Paintings. Joan Stack, Curator of Art Collections The State Historical Society of Missouri Columbia Research Center and Gallery

Transcription

1 Partisan Paintings George Caleb Bingham s Indians, Fur Traders, and the Unexpected Results of the Election of 1844 Joan Stack, Curator of Art Collections The State Historical Society of Missouri Columbia Research Center and Gallery

2 G.C. Bingham, The Concealed Enemy, 1845 During the fall of 1845, Missouri artist George Caleb Bingham sold four paintings to the American Art-Union to be displayed in its free gallery in New York City. Two of the pictures, The Concealed Enemy.

3 G.C. Bingham, Fur Traders Descending the Missouri, 1845 Fur Traders Descending the Missouri (originally titled French Fur Trader with his Half-breed Son) depicted scenes connected with the contested space of the American West.

4 Scholars have traditionally interpreted these two images as either nostalgic/idealized visions of Missouri s bygone wilderness or as pendant visions contrasting native savagery with the civilizing force of Euro-American settlement.

5 Gallery of the American Art-Union, 497 Broadway, New York City, 1849, woodcut after the drawing by Samuel Wallin, Photograph from Bulletin of The American Art Union (May 1849) I propose an alternate reading applicable to the particular temporal context of the paintings exhibition at the Art-Union.

6 The future of the American west was hotly debated in 1845, and Bingham s paintings were on public view for only a few weeks in December of that year. # A study of their contextual relationship with contemporary spectators provides insight into how the images may have embodied very specific political concepts in the imaginations of their earliest viewers.

7 Gallery of the American Art Union New York, 849. Engraving after Z. Wallin As these Art-Union visitors strolled through the galleries viewing the cultural productions of the young nation, many were aware that the geo-political fate of the United States was in doubt.

8 That spring, James K. Polk, the newly installed Democratic president, had made good on his promise to push forward legislation annexing the Republic of Texas into the United States.

9 Modern California Modern Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, together with parts of Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. MEXICO IN 1845 REPUBLIC OF TEXAS in 1845 Mexico, however, had never recognized Texas independence. The Mexican government believed that the annexation of Texas would constitute an act of war.

10 President Polk campaigned on the premise that war with Mexico would be a blessing, not a curse.

11 War would provide the U.S. with the chance to enhance its reputation as an imperial power. Victory would also provide the nation with the opportunity to seize more land in the Southwest as spoils of war.

12 NEW TERRITORY EVENTUALLY CONQUERED BY THE U.S. (POLK WANTED EVEN MORE) Modern Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, together with parts of Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Modern California MEXICO IN 1845 REPUBLIC OF TEXAS in 1845 Polk s supporters in the South hoped these lands would be open to slavery, and business interests throughout the U.S realized that seizing California would make profitable ports and trade routes accessible.

13 Polk had also aggravated tensions with Great Britain during his 1844 campaign.

14 He claimed the entirety of the remote Oregon territory for the United States. The territory was shared by the US and Britain and provided rich resources to both nations involved in the fur trade. French voyageurs and Mexican traders also participated in this international commercial enterprise.

15 Traders from these nations maintained fragile alliances and relative peace with many Indian nations who inhabited the territory and also trapped and traded fur. In this 1840s map, areas occupied by these nations are identified.

16 Polk was an expansionist who wanted the the U.S. to have complete control of Oregon. His campaign slogan or fight declared that the U.S. would go to war rather than compromise on the territory s Northern border

17 Indeed Polk is the President with whom we most associate the term MANIFEST DESTINY words coined by the pro-polk journalist John O Sullivan in the summer of 1845 to justify Polk s expansionist agenda. O Sullivan argued that Polk would not allow other nations to stop the U.S. from achieving its god given potential.

18 Henry Clay, Polk s Whig opponent in the election of 1844, had argued against immediate annexation and expansion.

19 Reverse side of Henry Clay campaign token promoting Clay s support of American industry and commerce Clay feared Polk s aggressive adventures would divert national resources away from the development of inland waterways and other projects advancing national and international commerce.

20 Adding new territory to the United States, Whigs argued, would reignite sectional tensions over slavery, incite conflict with Native Americans, and risk war on two fronts with Mexico and Great Britain.

21 In his famous Raleigh Letter published in the Washington National Intelligencer on April 17, 1844, Henry Clay, explained his objections to the plan to annex Texas. Like most Whigs, Clay wished to avoid war and sectional crisis:

22 I think it far more wise and... [the U.S. should] develop our resources, important prepare to compose the means of and defending what we possess, and harmonize the present augment our strength, power, and Confederacy, as it now exists, greatness. than to introduce a new -Henry Clay, April, 1844 element of discord and distraction into it.... -Henry Clay, April, 1844

23 The nation was divided on the issue of annexation and a potential war with Mexico. Clay lost the election by a popular vote margin of less than two percent. Since the antislavery Liberty party candidate, James G. Birney, received 2.30%, Polk did not receive a plurality, and the majority of voters voted for candidates opposed to his expansionist agenda.

24 New York Tribune, Nov. 9, 1844, p. 2 The Whig press was shocked and dismayed by the results of the election. They viewed Polk as unqualified and rash in comparison to Clay, a longtime statesman known for his reasoned and measured negotiating skills. On the Saturday after the election, the following words appeared in the nation s most widely read Whig paper, the New York Tribune. s

25 Nor will it become in a less degree my duty to assert and maintain by all constitutional means the right of the United States to that portion of our territory which lies beyond the Rocky Mountains. James K. Polk, Inaugural Address, March, 4, 1844 Polk was inaugurated as president on March, 4, # During his address he left no doubt as to his plans to advance a radical expansionist agenda.

26 Despite fierce opposition, the Democratically controlled Congress and Senate passed an annexation bill in July of # For the next six months a divided America would wait for Polk to sign the bill into law, which he did on December 29. H. Bucholzer, Texas Coming In, Lithographic cartoon published by James S. Baillie, 1844

27 The Concealed Enemy and Fur Traders Descending the Missouri were among only five paintings of the West by western artists on display at the American Art-Union in the days before Polk signed the bill in December of 1845.

28 Art-Union president, the renowned poet William Cullen Bryant, brought attention to the Western paintings in his speech before the Annual meeting on December 19, the date on which the paintings were to be distributed to members via a lottery. #

29 As such, they were particularly apt to evoke politicized responses from viewers concerned with the economic and social future of the territory west of the Mississippi. This study explores how the paintings may have manifested national anxiety about the still uncertain ramifications of Polk s western policies.

30 To understand the political context of the fall of 1845, one must understand the polarized lenses through which the Whigs and the Democrats viewed the legacy of the Jacksonian era.