The Once and Future Americans

The birthday of a neglected figure in American history provides a window into tragedy—which is also an enriching legacy. 

Thomas L. McKenney was born in Hopewell, Maryland on March 21, 1785. As a Quaker from a mercantile family, he possessed an eye for detail and a sense of justice. Both these traits were put to the test from 1816 to 1830, when McKenney served in the federal government, first as superintendent of Indian trade and then as superintendent of Indian affairs. He is thus regarded as the first head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, now a part of the Department of the Interior.

Yet tellingly, at the time, McKenney was an employee of the Department of War. After all, dealings with the Indians were often deadly. Back then, the states of the United States numbered just 24; Indians were numerous, even predominant, in the unincorporated parts of North America, and formed a restive and victimized faction within many states as well. 

McKenney’s boss, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, made his intentions very clear, saying of the Native tribes: “They neither are, in fact, nor ought to be, considered as independent nations. Our views of their interest, and not their own, ought to govern them.” One specific flashpoint was the presence of the Cherokee tribes in Georgia, which Calhoun deemed “incompatible” with the state’s sovereignty and the nation’s security. 

Such was the prevailing attitude in Washington in the 1820s and, for that matter, the entirety of the 19th century: It was the Manifest Destiny of white people to sweep away the red people, pushing them into the West, and if need be, into oblivion. McKenney himself was sympathetic to the Indians, and yet, undeniably, he was a cog in the machine. From such complexity, as we shall see, was to come a great aesthetic blossoming. 

McKenney biographer James Horan sets the scene of an 1821 meeting at the White House, as President James Monroe received a delegation of tribal chiefs. An anonymous writer for the Daily National Intelligencer opined that the most likely outcome for the Indians was 

that these people are destined to soon vanish from the face of the earth… they still possess fine traits of character and we can never forget they were the native lords of the very soil which they are gradually yielding to their invaders… Yet I firmly believe all our humane efforts to civilize them will prove to be unavailing. Whether it is [sic] they acquire our bad habits before our good ones or their course of life cannot exist under the restraints of civilization, I know not. But this I do know: it is certain that all the tribes which have remained among us have, or are now dwindling to insignificance or [are] entirely extinct.

For his part, McKenney, too, sensed the poignancy of the moment: Who would remember the regal bearing of Petalesharo, or the nubile beauty, Eagle of Delight? Who would recollect the Pawnees, Kansas, Ottoes, Mahas, and Missouries? 

McKenney resolved that he would. He would take it upon himself, in the decades ahead, to remember, to transcribe—and, and at his direction, to illustrate.

In the meantime, McKenney’s life as a superintendent was mostly drudgery: In his Washington office, he examined invoices submitted by “hotelmen, livery stable operators, shopkeepers … placating Indian agents when their bills were returned trimmed of what McKenney considered to be ‘unnecessary expenses.’” 

Yet in 1829, the relatively dovish sixth president, John Quincy Adams, was replaced by the hawkish seventh president, Andrew Jackson, himself an old warrior of legend—with the fire-eating Calhoun as his vice president.

Soon, the forcible expulsion of the Cherokees and other tribes—the “trail of tears”—had begun. And of course, that was hardly the limit of the violence of the era. 

Unsurprisingly, McKenney was out of a job. A superior told him, “General Jackson has long been satisfied that you are not in harmony with him in views in regards to the Indians.” Yet as biographer Horan records, “He was far from defeated. The tiny idea which had been growing for a long time in his imagination had blossomed into flower; he would publish the Indian portraits in a magnificent portfolio for all Americans to view and cherish.”

In fact, McKenney had already engaged the talent of painter Charles Bird King to paint Indian chiefs, and others, as they passed through Washington, D.C. In addition, Bird painted from memories, such as his rendition of Red Jacket, a Seneca chief, at the time of his 1792 meeting with George Washington at the President’s House in Philadelphia; we see his hard-bitten visage, and on his chest a huge “peace medal” given to him by the Great White Father. (Red Jacket had sided with the British in the Revolution, but aligned with the Americans in the War of 1812.) 

In all, Bird produced some 300 paintings of Indians, showing them in all their dignity, splendor—and, without a doubt, diversity. Nicholas Biddle, the prominent financier, recalled McKenney giving visitors a tour of the paintings; Biddle was struck by the juxtaposition of “extremes touch[ing] when so civilized a gentleman was in contact with so wild and aboriginal a set.” These spectacular artworks became the kernel of McKenney’s opus. 

In addition, McKenney tapped into the writing talent of James Hall, who crafted mini-biographies to accompany the illustrations. The result of these combined efforts was a remarkable work, History of the Indian Tribes of North America, published in three volumes between 1836 and 1844. The critical reception was positive, the financial reception spotty—and it would take many decades for the public to see its true cultural and historical genius. 

Yet McKenney’s own views on Indian matters were always clear. In his personal memoir, published in 1845, one chapter is entitled, “Plans for Improving the Condition of the Indians,” and another, “Abominable Abuse of Power in our Relations with the Indians.” 

Sadly, none of these worthy works kept McKenney from sinking into poverty and obscurity; he died in 1859. Then, to compound what the poet Virgil called lacrimae rerum, the tears of things, almost all of Bird’s paintings were destroyed in an 1865 fire at the Smithsonian. They survive only in the form of lithographs for the three-volume series—thank God for those books. 

A century-and-a-half later, Indians are still standing. Yes, much has been taken, but much abides. Today, according to the Census, Natives number some 3 million—although as we know, many more have claimed the heritage. 

Yet perhaps the truest proof of Indian perdurance is their continued diversity—from Alaska to California, from Oklahoma to Florida, they do it their way. In fact, Native Americans are so diverse that in 2024, they mostly voted Republican. 

Editor’s note: A previous version of this piece incorrectly referred to James Monroe as the sixth president.