1842 Bodmer / Bowen View of Blackfeet Indian Village, Montana

Early Depiction of Native Americans on the Upper Missouri.

This is a rare 1842 view of an encampment of Piegan Blackfeet near Fort McKenzie, a trading post on the Upper Missouri River in today's Montana. It is based on an 1833 drawing by Karl Bodmer, a member of a scientific expedition to the American frontier led by the German naturalist Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied, whose dramatic, colorful portrayals of Plains Indians were among the earliest to become widely known in both America and Europe.

A Closer Look

The view depicts a group of Piegan Blackfeet encamped near Fort McKenzie. In the foreground, perhaps a dozen figures, along with horses and dogs, discuss and carry goods, presumably for trading with the American traders encamped at the fort. In the background are groups of people similarly engaged amongst several dozen teepees. Further in the background are clusters of trees (perhaps along the Missouri River) and low, flat hills.

Prince Max's American Expedition

The Swiss-born Bodmer was a member of an expedition to the Missouri River led by Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied (1782 - 1867), popularly known as Prince Max. The 'expedition' in fact consisted only of the Prince, Bodmer, and David Dreidoppel, a hunter and taxidermist. After arriving in the United States on July 4, 1832, the trio was waylaid for months by disease (a cholera epidemic was sweeping the country at the time), though all three men survived to continue their journey. They managed to meet several acclaimed naturalists and gradually made their way to St. Louis, from which they set out in April 1833 for a 2,500-mile trek up the Missouri River. The trio spent more than a year exploring the Upper Missouri, stopping at trading posts and interacting extensively with Native Americans, with Prince Max taking copious notes and Bodmer making numerous of sketches. The group went as far as Fort McKenzie and stayed there for several months, during which time the sketch on which the present work is based was drawn. After returning to Europe, Bodmer issued 81 aquatints based on his sketches, which were then incorporated into the Prince's published account Reise in das innere Nord-Amerika in den Jahren 1832 bis 1834 (soon translated and published in London as Maximilian Prince of Wied's Travels in the Interior of North America, during the years 1832-1834) and several other works thereafter, including History of the Indian Tribes of North America, published in Philadelphia. The lithographs based on Bodmer's sketches were among the earliest accurate depictions of Plains Indians and were as much of a revelation to Americans as Europeans.

Historical Context

The Piegan Blackfeet emerged in the late 18th and early 19th centuries as one of the most powerful nations of the northern plains, occupying a vast territory stretching from the Upper Missouri and Marias rivers north toward the Saskatchewan. Their prominence was rooted in their control of key hunting and trading corridors and their early acquisition of horses and firearms, which allowed them to dominate neighbors and defend their lands against rival tribes and encroaching outsiders. By the 1820s and 1830s, Euro-American trading companies had come to recognize that the Piegan were indispensable partners in the profitable trade for buffalo robes, beaver, and other furs. Yet the Blackfeet strategic position also meant that relations were fraught, alternating between trading alliances and episodes of bitter conflict.

Fort McKenzie, established by the American Fur Company on the Upper Missouri River, became the centerpiece of early U.S.-Blackfeet interactions. For several years, the fort served as a hub for trade between the company's agents and the Piegan, Blood, and Siksika divisions of the Blackfoot Confederacy. Company traders like Kenneth McKenzie (for whom the fort was named) cultivated personal ties with influential Piegan leaders, who in turn controlled access to trade and ensured the safety of the post. The Piegan brought large numbers of buffalo robes to the fort, and the Americans supplied guns, ammunition, metal tools, and other goods. But the atmosphere around Fort McKenzie was never entirely stable. The Blackfeet were wary of how trade altered power relations between tribes, and they resented incursions by rival nations such as the Cree or Assiniboine, whom they believed the Americans favored or allowed too close to their territory.

Tensions periodically erupted into violence. One of the most notorious incidents occurred in 1833, when a fight broke out near the fort between Blackfeet and Assiniboine visitors (depicted in another of Bodmer's drawings / lithographs); the Americans' perceived failure to protect the Piegan side intensified suspicion. Not long afterwards, in 1837, the Blackfeet suffered devastating losses due to a smallpox epidemic, which spread from Fort McKenzie. These events contributed to the decline of Fort McKenzie as a viable trading center. By the late 1830s the American Fur Company had shifted its operations, and in 1844 the post was effectively abandoned.

Publication History and Census

This view is based on Bodmer's original watercolor made in August or September 1833 and first appeared in Prince Max's Reise in das innere Nord-Amerika in den Jahren 1832 bis 1834 with the trilingual title 'Lager der Piekann Indianer - Camp des Piekann - Encampment of the Piekann Indians.' The present work was printed by John T. Bowen's 'Lithographic and Print Colouring Establishment' and issued in 1842 by Daniel Rice and James G. Clark. An engraver's signature ('H.D.' or 'T.D.') at bottom-left is possibly Henry Dacre, an engraver in Philadelphia who had worked with Bowen as part of large team that published the multivolume work History of the Indian Tribes of North America, authored by Thomas Loraine McKenney and James Hall and published between 1836 and 1844. Indeed, this same image was used as the frontispiece to Volume III of that work, which went through multiple reissues into the early 20th century. The present example is a separate issue. The print is rare, only being independently cataloged among the holdings of the Library of Congress, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago; the University of Cincinnati may also hold an example in their Archives and Rare Books Library, but their catalog does not confirm such. Both the entire work and individual plates are scarce to the market.

Cartographers

Karl Bodmer (February 11, 1809 - October 30, 1893), born Johann Carl Bodmer, was a Swiss-born French artist, engraver, and lithographer who was renowned on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Bodmer was born in Zürich and began to learn engraving when he was 13 years old from his uncle, Johann Jakob Meier, who had studied with painters Heinrich Füssli and Gabriel Lory. Karl Bodmer and his older brother Rudolf traveled throughout Switzerland with their uncle on artistic outings. By 1828, Karl Bodmer had begun work as a painter in Koblenz, where he was noticed by Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied (1782 - 1867), who invited Bodmer to be his artistic companion on an expedition deep into the frontier of North America, along the upper reaches of the Missouri River. Bodmer would spend the years 1832 - 1834 in the company of Prince Maximillian and David Dreidoppel, a hunter and taxidermist. Bodmer's sketches of the American frontier, still dominated by Native Americans and a small handful of American and Canadian traders, were prepared as aquatints after the expedition's return and were hailed both in Europe and North America. They were among the first accurate depictions of Plains Indians, who were depicted with both vividness and humanity. Bodmer then moved to Barbizon, France and became a member of the emerging Barbizon School (which later included Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas, among others) and at this time went by the French form of his name as Jean-Charles Bodmer or simply Charles Bodmer. He resided there for many years afterwards, producing artworks using a variety of methods, including painting, etching, engraving, and lithography. He became rather obscure and impoverished in his later years, but his illustrations which were published in Prince Maximillian's Reise in das innere Nord-Amerika in den Jahren 1832 bis 1834 and several other works thereafter remain among the most important 19th century artistic depictions of Native Americans.   Further Details...

John T. Bowen (b. c. 1801 - 1856) was a lithographer active in Philadelphia during the mid-19th century. Born in England, Bowen immigrated to the United States in 1834 and worked as a colorist and lithographer in New York City before moving to Philadelphia in 1838, most like with his collaborator and lithographic artist Alfred Hoffy. Once in Philadelphia, Bowen took over the business of Wild and Chevalier, located at 94 Walnut Street, and began publishing History of the Indian Tribes by McKenney and Hall. He also acquired the rights to Wild and Chevalier's series of views of Philadelphia, which he reissued at the end of 1838 and again in a hand colored edition in 1848. By the early 1840s, Bowen's work was garnering praise, and gained a reputation as one of the best lithographers in Philadelphia. He published the 'Architect's Digest' in 1839 and printed plates for Audubon's Quadrupeds (1845 - 1848) and the octavo edition of Birds of America (1839 - 1844). Despite numerous successes, Bowen field for bankruptcy in 1842, though it did not prove to be too much of a hindrance to his career, as, after 1844, he began working predominantly with Audubon and his sons on their works. Over the course of his career, Bowen became the preeminent Philadelphia lithographer and the most important mid-19th century American publisher of publication plates. By Bowen's death in 1856, he had a fairly substantial estate and a prosperous business. His wife, Lavinia, with whom he had a son, took over the business after her husband's passing and the firm Bowen and Company operated until around 1870.   Further Details...

Condition

Very good. Backed on paper.

References

OCLC 41118321. Amon Carter Museum of American Art Accession Number 1975.64.97. Art Institue of Chicago Reference Number 2022.1756.