These watercolors and oil paintings are part of a continuing series of Native (Indian) Americans. The work was inspired by portraits painted of Native individuals who were visiting Washington, DC, between 1820 and 1840. In 1865 a fire at the Smithsonian Institution destroyed many of the paintings. However, long before the fire, portrait painter Henry Inman copied many of the oil portraits into hand-colored lithographs that are now housed at the Peabody Museum in Washington, DC.
The 1820 -1840 period was when the Louisiana Territory was incorporated into the United States after its purchase from France in 1804. By this time. much of Native life was extinguished east of the Mississippi River. It was also the era of the “Trail of Tears,” which was the ethnic cleansing of various Eastern Native tribes who were forced from their ancestral homes into settlements in “Indian Territory,” which is present-day Oklahoma.
The 1820 -1840 period was when the Louisiana Territory was incorporated into the United States after its purchase from France in 1804. By this time. much of Native life was extinguished east of the Mississippi River. It was also the era of the “Trail of Tears,” which was the ethnic cleansing of various Eastern Native tribes who were forced from their ancestral homes into settlements in “Indian Territory,” which is present-day Oklahoma.