Chief Lappawinsoe portrait   Save
Ohio History Connection Archives/Library
Description: This is a lithograph of an oil painting of Lappawinsoe, chief of the Lenape (Delaware) Tribe, published in volume one of "History of the Indian Tribes of North America" by Thomas Loraine McKenney and James Hall. Lappawinsoe is most commonly known for his involvement in the Walking Purchase Agreement, a treaty agreement between the Lenape and Thomas Penn, son of Pennsylvania colony's founder William Penn, in which the Lenape were unfairly forced to relinquish 1,200,000 acres of their land in 1737. Thomas McKenny served as the United States Superintendent of Indian Trade in 1821 and commissioned portraits of American Indian leaders who visited Washington D.C. to negotiate treaties with the United States federal government in order to to preserve the memory and history of America's native peoples. After the paintings were completed, he commissioned lithographs of the 300 paintings and compiled them into three volumes of "History of the Indian Tribes of North America" where a short biography accompanied each portrait. The paintings were housed at the Smithsonian Institution Building, commonly referred to as the Castle, and in 1868 all but five were destroyed in a devastating fire. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: V970_97M199h_v1_p405_LapPaWinSoe
Subjects: Lenape (Delaware) Tribe; American Indian history; American Indians--Portraits; American Indians in Ohio; American Indian tribal leaders
Places: Washington D.C.