Digital Repository

As early as 1803, Thomas Jefferson proposed a policy that later under Andrew Jackson would be called Indian removal. By the 1820s, warfare among American Indian nations was proving troublesome to the U.S. government as the country expanded westward. In 1825, Governor Lewis Cass of the Michigan Territory was commissioned to negotiate peace treaties among the Indians of the Great Lakes region. Between 1825 and 1827, Cass employed James Otto Lewis who made some 250 portraits and related camp sketches during the negotiations. At a time when attitudes toward American Indians were generally hostile, Lewis showed compassion for the tribes’ leaders through his sensitive portrayals.