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Lot Number
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327
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Author
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Thomas L. McKenney (American, 1785-1859) and James Hall (1793-1868): the George Strother Gaines (1784-1873)
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Title
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Original Subscriber Set of the History of the Indian Tribes of North America
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Year Published
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1837
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Description
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Thomas L. McKenney (American, 1785-1859) and James Hall (1793-1868): the George Strother Gaines (1784-1873) Original Subscriber Set of the History of the Indian Tribes of North America, 1837-1844, 3 vols. in folio, 20 in. x 14 1/4 in., with 120 hand-colored lithographic plates after James Otto Lewis, Charles Bird King, Karl Bodmer, P. Rhindesbacher and R. M. Sully, drawn on stone by A. Newsome, A. Hoffy, Ralph Trembley, Henry Dacre and others, printed and colored by J. T. Bowen; a leaf titled "The Genuineness of the Portrait of Pocahontas", a page of lithographed maps, "Localities of all the Indian Tribes in North America in 1833", 17 pp of facsimile signatures of the original subscribers including "Geo. S. Gaines" under the heading for Mobile & Ala., three-quarter red leather over marbled boards.
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Lot Note
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Thomas McKenney's and James Hall's monumental History of the Indian Tribes constitutes the most important opening chapter of a closely linked series of intimately related works on the great subject of the native populations of North America. It is true that it had been somewhat unfairly preceded by a couple of years with the hurried publication of the "Portfolio" of 1835 by James Otto Lewis, who had been a crucial and major contributor (in 1826-27) to McKenney's original idea of recording visually the distinctive costumes and accessories of the major Indian chiefs to negotiate treaties with the Federal Government. But Charles Bird King, in fact, repainted almost all Lewis's images for this much larger edition, and Bowen did a much improved version of publishing them; the 120 plates of this definitive edition draw on the talents of many other artists, and the fame of their results has justly eclipsed by far the essentially unimportant plates of the 1835 "Portfolio". McKenney himself was a kind of inspired functionary, who as Superintendent of the Indian Trade Bureau under Presidents Madison and Monroe (2 April 1816 to 22 May 1822, when the post was abolished) quickly succeeded himself as first Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs under the aegis of the War Department (11 March 1824), in which capacity he served also Presidents J. Q. Adams and Andrew Jackson; he was finally dismissed by the latter on 1 October 1830. The 15 years of his incumbency were industriously spent in securing portraits of the notable chieftains who negotiated the Federal treaties, both in Washington and in the field. McKenney traveled indefatigably, and entertained the chiefs very lavishly in Washington - so much so that (unjustified) enquiries into his expenses eventually forced him from office. His original gallery of Indian portraits (in the former War Department, on the site of the Old Executive Office Building) perished in the burning of the Smithsonian Institution in 1865; it had been providentially copied for this publication by the young Henry Inman (1801-1846), and his own expanded-format portraits are now at Harvard University. James Hall was an able writer, who was found by McKenney after he left office: it took a half-dozen years for Hall to undertake the subscriptions and arrange the publication, for which the original subscribers' contributions were $120 per set. In the midst of the tragic saga of the Indian "removals" to the eventual state of Oklahoma (principally occurring in 1838-1842), and of this great work by McKenney and Hall (1837-1844), a younger artist of extraordinary field experience, George Catlin (1796-1872) brought out his Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indian, in 2 volumes, in London in 1841. The second, definitive set of Catlin's paintings (numbering some 500 items) was acquired by Paul Mellon for the National Gallery of Art in Washington: Catlin's engaging narrative style provides the best 19th-century source for the lives, rituals, and ceremonies of his directly-experienced subjects. Finally, The North American Indian, lavishly sponsored by J. Pierpont Morgan under the patronage of President Theodore Roosevelt, brought to the public the marvelous photogravures of Edward Sheriff Curtis (1868-1954), in 20 volumes over the years 1907 to 1930. Indeed it may justly be said that the collected images of Catlin, as well as of McKenney and Hall were both destined for supererogation only by the new invention of photography. Introduced into America as it was in the earliest days of the 1840s, with striking portraits of North America's native peoples in many successive techniques over the next 60 years, photography achieved a kind of bittersweet closure to the saga of "the vanishing race" in the poignant images of E. S. Curtis - a fitting culmination of the efforts of the preceding century, nowhere better epitomized than in McKenney and Hall, to celebrate the grandeur and dignity of the earliest populations of the American frontier. Reference: James P. Pate, The Reminiscences of George Strother Gaines, Pioneer and Statesman of Early Alabama and Mississippi, 1805-1843, The University of Alabama Press, 1998.
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Provenance
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Descended in the family of pioneer and statesman George Strother Gaines to the present owner.Gaines was a prominent figure in 19th century Alabama and Mississippi, who played a pivotal role in the development of those states. As Assistant Trader with the Choctaw Trading House, Gaines established close relationships with the local Indian tribes, including the Choctaw and the Chickasaw. Gaines later oversaw the relocation of approximately 6,000 Choctaws from Mississippi to Oklahoma with very few casualties and was praised by the Mobile Commercial Register for his consideration for the well-being of the Choctaw travelers, although the expense was three times greater than the original estimate for the relocation effort.
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Estimated Price
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USD 70,000.00 - 100,000.00
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Actual Price
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USD 113,525.00
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