Early Interactions 

Founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743 for “promoting useful knowledge,” the American Philosophical Society (APS) is the oldest scholarly society in the United States. Its name comes from a time when “philosophy” meant a wide range of knowledge, including the study of peoples and cultures worldwide (now called anthropology). From the Society’s beginnings, its members have gathered a wide range of documents, artifacts, and information about Native Americans. The items on view here demonstrate the variety of interactions between Native peoples and Euro-American explorers and settlers in the early years of the colonies and nation.
 

A General Map of the Middle British Colonies, in America…Wherein is Also Shewn the Antient and Present Seats of the Indian Nations, by Lewis Evans, 1755
Evans, a surveyor and geographer, based this map partly on his 1743 journey to Lake Ontario with Indian agent Conrad Weiser and naturalist John Bartram. Carefully drawn and overflowing with visual and verbal data, the map reflects tensions among British colonists, French settlers, and Native Americans (particularly the Iroquois) on the northern and western frontiers.

Arrow, donated 1797
In 1797, George Turner gave this bone-tipped arrow and many other items from his Native American collections to the APS in order to advance “the knowledge of our country.” Turner was a judge in Cincinnati in present-day Ohio, living on what was then the western frontier of the young United States. He probably acquired many of his “western rarities” through trading with Indians.

Sketches of Oto Bison Hunting, by Titian Ramsay Peale, 1820
These action-packed sketches, later adapted into book illustrations, document the bison-hunting skills of the Oto people along the Missouri River in what is now Nebraska. Titian Ramsay Peale, one of the many talented children of Philadelphia painter and museum founder Charles Wilson Peale, observed the Oto while serving as an artist and naturalist on Major Stephen H. Long’s 1820–21 expedition to the Rocky Mountains.

Portrait of Chief Shingabawossin, from the manuscript of Sketches of a Tour of the Lakes, of the Character and Customs of the Chippeway Indians, and of Incidents Connected with the Treaty of Fond du Lac, by Thomas L. McKenney, 1826
McKenney was Superintendent of Indian Affairs when he travelled to the Great Lakes in order to secure a treaty with the Ojibwe Indians of the region, sometimes referred to as the Chippewa. One of the main Ojibwe representatives was Shingabawossin, chief of the Sault Ste. Marie band, who had negotiated several treaties before—including one with William Clark—and was praised for his eloquence as a speaker. Four years later, in 1830, McKenney was removed from his post by President Andrew Jackson, in part for advocating the view that “the Indian [is], in his intellectual and moral structure, our equal.”

Portrait of Seminole Chief Mico Chlucco, by William Bartram, after 1774
This drawing, the earliest known portrait of a Seminole, depicts Mico Chlucco or the Long Warrior, head of the Okone band of Seminoles in Florida. Bartram, a leading naturalist from Philadelphia, learned about the plants and animals of the Southeast from the Natives he encountered during a four-year botanical expedition in the 1770s. The Creeks even nicknamed him “Puc Puggy” (flower hunter).

Specimen of the Mountaineer, or Sheshatapooshshoish, Skoffie, and Micmac Languages, by Thomas Peirronet, 1797
On a visit to Newfoundland in 1797, Peirronet recorded hundreds of words and phrases from the Montagnais, Naskapi, and Mi’kmaq languages given to him by a Montagnais Indian named Gabriel. He also compiled a lexicon of Mi’kmaq pictographs and Christian prayers written in these pictographs, most likely developed by Catholic missionaries. 

Stone Dodecahedron, donated 1792
This black stone, carved in in the shape of a dodecahedron (12-sided solid), is a continuing mystery. It was found after floods on the banks of the Ohio River, south of Marietta, Ohio, and presented to the APS in 1792 by Dr. Charles Brown. Major Jonathan Hart, who wrote to the Society in 1791 to describe the stone, called it “the most extraordinary discovery yet made with respect to remains of art.” Anthropologists who examined the dodecahedron in 1897 guessed that Native American shamans might have used it for divination, but we still do not know for certain who made it or for what purpose.

Journals, by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, 1805 & 1806
The original journals of Lewis and Clark’s landmark western expedition (1804–6) are among the APS’s greatest treasures. The expedition relied on Indians—most famously Sacagawea, a Shoshone woman—for guidance, food, horses, and sheer survival. In an August 1805 entry, Lewis drew and described a Shoshone weir or trap for catching fish in present-day Montana. Lewis also drew the “white salmon trout” (Coho salmon), brought to their Oregon encampment in March of 1806 “by an Indian who had just taken it with his gig” or fishing spear.