Native American Art in Missouri: Historical Context
10000 B.C.E. to 1951 C.E.
People have lived in the land which we now know as the state of Missouri for thousands of years. Oral tradition, archaeology, and linguistics can tell us this. To accurately convey the history of Missouri, the beginning must not be in 1821, when it became a state, or in 1812 when it was a territory of the United States, but when people first lived in and identified with the land which would become Missouri.
Early History
The earliest recovered pieces of physical evidence which are able to place people in the area, date as far back as 12,000 years ago. An archaeological site south of St. Louis, called the Kimmswick site, found the remains of bison and mastodon in association with stone tools, known as “Clovis” points (Graham et al. 1981). Many different cultural groups would come and go including the Adena, Hopewellian, Mississippian, and Oneota cultures.
The Mississippian culture from 800 to 1500 C.E. had an incredible sphere of influence over the eastern half of North America, stretching from the Plains of the Upper Missouri River and into the Southeast as far as the Appalachians and Gulf Coast (Pauketat 2004). One center of Mississippian culture was located in the area known as the American Bottom, a stretch of fertile land within the Mississippi River Valley where it met with the Illinois, Missouri, and Ohio rivers (Cordell et al. 2009). From this fertile land grew the city of Cahokia, occupied from 900 to 1300 C.E.; it was a center of trade, religion, and politics, likely due to the abundance of resources in the area and the availability of rivers for travel (Pauketat 2004). At its height in 1200, Cahokia was estimated to have boasted a population as large as 20,000 people (Berlo and Phillips 2015). By 1300, however, the city had been almost entirely abandoned, leaving a vacant corridor in the American Bottom (Hall 2004). While the cause of the fall of Cahokia remains unknown, it is suspected that climate change, the pressures of maintaining a large population, and political unrest were factors of its decline and eventual abandonment (Pauketat 2004).
The city of Cahokia is best known for its large mound structures. These mounds served various purposes; while they originally had a funerary context, by 600 C.E. they would become the foundations for culturally significant buildings such as places of worship and the homes of leaders (Hall 2004; Cordell et al. 2009). Due to urban and residential development beginning in the 18th century, many of the mounds of Cahokia have since been demolished (Pauketat 2004; Dickey 2011).
Native Identities
While the Oneota are often associated with archaeological sites further north in the Western Great Lakes Region, they could be found as far south as the Lower Missouri river (Olson 2008; Logan 2010). They are generally seen as both a contemporary and an inheritor of the people who lived in Cahokia (Olson 2008; Dickey 2011). The tribes which claim ancestry from the Oneota are also referred to as the “Chiwere Sioux”, a term given by anthropologists based on linguistic features. This group is comprised of the Ioway, Missouria, and Otoe Tribes (Hall 2004; Iowa Tribe n.d.).
According to both oral tradition and linguistic evidence, the group, termed the “Dhegiha Sioux”, again named by anthropologists, traveled westward from the Ohio River Valley to Missouri (Hall 2004; Hunter 2013; Bandy 2023). Upon their arrival to the Mississippi River, the group began to split up into separate tribes. One tribe, called the Quapaw, moved south and into Arkansas (Bandy 2023). Another group traveled upriver and into the Northern Plains where they would become the Omaha and Ponca tribes. A time after this, the last separation took place, the Kansa Tribe leaving the Osage to travel up the Missouri and onto the Kansas River (Hall 2004; Hunter 2013).
Both the “Chiwere-” and “Dhegiha Siouan” Tribes are considered descendants of the people who lived in Cahokia, some living in the area up until the abandonment of the city in 1300 C.E. (Hunter 2013). The iconography of Cahokian art and artifacts are even reflected in the culture of these tribes today (Diaz-Granados et al. 2001; Berlo and Phillips 2015). After the fall of Cahokia, the region would continue to be occupied by different people. Sometime before the 1600s, tribes of the Illinois Confederacy would move into the American Bottom including the Cahokia (for which the city of Cahokia was later named), Michigamea, Peoria, and Tamaroa (Hall 2004; Sweatman 2010).
In Northwestern Missouri, near where Kansas City rests today, there are a series of archaeological sites which bear a resemblance to Cahokia and other Mississippian sites. These sites in Missouri have been identified as part of the Steed-Kisker phase of the Central Plains tradition (900-1450 C.E.) and are possibly an inheritor of the Kansas City Hopewell culture (Logan 2010; McMillan 2012). Similarities to Cahokian motifs and settlement patterns support the idea that the people who lived there were likely interacting and trading with Cahokia, other Mississippian peoples, and after Cahokia’s decline, the Oneota. While only speculation, it is suggested that the people of the Central Plains tradition would become the Pawnee tribe (Cordell et al. 2009).
In the time before European contact, Missouri would have seen many people come and go through the area on extensive trade avenues. These routes would rely on the many rivers to quickly get from place to place in the Midwest (McMillan 2012; Steinke 2015; Betts 2019). Shaped by this movement on the river, Missouri would become an important part of many different peoples’ cultural landscapes, from the Plains in the west to the Woodlands to the east.
European Contact
In 1492, the extensive colonization of the Americas would begin and in 1539, Hernando de Soto ventured into North America with a small army, spreading death and disease as he went (Sonneborn 2001; Bailey 2004). His party made it as far north as Arkansas, likely encountering the Quapaw, before they turned back. As early as 1580, European trade goods would begin to filter down from the Gulf of St. Lawrence (Mazrim and Esarey 2007). The Tribes in the East and Midwest began to experiment with new forms of art, now using glass beads, wool cloth, and silk ribbon (Wade 1989; Berlo and Phillips 2015; Ahlberg Yohe and Greeves 2019). The new motifs they made would last to the present day.
By 1650, population pressures created by Europeans arriving in the east, started to push Native people further west, instigating intertribal warfare (Sweatman 2010). As the Haudenosaunee, also known as the Iroquois Confederacy, moved into the Eastern Great Lakes, they drove other, smaller tribes out of the area including the Kickapoo, Meskwaki, Miami, Potawatomi, Sauk, and Wendat (Wade 1989; Sweatman 2010). The Wendat Confederacy would split into several groups because of this displacement; after moving into Michigan and Ohio, one group would become known as the Wyandotte (Sonneborn 2001; de Stecher 2022). These smaller tribes would later band together, fighting over land use with the tribes of the Illinois Confederacy, whose population had greatly decreased due to disease and war with the Haudenosaunee. By 1700, the Illinois were only made up of five tribes and by 1832 there were only two: the Peoria and Kaskaskia (Sweatman 2010). Due to warfare and population pressures, both the Delaware and Shawnee had populations living in Missouri as of the late 18th century (Sweatman 2010; Absentee Shawnee Tribe n.d.).
Throughout this time, political alliances with European Nations would shift along with constant war. The French and Indian War, the American Revolution, and the War of 1812 all affected the way Tribal and European Nations interacted, each with their own goals and plans for the future. In 1778, the Delaware were the first Native Nation to enter a treaty with the newly formed United States (Delaware Tribe n.d.).
Removal
In 1804, the Lewis and Clark Expedition departed from St. Louis to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Territory (Sonneborn 2001). After their return in 1806, European Americans quickly invaded Native territories in the west and developed treaties to remove Natives from their lands. In the years from 1804 to 1837, all Native lands in Missouri were ceded, with Missouri officially becoming a state in 1821 (Royce 1899; Kaw Nation 2022). Tribes which have ceded lands in Missouri are the Delaware, Ioway, Kansa, Kaskaskia, Kickapoo, Meskwaki, Missouria, Omaha, Osage, Otoe, Peoria, Piankashaw, Sauk, Shawnee, and Wea (Royce 1899; Sweatman 2010).
In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, which spurred on further removal of Native Americans from their lands in the east (Sonneborn 2001). Many groups of Cherokee traveled through Missouri on their forced removal to Oklahoma in 1838, known as the Trail of Tears (Cherokee Nation). A group of Potawatomi from Indiana also traveled through Missouri that same year during their own removal to Kansas, called the Trail of Death (Sweatman 2010; Potawatomi Trail of Death Association 2023).
Throughout these centuries of displacement, Indigenous Americans found it increasingly difficult to follow traditional ways of life. Many were far from their ancestral homes with the U.S. government continuing to break up their lands with new laws. In the late 19th century, the U.S. government took native children from their families, placing them into boarding schools where they were forcibly assimilated into European American value systems such as Christianity and individualism (Bailey 2004; Berlo and Phillips 2015). Both in and out of boarding schools the expression of Native culture was punishable; and spirituality, language, and customs were criminalized. All of these factors culminated in a great loss of culture and traditional knowledge (Berlo and Phillips 2015).
As Native communities were displaced, they would often find themselves on land where other Native people were already living (Kaw Nation 2022; Wyandotte Nation n.d.). While this often resulted in conflict, it could also result in an exchange of ideas. This is evident not only in culture, but in forms of art, where Woodland-style floral motifs would find their way into the beadwork of the Prairies or styles of ribbon appliqué could be seen in textiles across the United States (Wade 1989). Today, there are many shared motifs in artwork and regalia across Native communities, evident of these cultural exchanges (Dickey 2011).
Euro-American Perceptions of Native Identities
As America moved into the 20th century, early anthropologists began to grow concerned about losing the knowledge only carried by Native Americans, and they began to take initiatives to record their lifeways and customs (Yohe and Greeves 2019). To the Euro-American public, this loss was considered tragic but ultimately “necessary” in the goal of assimilation. In 1904, the World’s Fair came to St. Louis, Missouri, drawing thousands of people across the world to see exhibits of art and science. The anthropological division of the fair created what has been described as “human zoos”, with exhibits featuring indigenous people from around the world for fairgoers to observe (Parezo and Fowler 2007; Sonneborn 2001). Many Native artists attended the fair to display their talents in woodworking, pottery, weaving, basketry, and other crafts.
People from the Acoma Pueblo, Akimel O’odham, Apache, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche, Dakota, Kickapoo, Laguna Pueblo, Lakota, Maricopa, Navajo, Nez Perce, Ojibwa, Osage, Pawnee, Pomo, San Ildefonso Pueblo, Santa Clara Pueblo, Sauk and Fox, and Wichita as well as students from boarding schools were presented as exhibits in the fair (Parezo and Fowler 2007). Exhibits such as these perpetuated the idea that Indigenous people were “primitive”, and that European Americans had the right to take control of these peoples’ lifeways and homelands. In contrast to these ideas of assimilation, the Native people who participated in these displays were discouraged from interacting with or purchasing goods elsewhere at the fair in order to preserve the “authenticity” of the Anthropology exhibits and avoid Euro-American influences (Parezo and Fowler 2007).
The concept of “authentic-ness” would continue to haunt Native art into the 21st century. From the 1700s, Native people would begin to create artwork for European audiences, as the creation of souvenir art often provided reliable income to Native communities (Torrence and Alexander 2020; de Stecher 2022). By the late 19th century, these White audiences began to have doubts on the “authenticity” of Native art, concerned about the influence of Western crafts (Parezo and Fowler 2007; Ohnesorge 2008; Berlo and Phillips 2015). Often, the concepts of traditional and Native versus modern and contemporary art are unable to coexist within the same space (Anthes 2006). Similarly, this mimics many European Americans’ perceptions of Native communities living in the past and not the present (Pauketat 2004; Ohnesorge 2008).
Present and Future
As of 2024, there are no federally recognized tribes within the state of Missouri, but nonetheless, Native stories and experiences have an impact on the history of the state. Despite the hardships of displacement and forced assimilation, Native people continued to create art and pass it on to the next generation. Art has always been a medium of expression for both the self and community, be those emotions grief, nostalgia, anger, joy, or hope. We hope that this resource may be used to find Native artists and their expressions through the artwork they created with consideration to their stories and what it means for Missouri history.
Select Sources
Wyandotte Nation, “Our History,” Culture, Wyandotte Nation, accessed August 13, 2024, https://wyandotte-nation.org/culture/our-history/.
Edwin L. Wade and the Philbrook Art Center, The Arts of the North American Indian: Native Traditions in Evolution (New York: Hudson Hills Press, Tulsa: The Philbrook Art Center, 1989).
Gaylord Torrence, Marjorie Alexander, and Stephanie Fox Knappe, Continuum: Native North American Art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2020).
Dennis Sweatman, “Comparing the Modern Native American Presence in Illinois with Other States of the Old Northwest Territory,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 103, no. 3/4 (Fall-Winter 2010): 252-315.
Liz Sonneborn, Chronology of American Indian History: The Trail of the Wind (New York: Facts on File, 2001).
Sac & Fox, “History of the Tribe,” History, Sac & Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska, accessed August 13, 2024, https://www.sacandfoxks.com/history/tribe.
Charles C. Royce and Cyrus Thomas, “Indian Land Cessions in the United States,” In Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 56th Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives, document no. 736 (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1899), no. 2, 521-997, https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llscd/llss4015/llss4015.pdf.
Jack H. Ray, Neal H. Lopinot, Edwin R. Hajie, and Randolph D. Mandel, “The Big Eddy Site: A Multicomponent Paleoindian Site on the Ozark Border, Southwest Missouri,” Plains Anthropologist 43, no. 163 (February 1998): 73-81.
Ponca Tribe, “Tribal Historic Preservation Office,” Tribal Government, Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, accessed August 15, 2024, https://www.ponca-nsn.gov/historic-preservation.html.
Peoria Tribe, “History,” About, Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, accessed August 13, 2024, https://peoriatribe.com/history/.
Timothy R. Pauketat, Ancient Cahokia and the Mississippians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
Otoe-Missouria Tribe, “Otoe & Missouria: Five Hundred Years of History,” History, Who We Are, The Otoe-Missouria Tribe, accessed August 13, 2024, https://www.omtribe.org/who-we-are/history/.
Meskwaki Nation, “The Meskwaki Nation’s History,” History, Sac & Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa, accessed August 13, 2024, https://www.meskwaki.org/history/.
Robert Mazrim and Duane Esarey, “Rethinking the Dawn of History: The Schedule, Signature, and Agency of European Goods in Protohistoric Illinois,” Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 32, no. 2 (Fall 2007): 145-200.
Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma, “About the Iowa Tribe,” About Us, Iowa Nation, accessed August 13, 2024, https://iowanation.org/about-us/.
Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska, “About Us,” Home, Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska, accessed August 23, 2024, https://iowatribeofkansasandnebraska.com/about-us/.
Andrea A. Hunter, James Munkres, and Barker Fariss, “Osage Cultural History,” The Osage Nation, excerpt from Osage Nation NAGPRA Claim for Human Remains Removed from the Clarksville Mound Group (23PI6), Pike County, Missouri (2013) accessed August 13, 2024, https://www.osagenation-nsn.gov/who-we-are/historic-preservation/osage-cultural-history.
Dale Henning and Thomas Thiessen, “Dhegihan and Chiwere Siouans in the Plains: Historical and Archaeological Perspectives” Plains Anthropologist 49, No. 192 Memoir 36, November 2004.
Russell W. Graham, C. Vance Haynes, Donald Lee Johnson, and Marvin Kay, “Kimmswick: A Clovis-Mastodon Association in Eastern Missouri,” Science 213, no. 4512 (September 4, 1981): 1115-1117.
Delaware Tribe, “About the Delaware Tribe of Indians,” About the Tribe, Delaware Tribe of Indians, accessed August 13, 2024, https://delawaretribe.org/home-page/about-the-tribe/.
Linda S. Cordell, Kent G. Lightfoot, and George Milner, Archaeology in America: An Encyclopedia: Midwest and Great Plains/Rocky Mountains, ed. Francis P. McManamon, Vol. 2 (Westport: Greenwood, 2008).
Colin M. Betts, “Paouté and Aiaouez,” Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 44, no. 1 (Spring 2019): 94-112.
Janet Catherine Berlo and Buth B. Phillips, Native North American Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015).
Rachael Bandy, “O-ga-xpa Ma-zhon, Quapaw Country,” Historic Area of Interest Guide, Quapaw Nation, accessed August 15, 2024, https://www.quapawtribe.com/DocumentCenter/View/11192/Quapaw-Country-11-2-2023?bidId=.
Jill Ahlberg Yohe and Teri Greeves. Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists (Minneapolis: Minneapolis Institute of Art, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019).
Absentee Shawnee Tribe, “The Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma History,” About Us, Absentee Shawnee Tribe, accessed August 13, 2024, https://www.astribe.com/about-us.
Contributors
Katie McClure, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
People have lived in the land which we now know as the state of Missouri for thousands of years. Oral tradition, archaeology, and linguistics can tell us this. To accurately convey the history of Missouri, the beginning must not be in 1821, when it became a state, or in 1812 when it was a territory of the United States, but when people first lived in and identified with the land which would become Missouri.
Early History
The earliest recovered pieces of physical evidence which are able to place people in the area, date as far back as 12,000 years ago. An archaeological site south of St. Louis, called the Kimmswick site, found the remains of bison and mastodon in association with stone tools, known as “Clovis” points (Graham et al. 1981). Many different cultural groups would come and go including the Adena, Hopewellian, Mississippian, and Oneota cultures.
The Mississippian culture from 800 to 1500 C.E. had an incredible sphere of influence over the eastern half of North America, stretching from the Plains of the Upper Missouri River and into the Southeast as far as the Appalachians and Gulf Coast (Pauketat 2004). One center of Mississippian culture was located in the area known as the American Bottom, a stretch of fertile land within the Mississippi River Valley where it met with the Illinois, Missouri, and Ohio rivers (Cordell et al. 2009). From this fertile land grew the city of Cahokia, occupied from 900 to 1300 C.E.; it was a center of trade, religion, and politics, likely due to the abundance of resources in the area and the availability of rivers for travel (Pauketat 2004). At its height in 1200, Cahokia was estimated to have boasted a population as large as 20,000 people (Berlo and Phillips 2015). By 1300, however, the city had been almost entirely abandoned, leaving a vacant corridor in the American Bottom (Hall 2004). While the cause of the fall of Cahokia remains unknown, it is suspected that climate change, the pressures of maintaining a large population, and political unrest were factors of its decline and eventual abandonment (Pauketat 2004).
The city of Cahokia is best known for its large mound structures. These mounds served various purposes; while they originally had a funerary context, by 600 C.E. they would become the foundations for culturally significant buildings such as places of worship and the homes of leaders (Hall 2004; Cordell et al. 2009). Due to urban and residential development beginning in the 18th century, many of the mounds of Cahokia have since been demolished (Pauketat 2004; Dickey 2011).
Native Identities
While the Oneota are often associated with archaeological sites further north in the Western Great Lakes Region, they could be found as far south as the Lower Missouri river (Olson 2008; Logan 2010). They are generally seen as both a contemporary and an inheritor of the people who lived in Cahokia (Olson 2008; Dickey 2011). The tribes which claim ancestry from the Oneota are also referred to as the “Chiwere Sioux”, a term given by anthropologists based on linguistic features. This group is comprised of the Ioway, Missouria, and Otoe Tribes (Hall 2004; Iowa Tribe n.d.).
According to both oral tradition and linguistic evidence, the group, termed the “Dhegiha Sioux”, again named by anthropologists, traveled westward from the Ohio River Valley to Missouri (Hall 2004; Hunter 2013; Bandy 2023). Upon their arrival to the Mississippi River, the group began to split up into separate tribes. One tribe, called the Quapaw, moved south and into Arkansas (Bandy 2023). Another group traveled upriver and into the Northern Plains where they would become the Omaha and Ponca tribes. A time after this, the last separation took place, the Kansa Tribe leaving the Osage to travel up the Missouri and onto the Kansas River (Hall 2004; Hunter 2013).
Both the “Chiwere-” and “Dhegiha Siouan” Tribes are considered descendants of the people who lived in Cahokia, some living in the area up until the abandonment of the city in 1300 C.E. (Hunter 2013). The iconography of Cahokian art and artifacts are even reflected in the culture of these tribes today (Diaz-Granados et al. 2001; Berlo and Phillips 2015). After the fall of Cahokia, the region would continue to be occupied by different people. Sometime before the 1600s, tribes of the Illinois Confederacy would move into the American Bottom including the Cahokia (for which the city of Cahokia was later named), Michigamea, Peoria, and Tamaroa (Hall 2004; Sweatman 2010).
In Northwestern Missouri, near where Kansas City rests today, there are a series of archaeological sites which bear a resemblance to Cahokia and other Mississippian sites. These sites in Missouri have been identified as part of the Steed-Kisker phase of the Central Plains tradition (900-1450 C.E.) and are possibly an inheritor of the Kansas City Hopewell culture (Logan 2010; McMillan 2012). Similarities to Cahokian motifs and settlement patterns support the idea that the people who lived there were likely interacting and trading with Cahokia, other Mississippian peoples, and after Cahokia’s decline, the Oneota. While only speculation, it is suggested that the people of the Central Plains tradition would become the Pawnee tribe (Cordell et al. 2009).
In the time before European contact, Missouri would have seen many people come and go through the area on extensive trade avenues. These routes would rely on the many rivers to quickly get from place to place in the Midwest (McMillan 2012; Steinke 2015; Betts 2019). Shaped by this movement on the river, Missouri would become an important part of many different peoples’ cultural landscapes, from the Plains in the west to the Woodlands to the east.
European Contact
In 1492, the extensive colonization of the Americas would begin and in 1539, Hernando de Soto ventured into North America with a small army, spreading death and disease as he went (Sonneborn 2001; Bailey 2004). His party made it as far north as Arkansas, likely encountering the Quapaw, before they turned back. As early as 1580, European trade goods would begin to filter down from the Gulf of St. Lawrence (Mazrim and Esarey 2007). The Tribes in the East and Midwest began to experiment with new forms of art, now using glass beads, wool cloth, and silk ribbon (Wade 1989; Berlo and Phillips 2015; Ahlberg Yohe and Greeves 2019). The new motifs they made would last to the present day.
By 1650, population pressures created by Europeans arriving in the east, started to push Native people further west, instigating intertribal warfare (Sweatman 2010). As the Haudenosaunee, also known as the Iroquois Confederacy, moved into the Eastern Great Lakes, they drove other, smaller tribes out of the area including the Kickapoo, Meskwaki, Miami, Potawatomi, Sauk, and Wendat (Wade 1989; Sweatman 2010). The Wendat Confederacy would split into several groups because of this displacement; after moving into Michigan and Ohio, one group would become known as the Wyandotte (Sonneborn 2001; de Stecher 2022). These smaller tribes would later band together, fighting over land use with the tribes of the Illinois Confederacy, whose population had greatly decreased due to disease and war with the Haudenosaunee. By 1700, the Illinois were only made up of five tribes and by 1832 there were only two: the Peoria and Kaskaskia (Sweatman 2010). Due to warfare and population pressures, both the Delaware and Shawnee had populations living in Missouri as of the late 18th century (Sweatman 2010; Absentee Shawnee Tribe n.d.).
Throughout this time, political alliances with European Nations would shift along with constant war. The French and Indian War, the American Revolution, and the War of 1812 all affected the way Tribal and European Nations interacted, each with their own goals and plans for the future. In 1778, the Delaware were the first Native Nation to enter a treaty with the newly formed United States (Delaware Tribe n.d.).
Removal
In 1804, the Lewis and Clark Expedition departed from St. Louis to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Territory (Sonneborn 2001). After their return in 1806, European Americans quickly invaded Native territories in the west and developed treaties to remove Natives from their lands. In the years from 1804 to 1837, all Native lands in Missouri were ceded, with Missouri officially becoming a state in 1821 (Royce 1899; Kaw Nation 2022). Tribes which have ceded lands in Missouri are the Delaware, Ioway, Kansa, Kaskaskia, Kickapoo, Meskwaki, Missouria, Omaha, Osage, Otoe, Peoria, Piankashaw, Sauk, Shawnee, and Wea (Royce 1899; Sweatman 2010).
In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, which spurred on further removal of Native Americans from their lands in the east (Sonneborn 2001). Many groups of Cherokee traveled through Missouri on their forced removal to Oklahoma in 1838, known as the Trail of Tears (Cherokee Nation). A group of Potawatomi from Indiana also traveled through Missouri that same year during their own removal to Kansas, called the Trail of Death (Sweatman 2010; Potawatomi Trail of Death Association 2023).
Throughout these centuries of displacement, Indigenous Americans found it increasingly difficult to follow traditional ways of life. Many were far from their ancestral homes with the U.S. government continuing to break up their lands with new laws. In the late 19th century, the U.S. government took native children from their families, placing them into boarding schools where they were forcibly assimilated into European American value systems such as Christianity and individualism (Bailey 2004; Berlo and Phillips 2015). Both in and out of boarding schools the expression of Native culture was punishable; and spirituality, language, and customs were criminalized. All of these factors culminated in a great loss of culture and traditional knowledge (Berlo and Phillips 2015).
As Native communities were displaced, they would often find themselves on land where other Native people were already living (Kaw Nation 2022; Wyandotte Nation n.d.). While this often resulted in conflict, it could also result in an exchange of ideas. This is evident not only in culture, but in forms of art, where Woodland-style floral motifs would find their way into the beadwork of the Prairies or styles of ribbon appliqué could be seen in textiles across the United States (Wade 1989). Today, there are many shared motifs in artwork and regalia across Native communities, evident of these cultural exchanges (Dickey 2011).
Euro-American Perceptions of Native Identities
As America moved into the 20th century, early anthropologists began to grow concerned about losing the knowledge only carried by Native Americans, and they began to take initiatives to record their lifeways and customs (Yohe and Greeves 2019). To the Euro-American public, this loss was considered tragic but ultimately “necessary” in the goal of assimilation. In 1904, the World’s Fair came to St. Louis, Missouri, drawing thousands of people across the world to see exhibits of art and science. The anthropological division of the fair created what has been described as “human zoos”, with exhibits featuring indigenous people from around the world for fairgoers to observe (Parezo and Fowler 2007; Sonneborn 2001). Many Native artists attended the fair to display their talents in woodworking, pottery, weaving, basketry, and other crafts.
People from the Acoma Pueblo, Akimel O’odham, Apache, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche, Dakota, Kickapoo, Laguna Pueblo, Lakota, Maricopa, Navajo, Nez Perce, Ojibwa, Osage, Pawnee, Pomo, San Ildefonso Pueblo, Santa Clara Pueblo, Sauk and Fox, and Wichita as well as students from boarding schools were presented as exhibits in the fair (Parezo and Fowler 2007). Exhibits such as these perpetuated the idea that Indigenous people were “primitive”, and that European Americans had the right to take control of these peoples’ lifeways and homelands. In contrast to these ideas of assimilation, the Native people who participated in these displays were discouraged from interacting with or purchasing goods elsewhere at the fair in order to preserve the “authenticity” of the Anthropology exhibits and avoid Euro-American influences (Parezo and Fowler 2007).
The concept of “authentic-ness” would continue to haunt Native art into the 21st century. From the 1700s, Native people would begin to create artwork for European audiences, as the creation of souvenir art often provided reliable income to Native communities (Torrence and Alexander 2020; de Stecher 2022). By the late 19th century, these White audiences began to have doubts on the “authenticity” of Native art, concerned about the influence of Western crafts (Parezo and Fowler 2007; Ohnesorge 2008; Berlo and Phillips 2015). Often, the concepts of traditional and Native versus modern and contemporary art are unable to coexist within the same space (Anthes 2006). Similarly, this mimics many European Americans’ perceptions of Native communities living in the past and not the present (Pauketat 2004; Ohnesorge 2008).
Present and Future
As of 2024, there are no federally recognized tribes within the state of Missouri, but nonetheless, Native stories and experiences have an impact on the history of the state. Despite the hardships of displacement and forced assimilation, Native people continued to create art and pass it on to the next generation. Art has always been a medium of expression for both the self and community, be those emotions grief, nostalgia, anger, joy, or hope. We hope that this resource may be used to find Native artists and their expressions through the artwork they created with consideration to their stories and what it means for Missouri history.
Select Sources
Wyandotte Nation, “Our History,” Culture, Wyandotte Nation, accessed August 13, 2024, https://wyandotte-nation.org/culture/our-history/.
Edwin L. Wade and the Philbrook Art Center, The Arts of the North American Indian: Native Traditions in Evolution (New York: Hudson Hills Press, Tulsa: The Philbrook Art Center, 1989).
Gaylord Torrence, Marjorie Alexander, and Stephanie Fox Knappe, Continuum: Native North American Art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2020).
Dennis Sweatman, “Comparing the Modern Native American Presence in Illinois with Other States of the Old Northwest Territory,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 103, no. 3/4 (Fall-Winter 2010): 252-315.
Liz Sonneborn, Chronology of American Indian History: The Trail of the Wind (New York: Facts on File, 2001).
Sac & Fox, “History of the Tribe,” History, Sac & Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska, accessed August 13, 2024, https://www.sacandfoxks.com/history/tribe.
Charles C. Royce and Cyrus Thomas, “Indian Land Cessions in the United States,” In Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 56th Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives, document no. 736 (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1899), no. 2, 521-997, https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llscd/llss4015/llss4015.pdf.
Jack H. Ray, Neal H. Lopinot, Edwin R. Hajie, and Randolph D. Mandel, “The Big Eddy Site: A Multicomponent Paleoindian Site on the Ozark Border, Southwest Missouri,” Plains Anthropologist 43, no. 163 (February 1998): 73-81.
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Contributors
Katie McClure, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
- Location
-
Missouri
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