Choctaws at New Orleans

Description

Dated between January 12 and 18, Bodmer's Indian studies at New Orleans represent members of the Choctaw nation, which once had inhabited large areas of the state of Mississippi and parts of Alabama before being removed to the West by the U.S. government. Depicting a dispirited people in reduced circumstances, these portraits made on the lower Mississippi are a startling contrast to the studies later made among the tribes of the upper Missouri, who at that time still retained much of their traditional culture.The Indians frequenting the New Orleans waterfront seem to have been engaged for the most part in selling or trading produce from the country. They apparently had no place of permanent residence in the city and customarily ate and slept in the streets. "Some of them make their fires on the streets," reported Maximilian in his later account of Bodmer's travels on the Mississippi, "and, like the Negro women, also cook their coffee as well as their somse, an overboiled meat dish."

Original German Title

New Orleans L 1833

Medium

watercolor over pencil on paper

Dimensions

8 3/4 x 6 3/8

Call No.

JAM.1986.49.329

Approximate Date of Creation

12th January 1833