The United States government waged war with the Indian tribes of the East in an attempt to move them to the less populated West and provide settled areas where the new American's could expand their farming and develop new settlements.

A substantial Seminole minority balked at removal to the plains and staged an uprising. Osceola was their charismatic and valiant leader, the Tiger of the Everglades, and a formidable opponent of the American troops. The war dragged on for years and became the costliest ever waged against the Indians; but by 1842, most (though not all) Seminoles had been killed or moved West. George Catlin, the foremost antebellum artist of the Indians and the West, published this monumental but humanizing portrait in the wake of Osceola's death in a South Carolina federal prison after he was tricked into surrendering under a truce flag.

By the end of the 1830's, virtually all the important Indian societies east of the Mississippi had been removed. According to a report by the Commission of Indian Affairs, the Choctaws of Mississippi and western Alabama, the Creeks of eastern Alabama and western Georgia, the Chickasaws of Georgia, and the Seminoles of Florida -- 52,570 Native Americans in all -- were forced to leave their ancestral farmlands. An epidemic of smallpox, along with starvation and exposure, took thousands of lives on what became known as the Trail of Tears.

Between 1830 and 1836 Catlin trekked across the Plains to paint the American Indian. In 1832 Catlin traveled along the Missouri River for eighty-six days. In 1834 he visited Oklahoma and Texas, and in 1835 Catlin was among the first men to visit the pipestone quarries of Minnesota. The red rock used by Indians to carve their pipes is named Catlinite in his honor. Catlin returned to the east and created an "Indian Gallery" of paintings, artifacts, and memorabilia that toured in Europe and America. Catlin, who lost his collection to creditors in 1852, died in New Jersey in 1872.

Medium : A lithograph print was used as the master for reproductions

Created/Published :New York, 1838

Creator : George Catlin, artist, 1796 - 1872

Housed in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of congress

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Product #: pga00467