Global Encounters and the Archives: Britain’s Empire in the Age of Horace Walpole
Item
The Brave Old Hendrick, the Great Sachem or Chief of the Mohawk Indians, 1755
Title
The Brave Old Hendrick, the Great Sachem or Chief of the Mohawk Indians, 1755
Description
Mohawk Sachem Hendrick Theyanooguin was critical to Britain's alliance with the Six Nations Iroquois and the North American balance of power on which it so delicately rested. He defended this alliance at the 1754 Albany Congress and even lost his life alongside the British at the Battle of Lake George one year later. This print, commissioned by Parliament the year he died, portrays Hendrick as a man poised between two worlds: a distinguished Christian Mohawk "King," positioned at forest's edge but donning British clothing and a metal axe. Also of significance is this print's opaque history and its ties to transnational Native American diplomacy; because Hendrick shared the name of another Mohawk sachem thirty years his senior –Hendrick Tejonihokarawa, one of the "Four Indian Kings" who travelled to London in 1710 to hold court with Queen Anne –historians unwittingly conflated the two until very recently. Catalog Record
Contributor
Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University Library
Creator
Anonymous
