Books & Manuscripts, including Americana

3 volumes, royal 8vo (254 x 165 mm). 120 hand-colored engraved plates (occasional spotting, some occasional very mild offsetting.) Contemporary deluxe publisher's morocco gilt, spines in 6 compartments with 5 raised bands, gilt-lettered in 2 compartments, all edges gilt (rubbing, hinges starting, minor vertical cracking along spine compartments).

FIRST OCTAVO EDITION. Beginning in 1821 U.S. Superintendent of Indian Trade Thomas McKenney commissioned artist Charles Bird King (1785-1862) to create portraits of Native American leaders who traveled to Washington in order to negotiate treaties with the federal government. Fearful that Native Americans as a people were threatened by the rapid expansion of settlers throughout the United States, it was McKenney's aim to preserve "whatever of the aboriginal man which can be rescued from the destruction which awaits [him]" (Horan, p. 61). To generate further interest in the works, McKenney partnered with James Hall to write accompanying biographies of each sitter. Once the project was completed the portraits, now numbering 300 and including works by James Otto Lewis, Peter Rindisbacher, and Henry Inman, were donated to the Smithsonian Institution; all but 5 of them were destroyed by a fire in 1865. Howes M-129; Field 992; Sabin 43411 (1854-56 edition).