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A Gathering of Nations: Images from McKenney & Hall's History of the Indian Tribes of North America Abstract
Thomas Loraine McKenney (1785-1859) served as Commissioner of Indian Affairs 1824-1830. In
that capacity he commissioned and collected portraits of Native Americans for his Gallery in the War Department. McKenney's
goal was to publish a record of vanishing peoples: portraits, biographical sketches, and a history of North American Indians. He
accomplished this in the first issue of History of the Indian Tribes of North America, published in three volumes between 1836 and 1844. This
exhibit presents a selection of twenty-four images from The History of the Indian Tribes of North America, each representing a different Native American Nation. Each
image is accompanied by a brief description. The images have been selected from copies of the History in the Archives & Rare Books Department, University Libraries, University of Cincinnati. The
images also appear in: McKenney & Hall's History of the Indian Tribes of North America: The First Issue. Cincinnati, Ohio: University of Cincinnati Digital Press, 2002.
Introduction
Thomas Loraine McKenney (1785-1859) served as Commissioner of Indian Affairs 1824-1830. In
that capacity he commissioned and collected portraits of Native Americans for his Gallery in the War Department. Most
of the portraits were painted by Charles Bird King (1785-1862) in Washington, D.C., during visits of Native delegations. Other
artists are represented, including James Otto Lewis (1799-1858). McKenney's
goal was to publish a record of vanishing peoples: portraits, biographical sketches, and a history of North American Indians. He
accomplished this in the first issue of History of the Indian Tribes of North America, published in three volumes between 1836 and 1844. James
Hall (1793-1868) provided the text and Henry Inman (1801-1846) copied many of the original portraits for the publication.
King, who never traveled in the West, is best remembered as a painter of Native American portraits. For twenty years, beginning in 1822, he received commissions to paint Native American visitors to the Nation's Capital. The commissions were instigated by Thomas L. McKenney, who served as Superintendent of Indian Trade 1816-1824 and Head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs 1824-1830. McKenney's great dream was the publication of the portraits with an accompanying history. Most of King's 143 Native American portraits were lost in the Smithsonian fire of 1865, but the images are preserved in McKenney & Hall's monumental work. The work of Henry Inman (1801-1846) is a significant element of this publication. His faithful copies of the portraits collected by McKenney were the models for the lithographs which appear in the History. Many of Inman's copies were given to the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology at Harvard University in 1882 from the heirs of E.P. Tileston and Amor Hollingsworth, the last publisher of the History. Many of the Inman paintings have subsequently passed into other institutions and private collections. The History of the Indian Tribes of North America is a record of vanishing peoples: portraits, biographical sketches, and a history of North American Indians. It is one of the finest and most beautiful examples of hand-colored American lithography. It is one of the earliest collections of Native American portraits. It was the most extensive collection of such portraits until publication of The North American Indian by Edward S. Curtis beginning in 1880. Because most of the original portraits were destroyed in a fire in the Smithsonian Institution in 1865 these images form the only record not only of the individuals portrayed, but also of important works of 19th Century American artists. This exhibit presents a selection of twenty-four images from The History of the Indian Tribes of North America, each representing a different Native American Nation. Each image is accompanied by a brief description drawn from sources included in the bibliography which accompanies the exhibit. The images have been selected from copies of the History in the Archives & Rare Books Department, University Libraries, University of Cincinnati. The images also appear in: McKenney & Hall's History of the Indian Tribes of North America: The First Issue. Cincinnati, Ohio: University of Cincinnati Digital Press, 2002. |
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