Ka_Na_Pi_Ma, An Ottawa Chief

Philadelphia: Daniel Rice & James G. Clark, 1842. unbound. very good. J.T. Bowen. Portrait. Lithograph with original hand coloring. Page measures 20" x 14". A few small tears around edges and one larger repaired tear at top of page. Slight tape residue along top and bottom edges.<br/><br/> Beautiful portrait from the folio edition of McKenney and Hall's "History of the Indian Tribes of North America". As Superintendent of the Indian Trade Bureau, Thomas McKenney wanted to document the rapidly disappearing culture of the American natives. He activated the project, sponsored by the War Department, by commissioning writer James Hall and Charles Bird King, a renowned American portraitist. King painted the prominent Indians while they visited Washington D.C. as treaty delegates. Most of the original oil paintings were destroyed by fire in the Smithsonian Museum in 1865. These lithographs, published 1842-58, are all that remain and are still hailed as one of the best visual records of influential Native Americans of the nineteenth century. As a boy, Ka-na-pi-ma was educated in Catholic schools both in America and Italy, but returned to his home and became chief of his nation. He signed the treaty between the Ottawa and the United States giving up vast amounts of land.<br/><br/>