Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
When you mention Native Americans, and that shows up a lot of places--
Pocahontas, William Penn, Christopher Columbus, certainly--
--it’s interesting, because it’s all over the Capitol.
Native Americans show up, and in the Rotunda especially . . .
If you look at the Native Americans in the Capitol Rotunda, you get a real sense that
what the artists are talking about is America and American expansion,
the expansion westward--manifest destiny to go and populate the entire continent,
with citizens of the United States, to go "from sea to shining sea."
And, often, in order to justify that, they needed to do
paintings that aren’t just showing people planting flags on Nebraska, but are scenes
that people are going to recognize and that are going to resonate with them. And, they use
Native Americans as symbols, to show why America should do that.
Why does America get to go from the Atlantic to the Pacific?
Because, they're in the process of doing that right then, when that art is made.
And, they use that by showing Native Americans sort of
as a symbol of what America can do. There are images of
Americans--sort of, they would have said--“civilizing” the Native Americans--
--the baptism of Pocahontas, for example. There are images of
Native Americans being subjugated, violently, by the conquering Europeans--
--Daniel Boone whoopin’ up on Native Americans, in one of the bas-reliefs there. There are
images of Native Americans as sort of a "child-like" people, who have to be taken care of.
So, one of the things that Europeans do when they come is
they take these sort of "simple, natural" people and help them.
If you look at one of the reliefs of the pilgrims arriving, there’s a Native American, who is sort of
crouching down. Even though, if he stood up, he'd be "yards" taller than the pilgrims,
he’s kind of crouching down, offering them an ear of corn.
In fact, the only image in that room in which a Native American appears
as the equal of the citizens are in the relief of William Penn signing a treaty.
He stands eye-to-eye with the Indian, with whom he is treating and whose hand he is shaking.
When the room was opened, that was the one relief
that people had a problem with the Native Americans in.
They said, “This is terrible. It shows a Native American towering over Penn."
"It shows him as much more important, and we don’t want that.”
Especially, because, if you look at the picture, in fact,
they’re the same height.