Description: This is a lithograph of an oil painting of Mohawk leader Joseph Brant, or Thayendanegea, published in volume one of "History of the Indian Tribes of North America" by Thomas Loraine McKenney and James Hall. Joseph Brant (1743-1807) was born to Peter and Margaret (Owandah) Tehonwaghkwangearahkwa in the Ohio Country where they were traveling at the time, although sources differ as to the exact location of his birth. It is believed to have been either along the Cuyahoga River near present-day Cleveland, or at a point along the Ohio River or its headwaters. After his father's death, Brant's mother remarried a Mohawk sachem named Brant. Brant's father was good friends with the wealthy British Superintendent for Northern Indian Affairs, William Johnson, who later funded Joseph's education and connected Brant with important political leaders. Brant allied with the British during the French and Indian War (1754-1763) and the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). 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_v2_p214_Thayendanegea
Subjects: Mohawk Tribe; Iroquois Confederacy; American Indian history; American Indians--Portraits; American Indian tribal leaders
Places: Washington D.C.