582 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 60 



In July 184G the landscape painter Charles Lamnan, visiting at 

 Fort Snelling, was greatly impressed by the accomplisliment of tliis 

 "pictorial historian" of the Indian : 



All his leisure time has been devoted to the study of Indian character, and 

 the portraying upon canvas of their manners and customs, and the more im- 

 portant fragments of their history. The Sioux tribes have attracted the most 

 of his attention, although he has not neglected the Chippeways, and he has done 

 much to make us acquainted with the Seminoles of Florida, where he was once 

 stationed for several years. Excepting a few which he has occasionally pre- 

 sented to his friends, all that he has ever painted are now in his possession, 

 and it was my good fortune to spend many agreeable hours admiring their 

 beauties. The collection numbers about four hundred pieces, comprising every 

 variety of scenes, from the grand Medicine Dance to the singular and affecting 

 Indian Grave. When the extent and character of this Indian Gallery are con- 

 sidered, it must be acknowledged the most valuable in the country, not even 

 excepting that of George CatUn. But what adds greatly to the interest called 

 forth by these pictures is the use to which they are to be applied. Instead of 

 being used as a travelling exhibition to accumulate gold, this gallery is to be 

 presented to a distinguished college, from which the artist will only demand 

 the education of his children. There is something in this movement so foreign 

 to the sordid passion of our age, and so characteristic of the true spirit of art, 

 that the heart is thrilled with pleasure as we remember the American soldier- 

 artist of the wilderness [6], 



Though Eastman may not have had a "sordid" interest in gold, he 

 certainly gave thought to earning money by liis art, for lie had five 

 children to bring up. One scheme in his mind was a picture boolv of 

 the Mississippi. Writing to Lanman from Fort Snelling, November 

 1, 1847, he thanked him for sending out the spring catalog of the 

 exliibition at the National Academy of Design and lamented that he 

 had never received the copy of Lanman's "A Summer in the Wilder- 

 ness" that Charles Deas was to have carried out to him (for the good 

 reason that Deas returaed no more to the West) . Eastman then con- 

 tinued: "I have recently written to Wiley and Putnam offering to 

 sell them one hundred water coloured sketches on the Mississippi — 

 for publication. They are views from the Falls to the mouth of the 

 Ohio — I hope they will take tliem — Since writing to that firm, a 

 gentleman has offered me a thousand dollars for the hundred sketches. 

 He wishes to get them for another publication. I refused to sell 

 them until I heard from Wiley and Putnam" [7]. Wiley and Put- 

 nam did not publish such a book. Whether Eastman sold the pictures 

 or not, whether they were ever published without credit to him, what 

 the specific subjects were, and whatever became of the originals — all 

 remains tantalizingly dark, but it can be suspected, however, that 

 some were subjects eventually used in illustrating Henry R. School- 

 craft's "Indian Tribes of the United States." 



At this time, too, Eastman was exposed to the epidemic "panorama 

 fever" that was afflicting many artists — the hope of making a for- 



