History of the Indian Tribes of North America

Background

From about 1821, Thomas McKenney, the U.S. Superintendent of Indian Trade within the War Department, started to commission portraits from Charles Bird King of American Indians who had traveled to Washington, D.C. as delegates to negotiate treaties with the federal government. McKenney continued this project as head of the Office of Indian Affairs, which was also within the War Department. King painted portraits of American Indians up to 1837. Additional painters commissioned to paint portraits included James Otto Lewis, Peter Rindisbacher, and Henry Inman.

McKenney said he wanted to preserve "in the archives of the Government whatever of the aboriginal man can be rescued from the destruction which awaits his race." He believed that American Indians were threatened as a people by the expansion of European-American society. Aware that there was ill feeling against them by those who wanted their land, he said the American Indians should be "looked upon as human beings, having bodies and souls like ours."

The growing collection of portraits was first housed in the United States Department of War, which then had responsibility for Indian Affairs. In 1858, the original oil paintings were moved to The Castle, the Smithsonian Institution's first building. It was also used as a repository and gallery for artworks.

Publication

To reach a wider public, McKenney commissioned lithographs of the paintings, with each portrait to be supported by a full biography of the subject. The full project was envisioned to be published in three volumes. To research and write those, McKenney commissioned James Hall (1793–1868), a judge and Treasurer of the State of Illinois, who was known as a writer. Hall had difficulty in developing the biographies, as McKenney never provided promised source material. Hall spent eight years tracking and researching the subjects, about whom McKenney had provided little more than names.

The subscription price of $120 for the whole set had seemed high at the beginning of the project, but it was not enough to defray the costs incurred during the exacting production process of the original folio volumes. The Panic of 1837 caused widespread financial distress, and many subscribers to the Folio were unable to pay for their subscriptions. At that time, McKenney withdrew completely from the project.

Hall and a new publisher (D. Rice & A N Hart) brought the series to completion, with the final installment appearing in January 1844. This was long after McKenney had thought he could first publish the portrait/biography project. In the end, it had a total of 1,250 subscribers.

1865 fire at the Smithsonian

In the winter of 1865, workers relocating the portraits brought in a wood-burning stove to provide warmth, and vented the stovepipe into a ventilation shaft which they mistook for a flue. After two weeks, a full fire had ignited in the ventilation shaft. The second floor was engulfed, and the roof of the Castle subsequently collapsed.

It was the most catastrophic fire in the Smithsonian's history: 295 of the original Indian portraits were consumed; only five were rescued. Although one of the painters had made a few copies of his favorite portraits for himself, nearly all of the portraits would have been irretrievably lost had McKenney, Hall, and their colleagues not completed the lithography and publication project. The volumes remain a record of prominent Native American leaders of the first half of the 19th century.

Gallery

Image:Amiskquew.jpg|Amiskquew, A Menominee warrior Image:A-na-cam-e-gish-ca.jpg|A-na-cam-e-gish-ca, A Chippeway (Ojibwe) chief Image:Caa-tou-see.jpg|Caa-tou-see, An Ojibwe chief Image:Jack-O-Pa.jpg|Jack-O-Pa, An Ojibwe chief Image:Kee-shes-wa.jpg|Kee-shes-wa, A Fox chief Image:LittleCrow.jpg|Little Crow, A Sioux chief Image:Menawa.jpg|Menawa, A Muscogee (Creek) chief Image:Squawandchild.jpg|Ojibwe woman and child Image:Pushmataha high resolution.jpg|Choctaw chief Pushmataha, 1824 Image:Red Jacket 2.jpg|Red Jacket, Seneca orator and chief of the Wolf clan Image:Major ridge.jpg|Cherokee Major Ridge, 1834 File:Sequoyah.jpg|Sequoyah or George Guess, creator of the Cherokee syllabary Image:Tahchee.jpg|Tah-Chee (Dutch), A Cherokee chief Image:Tshusick.jpg|Tshusick, An Ojibwe woman Image:Wapella.jpg|Chief Wapello; "Wa-pel-la the Prince, Musquakee Chief"

References

• {{Cite episode | access-date = 2013-06-19 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080119080725/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/fts/mobile_200603A19.html | url-status = dead | archive-date = January 19, 2008

References

1. [http://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=&menu=search&aspect=Browse&npp=50&ipp=20&spp=20&profile=ariall&ri=&term=King,+Charles&index=AUTHOR&x=10&y=13 Dates according to the list of paintings] given by the [[Library of Congress]]
2. (1993). "The North American Indian Portfolios from the Library of Congress: Bodmer--Catlin--McKenney and Hall (Tiny Folios)". Abbeville Press.
3. Horan, James David. (1972). "The McKenney-Hall Portrait Gallery of American Indians". Crown Publishers.
4. link. (2012-03-15 , "Art & Architecture of New Jersey" website.)