McKenney Hall

SE-QUO-YAH - Inventor of the Cherokee Alphabet - Historically Important

1837

Col. Thomas J. McKenney was Superintendant of The Bureau of Indian Affairs from 1816 until 1830. He was one of a very few government officials to defend American Indian interests and attempt to preserve their culture. He travelled to Indian lands meeting the Native American leaders. He brought with him an accomplished artist, James Otto Lewis, who sketched those willing to participate. A large number of the most influential Indian chiefs and warriors were later invited to come to Washington in 1821 to meet President Monroe. McKenney commissioned the prominent portrait painter Charles Bird King, who had a studio in the capital, to paint these native American leaders, who chose the costumes they wished to wear for the sitting. The magnificent resultant paintings were displayed in the War Department until 1858, and were then moved to the Smithsonian Institute. When Andrew Jackson dismissed McKenney in 1830, he gave him permission to have the King portraits as well as some by other artists, including George Catlin and James Otto Lewis, copied and made into lithographs, in both folio and octavo sizes. McKenney partnered with James C. Hall, a Cincinnati judge and novelist to publish the lithographs and the text written by Hall. The work was extremely expensive to create and nearly bankrupted McKenney, as well as the two printing firms who invested in its publication. The resultant work gained importance when Catlin's paintings were destroyed in a warehouse fire and Charles Bird King's and James Otto Lewis’ portraits were destroyed in the great Smithsonian Museum fire of 1865. The McKenney and Hall portraits remain the most complete and colorful record of these pre-Civil War Native American leaders.