Qua-Ta-Wa-Pea or Col. Lewis: A Shawanee Chief

Philadelphia: E.C. Biddle, 1836. unbound. very good. Lehman and Duval. Portrait. Lithograph with original hand coloring. Page measures 20" x 14".<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. Qua-ta-wa-pea had fought on the side of the colonies against England and was rewarded with a visit to Washington where he met President Jefferson and a 40,000 acre tract of land. The deed was taken back from him by the federal government in 1831. Light scattered foxing, slight stain along right edge. Light offsetting and small chip to lower left corner. One of many Native American portraits in our collection.<br/><br/>