"The Indian Council"
odd: label: Local Numbers
content: OPPS NEG.44189
label: Local Note
content: In 1864 John Mix Stanley began painting the "Trial of Red Jacket" (BAE Negative Number 36589 F) (Bushnell, Smithsonian Report (1924), "John Mix Stanley, Artist-Explorer," page 510). It is possible that Eastman was attempting in "Indian Council" to represent a similar subject. However, since Eastman was unfamiliar with the dress and habitations of the Seneca, all but Red Jacket appear in the dress of Eastern Dakotas; a Dakota lodge and conical tipi also appear in this composition.
label: Local Note
content: Black and white copy negative
name: label: Creator
content: Eastman, Seth
label: Names
content: Red Jacket, Seneca
topic: label: Topic
content: Indians of North America -- Northeast
creator: label: Creator
content: Eastman, Seth
culture: label: Culture
content: Iroquois
label: Culture
content: Seneca
setName: label: See more items in
content: Bureau of American Ethnology negatives
label: See more items in
content: Bureau of American Ethnology negatives / Additional Materials / Eastman, Seth
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 1 Photograph (8x10 in)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1868
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Anthropological Archives
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Photographs
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Photographs
originalsloc: label: Existence and Location of Originals
content: This painting now (1961) hanging in the room of the House Committee on Insular Affairs -- McDermott, page 100.
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: The central seated figure is Red Jacket.

This oil, painted for the House Committee on Indian Affairs (McDermott, page 100), is based on two works Eastman had prepared for Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes of the United States: "Indians in Council (Part 2, 1852, plate 27) and "Red Jacket" (Part 3, 1853, plate 25). The bark lodge was probably based on another illustration prepared by Eastman for Schoolcraft (Part 2, plate 29, "Dacotah Village").

The published lithographs were based on water colors by Eastman; "Indians in Council," "Red Jacket," and "Dacotah Village" water colors are in the James Jerome Hill Reference Library, Saint Paul (Demsmore, "The Collection of Water-Color Drawings of the North American Indians by Seth Eastman," (1954), pages 16, 28, 44.) The figure of Red Jacket is after a portrait, "Red Jacket aged 70" by Robert Weir, 1828. (BAE Negative Number 903-e).