-skin Mask, 97, 102; Butte de Mort, Sioux Burial Ground, Upper Missouri, 97–98, 103; Cler-mónt, First Chief of the Tribe, 96; Comanche Meeting the Dragoons, 110, 113; Cutting Scene, Mandan O-kee-pa Ceremony, 98, 98; DeWitt Clinton, 65, 65; Eé-hee-a-duck-cée-a, He Who Ties His Hair Before, 64, 65; Fort Union, Mouth of the Yellowstone River, 900 Miles above St. Louis, 105, 106; Fort Union, Mouth of the Yellowstone River, 2000 Miles above St. Louis, 104–5, 104; The History of the Five Indian Nations, 23; Letter and Notes, 116, 136n5; Mah-tó-he-ha, Old Bear, a Medicine Man, 13, 14, 15; Máh-to-tóh-pa, Four Bears, 82–88, 84, 86; Múk-a-tah-mish-o-káh-kaik, Black Hawk, Prominent Sac Chief, 77, 78, 141n8; Náh-se-ús-kuk, Whirling Thunder, Eldest Son of Black Hawk, 77, 79, 141n8; Sha-kó-ka, Mint, a Pretty Girl, 91, 93; Stu-mick-o-súcks, Buffalo Bull’s Back Fat, Head Chief, Blood Tribe, 88, 89, 90–91; View on the St. Peter’s River, Sioux Indians Pursuing a Stag in Their Canoes, 109, 112; Wáh-chee-te, Wife of Cler-mónt and Child, 97; Wife of the Six, 91, 92; Wi-jún-jon, Pigeon’s Egg Head (The Light) Going to and Returning from Washington, 110–11, 114–17, 115, 119, 145n37 Catlin, Putnam, 138n13 Caussetongua (Big Kansas), 74, 74

Index   /   153

Cayuga tribe, 123n2 Chapman, John Gadsby, 139–40n5; The Baptism of Pocahontas, 144n23 Chateaubriand, François-René, comte de, 18 Cherokee tribe, 31, 32; in portraiture, 32, 129n10 Cheyenne tribe, 83 Christianity, 23, 57, 119, 141n9 “civilized” man: Noble Savage as, 42, 55; as race, 81, 91, 129n9; vs. savage, 18, 28, 43, 63, 81, 130n17, 141– 43n9; society of, 18, 25, Clark, General William, 71, 81–82, 122n6, 135n3, 138–39n1, 143n12 classical antiquity: aesthetic ideals of, 10, 20, 33, 40–41, 72; allusions to, 8–9, 10, 11, 20–21, 24, 39, 57, 121n1, 131–32n22; dress of, 35, 39, 41, 47, 59; formal conventions of, 33, 35; heroes of, 13, 21, 42 Cler-mónt (Osage chief ), 96; wife and child of, 97 Clinton, DeWitt, 68 Colden, Cadwallader, 22–23, 24, 27, 39, 61, 125n12, 125–26n16, 138n10 Cole, Thomas, 67, 68, 137n10, 138n11; Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, 111, 114, 145n37 Colonial War, French-English, 16 colonies, British: admiration of Iro­ quois Confederacy, 22–23, 24–25, 26; alliance against Indians, 20; contact with Indians, 1, 9. See also Revolutionary War Conn, Steven, 135n3, 142–43n9 Cooper, James Fenimore, 64, 65, 67, 136n4 Cornplanter (Ki-On-Twog-Ky), 57, 58, 60, 66, 68 Cosentino, Andrew J., 140n6, 144n23 Creationism, 141n9 Creek tribe, 31, 32 Crèvecoeur, J. Hector St. John, 123n2, 136n5

“cross-dressing” (Indian-white): de­ fined, 31–32, 34, 39, 55; Indians in traditional European, 35, 49, 55, 74, 77, 114–116, 140n6; mixed (In­ dian-white), 12, 32–33, 129n9, 132– 33n26; whites in traditional Indian, 19, 47, 69 Crow tribe, 3, 62, 90 cultural difference, 2, 39, 81, 96, 129n9. See also assimilation; race Dasch, Rowena Houghton, 140n5, 140n6 De Lancey family, 19, 67 Delaware tribe, 27 Denny, William, 124–25n7 Dickson, Harold E., 141n8 Dimond, Vernon Scott, 136n4, 136n5, 137n10 Dippie, Brian W., 135n3, 138n13, 146n41 display: of Indian artifacts, 31, 82, 109, 128–29n6; of portraiture, 56, 68 domestic life, 21, 92–93 dress: classical, 35, 39, 41, 47, 59; of Noble Savage, 12, 32–33, 48–49; of Republican Indian, 56; tradi­ tional European, 116, 130n12; tra­ ditional Indian, 57, 72, 75, 85, 90, 134–35n1; women’s, 91. See also “cross-dressing” (Indian-white) Eagle of Delight (Hayne Hudjihini), 91, 94 Edwards, William P., Narrative of the Capture and Providential Escape of Misses Frances and Almire Hall . . . , 30 Eé-hee-a-duck-cée-a (He Who Ties His Hair Before), 64 empire building. See imperialism Enlightenment, ideals of, 14, 22–23, 31, 63, 72–74, 78, 141–43n9 ethnography: and Noble Savage, 3, 31; portraiture as, 55–56, 72, 77–78, 81,

154   /   Index

ethnography (continued) 85, 139n4, 141–143n9; and racial classification, 80–81, 141–43n9; “tourism” in, 95 Ewers, John C., 144n26 Fairchild, Hoxie Neale, 127n1 Federalist Party, 64, 66, 67, 68–69, 138n13 Fort Clark, 105, 108, 109 Fort Duquesne, 21 Fort Laramie, 104–5, 107 Fort Union, 89, 98, 104, 104, 105, 116 Four Bears (Máh-to-tóh-pa), 82–85, 84–87, 88, 90, 105, 109, 114 Fox tribe, 77 Franklin, Benjamin: admiration of Iroquois Confederacy, 23, 24, 25, 124n6, 125–126n16; ambivalence toward Noble Savage, 28; and Iro­ quois diplomacy, 20–21 French and Indian War, 11, 26, 44– 45, 48, 57, 125n9, 130n16; Quebec siege, 44, 124–25n7; representa­ tions of, 127–28n5, 42 frontier: and assimilation, 32, 118, 145– 146n39; as site of Indian-White con­ flict, 2, 11, 20, 67, 126–27n1; and vanishing of Indians, 77, 81, 109 Fryd, Vivien Green, 130–31n18 Fulton, Robert, 134n1 fur trade and trapping, 1, 12, 16, 62, 66, 91; of American Fur Company, 81, 89, 109, 116; forts, 62, 82, 98, 104–5; and Indian-White relations, 12, 19, 21, 30, 66, 67; representa­ tions of, 82, 104–5, 104, 105, 110 Galt, John, 9–11, 20, 121n1, 125n8 George III, King of England, 130– 31n18; medallion of, 49, 56 Gerdts, William H., 134n32 Godman, John D., 139n4; American Natural History, 142n9

Goetzmann, William H., 143n11 gold rush, 119 Great Plains, 12, 62, 81, 92–96, 105, 109. See also Plains Indians Greeks, 39, 125n16. See also classical antiquity Grosvenor, Lord, 130–31n18 Hall, James, 138n10; The Indian Tribes of North America, 140n6 Hardy, Thomas, William Augustus Bowles as an Indian Chief, 32, 33, 129n10 Harrison, William Henry, 138n13 Hayne Hudjihini (Eagle of Delight), 91, 94 Heckewelder, John, 138n10 Hendrick (Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Row), 35, 36, 38 Hesselius, Gustavus, Lapowinsa, 34, 34, 129n10 Hill, Captain David (Karonghyontye), 45, 46, 47, 48, 131–32n22 Hodges, William, Cherokee Indian, 32, 32, 129n10 Hogarth, William, 76, 145n37 Hone, Philip, 68–69 Horsman, Reginald, 122n6, 127n1, 136n6, 142n9, 143n10, 146n40 Hudson Valley, 67, 68 hunting, 66, 70, 144–45n27; repre­ sentations of, 12, 82, 95–96, 97, 100–102 Hutchinson, Elizabeth, 132–33n26 Hutchinson, Thomas, 20 imperialism: British, 4, 18, 42, 47, 49, 70, 132–133n26; U.S., 9, 26, 62, 70; 138–139n1 Indianness, 5, 13, 56, 63, 76, 90. See also ethnography; race Indian Princess mode, 91, 144n23. See also women, Indian, representations of Indian reform movement, 119, 143n10 Indian Removal Act of 1830, 135n3

Index   /   155

Iroquois Confederacy, 19, 61, 123n2; 136n4; diplomacy with British, 9– 10, 21, 45, 48, 61, 66, 70–71, 127– 28n5, 130n16, 132–133n26; govern­ ment, 22–23, 27, 39, 53, 60, 62, 125n10; land, 4, 48, 66, 136–37n6; military, 10, 27, 29, 35, 48; as model republican government, 22–23, 24, 39, 40, 64–65, 66, 124n6; paintings of, 3, 31, 39, 40, 53–54, 56, 127– 28n5; and trade, 22, 67, 66, 68; white perceptions of, 24, 25, 28, 31, 68 (see also Noble Savage) Irving, Washington, 138n10; Sketch Book, 27 Jackson, Andrew, 66, 135n3, 143n10 Jarvis, John Wesley, 72, 77, 141n8 Jay, John, 136–37n6 Jay Treaty of 1794, 135n2 Jefferson, Thomas, 17; diplomacy with Indians, 4–5, 26, 28, 62, 70–71, 72, 138–39n1; and Indian removal pol­ icy, 81, 141–43n9, 143n10; Monti­ cello, 31, 128n6; Notes on the State of Virginia, 26; peace medals, 90, 122n6; perceptions of Indians, 23, 26, 125–26n16, 128–29n6 Jefferson Barracks, 77 Jesuits, 39 Johnson, Guy, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 130–31n18 Johnson, Molly, 48 Johnson, Samuel, 127n1 Johnson, William, 22–23, 48, 67, 125n9; and French and Indian war, 42, 43, 43, 44–45, 125n9, 130n17, 130–31n18; as Noble Savage, 25; residence with Mohawk tribe, 25–26 Karonghyontye (Captain David Hill), 45, 46, 47, 48, 131–32n22 Kelsay, Isabel Thompson, 132n24, 133n28, 133n30

King, Charles Bird, 72, 76; Hayne Hudjihini (Eagle of Delight), 91, 94. 144n23; Young Omahaw, War Eagle, Little Missouri, and Pawnees, 75–76, 75, 139–40n5, 140n6 Ki-On-Twog-Ky (Cornplanter), 57, 58, 60, 66, 68 Knisteneaux tribe, 90 Knox, General Henry, 66 Lafitau, Joseph-François, 23; Moeurs des sauvages amériquains . . . , 39, 40 land claims and dispossession, 2, 12, 26, 45, 48, 77, 135n2, 143n10; and Indian Removal Act, 135n3; and speculation, 19–20, 30, 55, 66–67, 124n5, 136–37n6 landscape painting, 3, 104–5, 104–5, 108, 109, 137–38n10 Lapowinsa (Delaware chief ), 34, 34 Lely, Sir Peter, Henry Sidney, Earl of Romney, 38 Leochares. See Apollo Belvedere Lewis, Meriwether, 72, 122n6, 138–39n1 Light, The, or Pigeon’s Egg Head (Wi-jún-jon), 110, 111, 114, 115, 116 Livingston family, 19, 67 Locke, John, 23, 24, 125n9 Logan (Iroquois leader), 26, 126n22 London, portrait tours, 4, 30–31, 34– 35, 39, 47, 67, 70, 129n7 Louisiana Purchase, 4, 70 Louisiana Territory, 17, 71, 72 Lovell, Margaretta M., 128n6 Madison, James, 70 Mah-tó-he-ha (Old Bear), 13, 14, 15 Máh-to-tóh-pa, or Mató-Tópe (Four Bears), 82–85, 84–87, 88, 90, 105, 109, 114 Mandan tribe, 3, 62, 88, 105; repre­ sentations of, 13, 82, 91, 95, 108–9. See also Four Bears Mardock, Robert Winston, 146n41

156   /   Index

Matteson, Tompkins, The Last of the Race, 118, 119 McCrea, Jane, 134n1 McGuffrey’s Reader, 27 McHenry, James, 129n8 McKenney, Thomas L., 71, 122n6, 135n3, 139n2; The Indian Tribes of North America, 140n6 medicine “circles,” 98, 103 medicine men, 13, 15 Mexican War, 119 Miles, Ellen G., 128n5, 129n8, 129n11, 132n26, 133n27, 139n3 Miller, Alfred Jacob, 77, 78, 81, 82, 136n5, 143n12; Approaching Buf­falo under the Disguise of a Wolf, 97, 102; Buffalo Hunt, 96–97, 100; Elk Swimming the Platte, 109, 112; Fort Laramie, 104–5, 107, 109, 145n32; Indian Lodge, 95, 99; Interior of Fort Laramie, 104–5, 107, 145n32; Lake Scene, 104, 106; Medicine Circles, 98, 103; Sir William Drummond Stewart Meeting Indian Chief (Greeting of the Snakes and Whites, under the Mountains of the Winds), 110, 113; A Surround, 96–97, 101; The Trapper’s Bride, 117–19, 117, 146n39; A Young Woman of the Flat Head Tribe, 91, 95 Mint (Sha-kó-ka), 91, 93 Mississippi River, 1, 45, 62, 66, 81–82 Missouri River, 1, 4, 12, 62, 70, 82, 108 Missouri territory, Upper, 17, 62, 66, 81, 105 Missouri tribes, Upper, 1, 3, 62, 98, 136n4; and early American repub­ lic, 4–5, 9, 62–63, 71; governing of, 64, 136n5; representations of, 3, 13, 78–79, 81, 82, 95, 109, 110, 139n3; as Republican Indians, 3, 63, 68; Washington delegations, 70–72, 74–75, 114, 138–39n1 Mitchell, Lee Clark, 139n2 Mohawk River, 11, 19, 44, 45 Mohawk tribe, 4, 8, 9, 10, 19, 22; com­

pared with classical antiquity, 11, 20, 40l; “cultural brand” of, 23, 134n1; diplomacy with British, 11, 20, 29, 30, 38, 47, 48, 125n9, 127– 28n5; and Iroquois Confederacy, 19, 22, 24; lands of, 4, 19–20, 49, 52; London tours, 34–35, 67, 70; as Noble Savages, 11, 18, 23, 24–25, 31, 42, 49; paintings of, 31, 34–35, 38– 39, 42, 43–44, 49, 134–35n1; and Revolutionary War, 9, 13, 45; Snake or Great Serpent clan of, 44; war­ riors and military of, 8, 11, 20–21, 28, 35, 42, 45, 56 Mohican tribe, 34, 67 Monroe, James, 62, 70, 71, 76, 122n6 Moravian Church, 21 Morgan, Lewis Henry, 64. 136n4 Morris, Jonathan, 125n8 Morton, Samuel G., 139n4 Múk-a-tah-mish-o-káh-kaik (Black Hawk), 77, 78, 80, 141n8 Muller, Kevin, 125n9, 127–28n5, 130n12, 130n13, 131n21 Myrone, Martin, 131n20 myth: of Indian life, 105, 109, 119, 123n2; as inspiration of Indian portraiture, 11–12, 19, 88; of Noble Savage, see Noble Savage Náh-se-ús-kuk (Whirling Thunder), son of Black Hawk, 77, 79, 80, 141n8 Natchez (fictional character), 18 National Academy of Design, 139–40n5 nation building (U.S.), 2, 5, 17. See also imperialism, U.S. Natty Bumppo, 25 nature, 12, 27, 38, 67; law of, 80; tamed, 67–68, “wild,” 12, 104, 137–38n10 Neagle, John, 72, 75, 139n4; Big Kansas, or Caussetongua, and Sharitari­ sche, Chief of the Grand Pawnees, 74, 74

Index   /   157

New York Commercial Advertiser, 68 New York State government, 48 Niagara Falls, 4, 19 Noble Savage, 3, 11–12, 24; as British/ European invention, 16, 18, 126– 27n1; decline of, 76, 79–80; de­ fined, 12–13; evolved into Repub­ lican Indian, 61, 63, 67 (see also Republican Indian); as instrument of conquest, 18, 26, 47; Mohawks as, 11, 18, 23, 24–25, 31, 42, 49; in portraiture, 31, 33, 34, 42, 48–49, 56, 59, 61, 72, 76. See also savage Northumberland, Duke of, 48 O’Fallon Benjamin, 71, 81, 143n11 Ohio County Indians, 4 Ojibwa tribe, 90, 91 Old Bear (Mah-tó-he-ha), 13, 14, 15 Oneida tribe, 123n2 Onondaga tribe, 123n2 Oregon Trail, 105, 109 Osage tribe, 3, 62, 72, 74, 122n6 otherness. See Indianness; race O’Toole, Finan, 124n5, 130n17 Paine, Thomas, 25 Parker, Arthur C., 125n10 Parkman, Francis, 142n9 patrons, of Indian portraiture, 3–4, 5, 13, 16–17, 31, 68, 83 Payouska, or Pawhuska, 73 Peale, Charles Willson, 31, 72, 122n6; Joseph Brant, 54, 54, 56, 68; and museum of natural science, 56 Pearce, Roy Harvey, 123n2 Pennsylvania Gazette, 21 Perdue, Theda, 144n25 phrenology, 140n6 Pickering, Timothy, 64, 66, 135–36n4 Pigeon’s Egg Head, or The Light (Wijún-jon), 110, 111, 114, 115, 116 Pitt, William, 131n20 Plains. See Great Plains Plains Indians, 62, 96, 109, 136n5;

representations of, 12, 76–77, 84, 141–43n9; as Republican Indians, 12, 62, 68, 76, 109; women of, 91–92 Platte River, 104 Pocahontas, 144n23 Pohl, Francis K., 140n6 portrait diplomacy, 5; American, 70– 71, 72, 122n6, 127–28n5; British, 30–31, 35, 38 portraiture, conventions of, 31, 34, 49 Powell, Anne, 131–32n22 Powhatan, 144n23 Pratt, Stephanie, 129n10, 130n17, 132n25 primitives. See Noble Savage progress, ideal of, 2, 79, 129n9, 141–143n9 Prown, Jules David, 122–23n3, 124n7, 125n16, 130n15 Quakers, 21 Queen Anne’s War, 35 race: crossing of boundaries, 34, 49, 91, 117–19 (see also assimilation; cross-dressing); hybridity, 91, 114; painting of, 56, 74, 77, 83, 91, 114; savage vs. civilized, 18, 28, 43, 63, 81, 91, 130n17, 141–43n9; separa­ tion of, 2, 81, 116; vanishing, 27, 63, 66, 81, 109, 136n5, 139n2, 141–43n9 Rather, Susan, 121n1 Red Jacket (Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha), 57, 58–60, 59, 61, 66, 68 Reinhardt, Leslie Kaye, 131n21 Republican Indians, 3; as American invention, 16; defined, 12–13, 61– 62; evolved from Noble Savage, 61, 63, 67; extinction of, 109, 119; as instrument of westward expansion, 16; in portraiture, 56, 63, 68, 72, 76, 82, 84, 109, 119 reservations, Indian, 66, 119

158   /   Index

Revolutionary War, 1, 57, 62; BritishIndian alliance in, 13, 25, 47, 48– 49, 138n13; consequences for In­ dian life, 26, 28, 48–49, 52, 62, 66; and decline of Noble Savage, 12, 16, 61, 67 Richter, Daniel K., 126n22 Roberts, W., 132n25 Rocky Mountains, 2, 62, 81 Rolfe, John, 144n23 Rolfe, Thomas, 144n23 Romans, 23, 24, 39, 57, 121n1. See also classical antiquity Rome, 7, 9, 31, 40 Romney, George, Joseph Brant, 48–49, 50, 54, 132–33n25, 133n26 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 18 Royal Academy, 45 Rubens, John Paul, 76 Sa Ga Yeath Qua Pieth Tow, grand­ father of Joseph Brant, 37, 38 Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha (Red Jacket), 57– 60, 59, 61, 66, 68 St. Louis, 2, 116 Saint-Mémin, Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de, 72, 76, 122n6, 139n3; Osage Warrior, 72, 73; Payouska, or Pawhuska, Chief of the Great Osages, 72, 73, 77 Saler, Bethel, 136–37n6 Santa Fe Trail, 143n11 Sauk tribe, 77, 141n8 Saunders, Richard H., 128n5, 129n11 savage, 3, 7, 74, 84; vs. civilized man, 18, 28, 43, 63, 81, 91, 130n17, 141– 43n9; as ideal, 5, 10, 25, 109; as nat­ ural state, 18, 25, 67, 77, 137–38n10; and progress, 79, 80, 81, 88, 141n9; as race, 62–63, 126–27n1, 129n9; romantic, 14, 48, 76, 80, 86–88, 141n9 (see also Noble Savage); war­ rior as, 29, 42, 89. See also race scalping, 26, 29, 42, 134–35n1 “scalp lock,” 20, 54–55, 90

Schimmel, Julie, 140n6, 146n40 Schuyler, Peter, 19, 67 Schuyler, Philip, 137n6 Sellers, Charles Coleman, 133n29 Seneca tribe, 19, 57, 60, 123n2, 135–36n4 Sha-kó-ka (Mint), 91, 93 Sharitarische (chief of Grand Paw­ nees), 74, 74 Shippen, Joseph, 40 Sioux tribe, 3, 62 Slotkin, Richard, 125n12, 127n1 smallpox, 109 Smith, Robert, 72 Smith, William, 125–26n16 Snapping Turtle, 129n8, 129n11 Sons of Tammany, 134–34n1 Staley, Allen, The Paintings of Benjamin West, 130–31n17, 131n18 Stewart, William Drummond, 78, 81, 97, 136n5, 143n11, 143n12 Stone, William Leete, 68 Strong, Lisa, 143n12, 146n39 Stuart, Gilbert, 31; portraits of Joseph Brant, 13, 14, 19, 48–49, 51, 52, 52, 133n27; Snapping Turtle, 129n8, 129n11 Stu-mick-o-súcks, or Stomíck-Stosáck (Buffalo Bull’s Back Fat), 63, 88, 89, 89–90 tatoos, in portraiture, 38, 44 Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Row (Hendrick), 35, 36, 38 Thayendanegea. See Brant, Joseph Thompson, J. R. Fawcett, 132n25 Tobin, Beth Fowkes, 133n26 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 136n5 Torchia, Robert, 139n4 tragic hero, representations of, 13, 77. See also Noble Savage Trumbull, John, 72 Tuscarora tribe, 19, 23 Tyler, Samuel, 141n9 Tyron, William, 25

Index   /   159

Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher, 128n5 U.S. citizenship, 16 U.S. government, 1, 48, 61 U.S. military, 62, 71 U.S. War Department, 70, 72, 76, 77 Van Cortlands, 67 Vanderlyn, John, The Murder of Jane McCrea, 134–35n1 Van Dyck, Anthony, portrait of Charles I, 76 Van Rensselaer, Solomon, 19, 67, 68 Van Rensselaer, Stephen, 68 Verelst, John, 35, 38; So Ga Yeath Qua Pieth Tow (Christianized Brant), 37; Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Row (Christianized Hendrick), 35, 36, 130n15 Viola, Herman J., 127n4, 139n2, 139n3, 139n5, 140n6, 141n7, 144n23, 145n38 von Dieskau, Baron Ludwig August, 42, 130n17 von Erffa, Helmut, The Paintings of Benjamin West, 130–31n17, 131n18 Wallace, Anthony F. C., 122n6, 125n8, 126n22, 126n23, 126n1 (chap. 3), 130n14, 134n31, 135n3, 137n6, 138n1, 139n3, 140n7, 143n9, 143n10 Wallach, Alan, 137n10, 145n37 Ward, Humphry, 132n25 Ward, Samuel, 134n32, 138n11 War of 1812, 71 wars: intertribal, 16; representation of, 47, 82. See also specific wars Warwick, Earl of, 132n35 Washington, D.C., 5, 70–72, 116; tours by Indians in 1804, 72, 122n6, 139n3; tours by Indians in 1821, 74–75, 76, 139–40n5, 140n6; tours by Indians in 1831, 114, 116 Washington, George, 4, 60, 64, 66– 67, 71, 135–36n4

Weber, Lucas, Fort Union on the Missouri, 104, 105 Webster, Daniel, 69, 138n13 Weir, Robert, Red Jacket, or Sa-Go-YeWat-Ha, 58–60, 59, 134n32, 138n11 West, Benjamin, 31, 121n1, 125n8; and Apollo Belvedere, 7–9, 10, 11, 18, 19, 20, 24, 40; education of, 31; 40, 125–26n16; and Gilbert, 31; por­ trayal of Mohawks by, 39–40, 41, 42, 130n17; works: Colonel Guy Johnson and Karonghyontye (Captain David Hill), 45–48, 46; The Death of General Wolfe, 42–45, 44, 130– 31n18, 131n20; General Johnson Saving a Wounded French Officer from the Tomahawk of a North American Indian, 41, 42, 130n17; Savage Warrior Taking Leave of His Family, 40– 42, 41, 54, 121n1, 130n16 westward expansion, 12, 16; conse­ quences for Indians, 66, 71, 81; and Jefferson, 17, 70, 122n6, 128–29n6; and Republican Indians, 16, 119 Whig Party, 64, 69, 138n13 Whirling Thunder (Náh-se-ús-kuk), son of Black Hawk, 77, 79, 80, 141n8 White, Richard, 126n22 White House, 71, 116 Wied, Prince Maximilian zu, 78, 81, 83, 88, 105, 109, 136n5, 143n11 Wi-jún-jon (Pigeon’s Egg Head, or The Light), 110, 111, 114, 115, 116 Wind River Mountains, 82 Wolfe, General James, 43–45, 44 women, Indian: brides, 117, 118–19, 145–46n39; representations of, 91– 94, 92–95, 97, 134–35n1, 144n23; role in tribal community, 92, 144n25 Yellowstone (steamboat), 116



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