Taking Their Lives in Their Hands

Death and disease were commonplace in early America, and particularly so in Indian country. Yet Indian delegates who traveled to early cities often put themselves at even greater risk, as they entered port city environments rife with imported diseases such as smallpox and yellow fever. A survey of health conditions and outbreaks of epidemics in the key cities shows they were not safe spaces for anyone. Although colonial authorities and Indian delegations took precautions, many delegations nevertheless suffered losses when they were in town. When prominent chiefs died, government officials often provided public funerals, sometimes attended by thousands of citizens.

Going Home

This chapter completes Indian delegates’ journeys to colonial capitals by considering the return leg of their travels and their reentry into their home communities. Athough city chiefs often returned laden with gifts and with temporarily enhanced prestige, the chapter points out ways in which their experiences in traveling to the centers of colonial power could negatively affect their standing at home. It profiles several of the prominent figures in the book to show that increasing influence with the colonial government, and especially the national government, often came at the cost of decreasing respect at home, especially when returning chiefs acted as advocates of the U.S. “civilization program” in their personal lives.

Coming to Town

The chapter discusses why and when Indian delegations went to cities. To demonstrate that Indian visitors were a regular and frequent presence, it provides multiple examples of Indian delegations to colonial and early Republic cities. It describes their experiences on the road, the receptions they received, and the measures colonial officials took to ensure that their visits were positive. It considers delegates’ initial responses to the urban environment. As a case study, the second part of the chapter focuses on the history of Creek delegations to colonial cities, culminating in the famous state visit in 1790 by Alexander McGillivray and some two dozen Creek chiefs to the then capital, New York City.

Picturing Chiefs in the City

Designed as a gallery of portraits in color in the center of the book, this section briefly addresses portrait making in early America, the circumstances in which these portraits were made (in cities), and issues of self-representation.

Performance and Performers

Indian chiefs in the city attracted curiosity and crowds. They were often “onstage,” expected to comport themselves in certain ways, as both “wild Indians” and dignified diplomats. Some were invited to and participated in the ceremonial meetings of the Tammany Society; others not only attended the theater and the circus but sometimes participated in the shows, with displays of Native dances or horsemanship. Like later performers in the Wild West shows, they “played Indian” for white audiences, but they did so for their own purposes, mastering the arts of diplomatic theater and proclaiming their tribal identity in centers of colonial power.

The Towns and Cities of Early America

The chapter counters the idea that cities in North America were a European invention or import by briefly surveying pre-Columbian cities and key Native American towns after contact, when many Indigenous communities still matched some colonial towns in size and significance. It notes that Indians played important roles in the development of early American cities, which depended on trade networks reaching into the interior as well as across the Atlantic. The chapter also describes the key cities visited by Indian delegates in the book to convey an impression of their size, character, and changes and to provide backdrop for the Indians’ experiences there.

The Things They Saw

This chapter follows Indian delegates as they explored the city during their extended stay, identifying the sights they would have seen, as well as what they would have heard and smelled. Since the Indian delegates did not leave written accounts, the chapter draws on descriptions provided by non-Indian travelers and contemporary images to show how city streets, buildings, markets, wharves, prisons, and churches would have looked to visitors. It provides examples and anecdotes of Indian experiences and suggests how Indian people would have reacted to some of the more unsavory aspects of urban life and facets of so-called civil society that ran counter to the values and practices that sustained Indigenous communities.

The Other Indians in Town

This chapter shows that tribal delegates were not the only Indian people to be found in the cites of early America. Indian people included cities in their trade networks and they lived and worked in and around town in various capacities as both free and unfree labor. They went to cities and stayed there for many reasons and cities became centers of cultural mixing as well as economic exchange. Colonial laws designed to regulate Indian people reveal how much they were part of the fabric of urban life. Some Indians sought refuge in cities during times of war; others were taken there as prisoners of war. Increasing racial violence rendered Indian people in and around town vulnerable.

Introduction: Native Americans’ Urban Frontiers

This chapter introduces the phenomenon of Indian people being present in early American cities, contrary to popular assumptions and academic depictions of them as an anomaly in urban life. It argues that early American cities constituted a “frontier” for Indian people who went there, where they experienced close contact with colonists and indirect contact with the Atlantic world. The chapter considers early Native American travel across the Atlantic, to London in particular, as well as varieties of Indigenous leadership as context for understanding the roles of those who were designated chiefs in the cities. It also discusses the nature and limitations of the sources, and the insights into early American society provided by Indigenous comments and critiques.

Conclusion

INDIAN PEOPLE INVITED AND ESCORTED into town, welcomed by the city fathers, and cheered by enthusiastic crowds; lodging in the finest hotels, wined and dined at formal dinners, and dropping by for breakfast in private homes; touring the city, seeing the sights, strolling in the park, sitting in church, and watching performances at the theater and circus; cared for by physicians, and, if they died, being carried to city burial grounds in funeral corteges of hundreds of people; traveling by stagecoach at government expense and staggering home under the weight of gifts. . . . Contrary to assumptions that Indians were nowhere to be seen in the cities of early America, and that they had retreated as Euro-American settlements advanced, it might seem that citizens could barely walk the streets without bumping into visiting tribal delegates who went about an endless round of social engagements, observing and participating in urban life....