Ethnography: Thomas L. McKenny and his Encyclopedia

The portraits of many early Native leaders, including Menawa of the Creek, Major Ridge of the Cherokee, William McIntosh of the Creek, Red Jacket of the Seneca and several others owe their preservation to the work of several men, but most notably painter Charles Bird King and the first Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Thomas Lorraine McKenny (1785-1859). 

McKenny was born in Hopewell, Maryland to a Quaker family.  His religious beliefs would later shape his attitude toward Natives.  He believed that Natives were the intellectual and moral equal of Whites because they, too, possessed souls.  This was radical thinking for its day.  He was appointed to head the then-United States Department of Indian Trade, which was abolished in 1824 and recreated as the Bureau of Indian Affairs.  In these positions, McKinney was able to see first hand how American policy toward the Native people was leading to the destruction of their society and, he believed, perhaps their extinction as well.  He was one of many government officials, artists, scientists and others who believed that the incursion of Whites on Native land would ultimately lead to Natives becoming extinct.  Others who held to these "last of a dying breed" ideas included both King and Catlin. 

McKinney decided that, before Natives became extinct, he would compile as much information about them, their leaders, their tribes and customs into one place, his encyclopedia entitled History of the Indian Tribes of North America.  Whenever Native leaders came to Washington to negotiate treaties or present their requests to the federal government, they would often set for portraits with Charles Bird King.  With McKinney's oversight, colored lithographs were made of Bird's paintings and James Hall wrote detail autobiographies of the various leaders.  The three-volume set was finally published in 1844 and became the standard reference work on Native life throughout the 19th century.  It remains an important repository of knowledge about some Native leaders who would otherwise have been forgotten, and a preservation aid for much of King's work, which was destroyed in a fire at the Smithsonian in 1865.

Although McKinney believed in Indian Removal, he was dismissed under the Jackson administration because of his beliefs about the racial equality of Natives.  He spent the rest of his life trying to publish and promote his encyclopedia and died in New York in 1859.