The ‘Indian Tribes of North America’ by Thomas McKenney and James Hall first published in folio between 1836-44 is one of the great North American Indian colour plate books and the grandest published in America to date. The 120 portraits it contained were largely drawn from the paintings of the artist Charles Bird King of visiting Indian delegates to Washington D.C. They were commissioned by McKenney on behalf of the War Department. Unfortunately these were destroyed in a fire at the Smithsonian in 1865. McKenney & Hall’s work is therefore the only accurate record of many of the great Indian figures of the nineteenth century.

McKenney was the Superintendent of Indian trade from 1816-1822 and became concerned about the future survival of the western tribes. Not afraid to speak his mind he was eventually made head of the US Bureau of Indian Affairs by President Monroe from 1824-1830. This position took him on several trips to the west to oversee treaties with the Chippewa, Menominee and Winnebago. James Hall was a banker from Cincinnati who had been a journalist in Illinois, lawyer and state treasurer. The two of them collaborated to produce this book. The text was written by Hall but drew on the knowledge of McKenney. The work contains a general history of North American Indians and 120 biographies, each accompanied by a fine lithographic plate by J. T. Bowen. It was an immediate success.

Little known is the fact that the third volume of the work contains this lithographic sheet with two maps and a table. The main map across the top displays the whole of the present day United States from coast to coast just before it had actually been achieved. It displays the location of all the main Indian tribes. Of particular note in bold letters is ‘Hostile Ground’ in the western plains. Lower right is a further map of the territory west immediately west of the Mississippi River and in greater details the tribes found. The table lower left breaks down their population. Bennett p. 79; Field 992; Howes M129; Lipperheide Mc4; Reese ‘Stamped With A National Character’ 24; Sabin 43410a.