2 SAIITPISOXIAX MISCKLLAXEOL'S COLLECTIONS \'OL. 87 



During these 20 years Eastman made innumerable paintings and 

 sketches of the Indians with whom he came in contact, and scenes in 

 the Indian country, inckiding the games, ceremonies, and activities wit- 

 nessed in and about the native villages and camps. Many of the pencil 

 sketches, remarkal^le in themselves, served the artist in later years, 

 when they were reproduced in oil on canvas. The sketches were pre- 

 pared with the greatest care, dated, described, and often signed, thus 

 proving the training for detail which he had received at the Academy. 



The two army posts where the young lieutenant was destined to 

 spend his first years of active service after leaving the ^Military Acad- 

 emy were frontier posts in the heart of the Indian country. Both were 

 frequented by several tribes possessing different manners and customs. 

 Such surroundings afforded a young and enthusiastic artist many op- 

 portunities to sketch and study the various ceremonies performed by 

 the Indians who visited the posts, or whose camps and villages were 

 nearby. Many details of their primitive ways of life were maintained, 

 and these, fortunately, were often the subjects of the artist's sketches. 



Fort Crawford was the first post to which Eastiuan was sent during" 

 the late summer or early autumn of 1829. It stood a few miles above 

 the mouth of the Wisconsin River, near the left bank of the Mississippi, 

 on the low ground, Prairie du Chien. which had Ijeen a gathering place 

 for the native tribes for many generations — long before it was 

 traversed by Europeans. A pencil drawing of the fort, an early ex- 

 ample of the artist's work, is reproduced in Plate 2. This bears the 

 legend " Fort Crawford, Prairie du Chien, 537 miles above St. Louis, 

 Oct. 1829." The houses of the village of Prairie du Chien appear on 

 the right. 



Father ^Marquette reached the Alississippi l)y descending the Wis- 

 consin River, June 17, 1673, and evidently the region soon became 

 well known to the French traders and trappers. Here, about the middle 

 of October, 1766, came an English army officer, and in his narrative 

 printed a few years later he mentioned a large Indian village ^ " on the 

 bank of the Mississippi, near the mouth of the Ouisconsin, at a place 

 called by the French La Prairies les Chien, which signifies the Dog 

 Plains ; is a large town, and contains about three hundred families ; the 



houses are well built after the Indian manner This town is a 



great mart, where all the adjacent tribes, and even those who inhaliit 

 the most remote branches of the Mississippi, annually assemljle al)0ut 

 the latter end of Ma}', bringing with them their furs to dispose of to 

 the traders." 



^ Carver, J., Travels through the interior parts of North America, in the years 

 1766, 1767, and 1768, p. 50. London, 1770. 



