Description: This is a lithograph of an oil painting of Kiontwogky, also called Cornplanter or John O'Bail III (alternate spellings include O'Beel or Abeel), chief of the Seneca Tribe, published in volume one of "History of the Indian Tribes of North America" by Thomas Loraine McKenney and James Hall. Around 1732, Cornplanter was born to a Gah-hon-no-nah, a Seneca woman, and Johannes Abeel Jr., a Dutch fur trader. Cornplanter fought in alliance with the British during the French and Indian War (1754-1763) and the Revolutionary War (1775-1783). He also served as a diplomat between the United States and American Indian nations after the Revolutionary War, participated in post-war negotiations, and signed the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1784. He replaced Red Jacket as chief in 1791. Thomas McKenny served as the United States Superintendent of Indian Trade in 1821 and commissioned portraits of American Indian leaders who visited Washington D.C. to negotiate treaties with the United States federal government in order to to preserve the memory and history of America's native peoples. After the paintings were completed, he commissioned lithographs of the 300 paintings and compiled them into three volumes of "History of the Indian Tribes of North America" where a short biography accompanied each portrait. The paintings were housed at the Smithsonian Institution Building, commonly referred to as the Castle, and in 1868 all but five were destroyed in a devastating fire. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: V970_97M199h_v1_p174_KiOnTwogKy
Subjects: Seneca Tribe; Iroquois Confederacy; American Indian history; American Indians--Portraits; American Indian tribal leaders; American Revolutionary War (1775-1783)
Places: Washington D.C.