SKETCH OF GEORGE CATLIN. 405 



ceived no pecuniary aid, governmental or individual, in the 

 prosecution of his work." He accomplished it with remark- 

 able thoroughness. 



He followed this work for forty-two years, from 1829 to 1871, 

 and during that time traveled through the wildernesses of North 

 and South America, and visited Europe, making his name known 

 everywhere. During eight years, from 1829 till 1838, he lived 

 among the Indians, traders, trappers, and hunters of the "West. 



In 1830 and 1831 he accompanied Governor Clark, Superintend- 

 ent of Indian Affairs, to treaties held with the Winnebagoes and 

 Menomonees, the Shawnees and Sacs and Foxes, and in these in- 

 terviews began the series of his Indian paintings. In 1831 he 

 visited, with Governor Clark, the Kansas, and returned to St. 

 Louis. In 1832 he painted the portraits of Black Hawk and his 

 warriors, prisoners of war. In the same year, on his second jour- 

 ney, he ascended the Missouri, by steamer, to Fort Union, mouth 

 of the Yellowstone, and descended the Missouri to St. Louis in a 

 canoe with two men, steering it the whole distance of two thou- 

 sand miles with his own paddle, visiting and painting ten tribes. 

 Of these tribes the most important were the Manclans, to whom 

 he devoted more time and labor than any other in North America. 

 In 1833 he ascended the Platte to Fort Laramie, visiting villages 

 of the Pawnees, Omahas, and Otoes, and seeing many Arapahoes 

 and Cheyennes, and rode to the shores of the Great Salt Lake, 

 while the Mormons were yet building their temple at Nauvoo. 

 In 1834 he accompanied a regiment of mounted dragoons to the 

 Comanches and other Southwestern tribes, making an extensive 

 journey and seeing many Indians of various tribes ; then from 

 Fort Gibson, Ark., on his horse " Charley," without a road or a 

 track, rode to St. Louis, a distance of five hundred and fifty miles, 

 guided by his pocket compass, and swimming the rivers as he met 

 them. In 1835 he ascended the Mississippi to the Falls of St. An- 

 thony, saw the Mississippi Sioux, the Ojibways and Saukees or 

 Sacs, and descended the Mississippi to St. Louis in a bark canoe 

 with one man, steering with his own paddle. In 1836 he made a 

 second visit to the Falls of St. Anthony, steaming from Buffalo 

 to Green Bay, ascending the Fox and descending the Wisconsin 

 Rivers, six hundred miles in a bark canoe to Prairie du Chien, and 

 thence by canoe four hundred and fifty miles to the Falls of St. 

 Anthony. Thence he ascended the St. Peter's to the " Pipestone 

 Quarry " on the Coteau des Prairies, and descended the St. Peter's 

 in a canoe, with a companion, to the Falls of St. Anthony, and 

 from them a second time to St. Louis in a bark canoe, nine hun- 

 dred miles, steering with his own paddle. In 1837 he went to the 

 coast of Florida to see the Seminoles and Euchees, and in the 

 same years made a voyage from New York to Charleston to paint 



