Reflecting on History of Indigenous Peoples During Native American Heritage Month

Written by Ashley Finke, Digital Services Assistant, Genealogy & Local History Department, Downtown Main Library

During this National American Indian Heritage Month, we pay tribute to the rich ancestry and traditions of Native Americans. We acknowledge that present day Hamilton County rests on the lands stewarded by the Shawnee (including the Shawnee Tribe, opens a new window, Absentee Shawnee Tribe, opens a new window, and the Eastern Shawnee Tribe, opens a new window) and Myaamia, opens a new window people before their forced removal.

The Library is dedicated to preserving materials, including a book collection depicting the Indigenous Peoples of North America with a collection of 125 images of lithographic and chromolithographic plates with associated biographies from our rare book collection. The collection titled, History of the Indian Tribes of North America, by Thomas McKenney and James Hall, was originally published in 1844. The three-volume set was an effort to preserve the history and stories of the Indigenous Peoples’ of North America.

Tshusick : An Ojibwe woman. “A portion only of the history of this extraordinary woman has reached us. Of her early life we know nothing; but the fragment which we are enabled to present, is sufficiently indicative of her strongly marked character, while it illustrates with singular felicity the energy of the race to which she belongs.” Read her full biography in the Digital Library, opens a new window.

Thomas McKenney was a United States official who served as Superintendent of Indian Affairs from 1824-1830 during the era of forced removal. The U.S. government’s genocidal tactics and quest for expansion threatened the existence of the continent’s original Peoples. Although McKenney was a proponent of Removal, he wanted to preserve a record of their people. Thomas McKenney was quoted in saying the original people of America should be “looked upon as human beings, having bodies and souls like ours.”

Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiah : Or Black Hawk, A Sauk Brave.
“Few Indians have obtained a celebrity so widely extended as that of the individual now before us. Without being a chief, or a person of remarkable abilities, he became known to the American public as the principal person engaged in the brief and hopeless war, waged by a fraction of the Sauk tribe against the United States. Having been taken prisoner at the close of that contest, he was conducted with a few companions to Washington, and some other of our cities, where his fame and his misfortunes excited so much curiosity, that he was every where visited by crowds, while his propriety of the deportment was such as to sustain the reputation that he preceded him.”
Read his full biography at the Digital Library, opens a new window.

McKenney commissioned artist Charles Bird King, the primary artist, along with artists James Otto Lewis, Peter Rindisbacher and Henry Inman who contributed to the project as well. Treasurer of the State of Illinois, judge and writer James Hall would write the biographies and conduct the interviews. King painted portraits of leaders and tribe members who came to Washington to negotiate treaties. Hall interviewed and wrote a biography of each person painted. Sometimes due to schedule conflicts, Hall would only have a name to go off of for research. He spent eight years extensively travelling, tracking and researching the original people of America so no story was left untold.

Keokuk : Chief of the Sacs and Foxes.
“The Sauks and Musquakees, more usually called the Sacs and Foxes, having for many years resided together, form now a single community, divided only by certain internal regulations, by means of which each portion keeps up its distinctive name and lineage. The individuals and families adhere carefully to certain customs which distinguish them, and which have thus far prevented them from being merged the one in the other.”
Read more about these two tribes at the Digital Library, opens a new window.

Lithographs were eventually made of the oil paintings for publication. The United States financial crisis of 1837 created a snag in the production process of the original folio volumes and led to McKenney withdrawing from the project completely. Hall commissioned a new publisher, D. Rice & A.N. Hart, to complete the project and the volumes were released in January 1844.

The Chippewa Widow.
“A Chippewa widow, on the death of her husband, selects from his scanty wardrobe, complete suit of his best clothes, which she makes up into a bundle. This is place near her while at work, and is carried wherever she goes. She calls it her husband, treats it with the respect which would be due to a living lord and master, and would be considered disgracing herself and treating his memory with disrespect, if she was to part with it even for a moment.”
Read more about this custom at the Digital Library, opens a new window.

The original oil portraits were housed in the United States Department of War and were moved to the Smithsonian’s first institution known as The Castle. Unfortunately, 295 of the original paintings were destroyed in the Smithsonian fire of 1865, only 5 were able to be salvaged. These lithographs and publications were extracted from Native communities during a time of dispossession, loss and oppression, but their survival contributes to the knowledge of Indigenous Peoples in history and parallels the survival and resilience of Native Peoples of the past and today.

To view all three volumes, follow the link to our Digital Library, opens a new window or visit the Cincinnati Room at the Downtown Main Library to view this or other special collections. You don’t need an appointment and everyone is welcome, you do not have to be a researcher or associated with a university.

More to Explore

Make new discoveries with resources used to inform this post:

Information on History of the Indian Tribes of North America through the University of Cincinnati's Digital Library, opens a new window.
More information on History of the Indian Tribes of North America, opens a new window and The Panic of 1837, opens a new window.