Officially Indian
Subtitle: symbols that define the United States
By: Cécile R. Ganteaume ; foreword by Colin G. Calloway ; afterword by Paul Chaat Smith
Contributors: Calloway, Colin G. (Colin Gordon), 1953- author of foreword; Smith, Paul Chaat, author of afterword
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: National Museum of the American Indian
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 184
ISBN-13: 9781517903305
Copyright date: 2017
Subjects: Race relations; Indians in art; Exhibitions; Indians of North America; National Museum of the American Indian (Washington, D.C.); History; American National characteristics; Political aspects; Nationalism; Pictorial works; Signs and symbols
Description: From maps, monuments, and architectural features to stamps and currency, images of Native Americans have been used again and again on visual expressions of American national identity since before the country's founding. In this in-depth study, Cécile R. Ganteaume argues that these representations are not empty symbols but reflect how official and semi-official government institutions -- from the U.S. Army and the Department of the Treasury to the patriotic fraternal society Sons of Liberty -- have attempted to define what the country stands for. Seen collectively and studied in detail, American Indian imagery on a wide range of emblems -- almost invariably distorted and bearing little relation to the reality of Native American-U.S. government relations -- sheds light on the United States' evolving sense of itself as a democratic nation. Generation after generation, Americans have needed to define anew their relationship with American Indians, whose lands they usurped and whom they long regarded as fundamentally different from themselves. Such images as a Plains Indian buffalo hunter on the 1898 four-cent stamp and Sequoyah's likeness etched into glass doors at the Library of Congress in 2013 reveal how deeply rooted American Indians are in U.S. national identity. While the meanings embedded in these artifacts can be paradoxical, counterintuitive, and contradictory to their eras' prevailing attitudes toward actual American Indians, Ganteaume shows how the imagery has been crucial to the ongoing national debate over what it means to be an American.
Notes: "Published in conjunction with the exhibition Americans, opening at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC, in October 2017"--Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Foreword / Colin G. Calloway; title: Introduction: The world's oldest enduring republic; title: Essays; title: Tupinambas of coastal Brazil, 1505; title: Title page of America, 1592; title: Allegory of America, 1662; title: Amerique septentrionale divisee en ses principales parties, 1696; title: Novi Belgii Novaque Anglia nec non partis Virginia tabula in locis emendata, 1685; title: Rolls's best Virginia tobacco paper, 1700s; title: A new map of the whole world with the trade winds according to ye latest and most exact observations, 1732; title: A view of the obelisk erected under liberty-tree in Boston on the rejoicings for the repeal of the Stamp Act, 1766; title: Liberty triumphant, or, The downfall of oppression, 1774; title: Vignette for Royal American magazine, 1774; title: Design proposal for the Great Seal of the United States, 1780; title: A new map of North America with the West India islands : divided according to the preliminary articles of peace, signed at Versailles, 20, Jan. 1783; title: Daniel Morgan U.S. Congressional Gold Medal, 1790; title: U.S. Diplomatic Medal for Peace and Commerce, 1792; title: George Washington Peace Medal, 1792; title: William Penn's Treaty with the Indians, 1682, 1827; title: Baptism of Pocahontas, 1839; title: Cover of historical and statistical information respecting the history, condition, and prospects of the Indian tribes of the United States, 1851-57; title: Three-dollar gold coin, 1854-89; title: Fourth Virginia Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, Company E, Powhatan Troop flag, 1860-61; title: Hiawatha Boat centerpiece, 1871; title: Improved order of Red Men membership certificate, ca. 1889; title: Monument to 42nd New York Volunteer Infantry, "Tammany" Regiment, 1891; title: Four-cent Indian Hunting buffalo stamp, 1898; title: The continents : America, 1903-07; title: Indian chiefs headed by Geronimo, passing in review before President Roosevelt, Inauguration Day, 1905; title: Half-eagle gold coin, 1909; title: Dumbarton bridge indian head sculpture, 1915; title: World War I French Air Service Lafayette Escadrille Indian head fuselage insignia, 1917; title: World War I U.S. Marine Corps Indian head and star shoulder insignia, 1917-19; title: 14-cent Hollow Horn bear stamp, 1923; title: President Calvin Coolidge wearing an eagle-feather headdress, 1927; title: President Franklin D. Roosevelt inducted into the Boy Scouts' Order of the Arrow, 1933; title: Indian head nickel, 1935; title: Pioneers in Kansas, 1935; title: Breaking camp during wartime, 1938; title: Golden Gate International Exposition poster, 1939; title: United States Marine Corps War memorial, 1954; title: MK 16 Zuni folding-fin aircraft rocket, 1957; title: Vice President Richard M. Nixon and former Tribal Chairman Carl Whitman Jr., 1960; title: Unity, 1966; title: AH-64 Apache helicopter, 1984; title: 32-cent Jim Thorpe stamp, 1998; title: Sacagawea golden dollar, 2000; title: Code Talkers Recognition Act of 2008 Congressional Gold Medals, 2013; title: Sequoyah, 2013; title: Afterword / Paul Chaat Smith.