Description: This is a lithograph of an oil painting of Red Jacket, Chief of the Wolf Clan of the Seneca Tribe, published in volume one of "History of the Indian Tribes of North America" by Thomas Loraine McKenney and James Hall. Red Jacket, or Sagoyewatha, allied with the British and fought in the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783), and was nicknamed Red Jacket after the British honored him with an embroidered red jacket for his service. Red Jacket died in 1830. 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_p005_RedJacket
Subjects: Seneca Tribe; Iroquois Confederacy; American Indian history; American Indians--Portraits; American Indian tribal leaders; American Revolutionary War, 1775-1783
Places: Washington D.C.