THE PLAINS INDIAN — EWERS 535 



resistence to the expansion of White settlement onto and across their 

 grassy homehind. 



THE INFLUENCE OF GEORGE CATLIN AND KARL BODMER (1841-60) 



No other mid-19th century factors had such a stimulating influence 

 on both (1) the projection of the Plains Indian image and (2) 

 the acceptance of this image as that of the American Indian par ex- 

 cellence as did the writings of the American artist George Catlin and 

 the German scientist Maximilian Alexander Philipp, Prince of Wied- 

 Neuwied; and the pictures of Catlin and of the Swiss artist Karl 

 Bodmer, who accompanied the prince on his exploration of the Upper 

 Missouri in 1833-34. 



Inspired by the site of a delegation of western Indians passing 

 through Philadelphia on their way to Washington, and his own con- 

 viction that the picturesque Plains Indians were doomed to cultural 

 extinction as the frontier expanded westward, Catlin determined to 

 rescue these Indians from oblivion and to "become their historian" 

 before it was too late. During the smnmers of 1832 and 1834 he 

 traveled among the tribes of the Upper Missouri and the Southern 

 Plains gathering information and preparing pictures for an Indian 

 Gallery, which he exhibited to enthusiastic audiences in the larger 

 American cities. In 1840, he took the exhibition to England for a 

 4-year display in London ; this was followed by a Paris exhibition that 

 included a special showing for King Louis Philippe in the Louvre. In 

 addition to his paintings this exhibition included costumed manne- 

 quins, a pitched Crow tipi, and enactments of Indian dances and cere- 

 monies by Chippewa or Iowa Indians. No one had brought the Wild 

 West to civilization as had Catlin, and his exhibition must have made a 

 lasting impression upon all Americans and Europeans who saw it. 



Nevertheless, Catlin's books must have had a still wider influence. 

 His two-volume Manners^ Customs aind Condition of the North 

 American Indians^ published in London in 1841, combined a vivid 

 description of his travels and observations with 312 steel-engraved 

 reproductions of his paintings. The work was enthusiastically re- 

 viewed in America and abroad, and was reprinted five times in as 

 many years. Although Catlin included brief descriptions and illustra- 

 tions, primarily portraits, of a number of the semicivilized Woodland 

 tribes, he concentrated primarily upon the wild tribes of the Great 

 Plauis. There could be no mistakmg either from liis text or from his 

 pictures that the Plains Indians were his favorites. Eepeatedly, if 

 not consistently, Catlin sang their praises. He declared that the tribes 

 of the Upper Missouri were the "finest specimens of Indians on the 

 Continent ... all entirely in the state of primitive rudeness and wild- 

 ness, and consequently are picturesque and handsome, almost beyond 



