Book Review: Faces from the Interior: The North American Portraits of Karl Bodmer

 Faces from the Interior: The North American Portraits of Karl Bodmer Toby Jurovics, editor, Margre H. Durham Center for Western Studies, Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, 2121.

Karl Bodmer traveled with Prince Maximilian up the Missouri river in 1832-34.  Maximilian was the energy behind the trip, while Bodmer provided the scientific view and the paintings of local fauna and Native Americans.  The trip covered paintings from many different tribal groups: Sauk, Meswaki, Omaha, Ponca, Yankton Sioux, Yanktonai Sioux, Lakota Sioux, Arikara, Mandan, Hidatsa, Assiniboine, Gros Ventre, Piegan Blackfoot, Siksika Blackfoot, Kainai Blackfoot, Shoshone, Cree.  This study of art includes not only portraits of native Amerians, although it has plenty of these.  It also has flora, animals, and lodges and dwellings as well as landscape drawings.  Most of the artwork is housed at the Joslyn museum.  There is a previous publication, shortly after the expedition.  However this book has a modern reflection of these earlier works.  Most of the paintings were water colors with graphite on paper.  There are only two paintings of Omaha, a man and a boy, but other tribes are better represented.

Native American Biography: Weetamoo

 Weetamoo was born in the 1600s.  She was the daughter of Corbitant, the leader of the Algonquin speaking Pocasset Tribe.  They were related to the Massasoit people.  Massasoit was the grand sachem or head leader of several groups.   Weetamoo and her sister married two sons of Massasoit, her sister aMetacomet or Prince Phillip and herself Wamsutta, the older son.  Wamsutta becme the chief Sachem when Massasoit passed away.  Weetamoo became the leader of the Pocasset Tribe.  Wamsutta tried to sellf Pocasset land to the British which upset his wife.  He passed away from an illness while still young.  Weetamoo remarried, but her next husband wanted to appease the British.  Metacomet at first tried to live with the newcomers, but eventually decided he could not.  Thus followed Prince Phillip's War.  Weetamoo had an instrumental part in this, providing canoes for the people of Metacomet to escape when they had been trapped.  She remarried Quinnapin, and they were united in their quest to achieve independence for their people.  For an entire year they battled back and forth, and did not have time to plant or harvest.  They experienced increasing hunger.  Eventually both she and her husband would be killed.  She drowned trying to escape, and her body when discovered was beheaded and her head displayed for many years.  

Weetamoo was a woman who was willing to fight and die for her people.  

Joseph Smith Is a Prophet: The Burnt District

 The Lord said through Joseph Smith in section 121, "15 And not many years hence, that they and their posterity shall be swept from under heaven, saith God, that not one of them is left to stand by the wall.

16 Cursed are all those that shall lift up the heel against mine anointed, saith the Lord, and cry they have sinned when they have not sinned before me, saith the Lord, but have done that which was meet in mine eyes, and which I commanded them.

17 But those who cry transgression do it because they are the servants of sin, and are the children of disobedience themselves.

18 And those who swear falsely against my servants, that they might bring them into bondage and death—

19 Wo unto them; because they have offended my little ones they shall be severed from the ordinances of mine house.

20 Their basket shall not be full, their houses and their barns shall perish, and they themselves shall be despised by those that flattered them.   And in a conversation with Alexander Doniphan where he advised him not to take land in Jackson County.   "God's wrath hangs over Jackson County. God's people have been ruthlessly driven from it, and you will live to see the day when it will be visited by fire and sword… and only the chimneys will be left to mark the desolation".   

Sheri and I visited Harrisonville, Missouri Cass County where they have erected a memorial to this 

time in their history.  Cass county is one of three evacuated during the war.

The monument is a chimney, which is keeping with Joseph Smith's prophesy

Order 11 lead to the forced evacuation of the territory by militia from Kansas.  People would not return until after the war, but most of the original residents would never return.

A Jennison tombstone is a chimney left after the homes were burnt

monument of the forced evacuation

History of Omaha area by the Decade from Durham Museum

This history does not start at the beginning.  There is history before 1800, geologic and Native American.

1800s  Lewis and Clark travel up the Missouri after the Louisiana Purchase.  Manuel Lisa leads a group of men up the Missouri representing the Missouri Fur Company

1810s  Fort Lisa is established in the north Omaha area

1820s. Fort Atkinson established north of Omaha.  Second trading post of Missouri Fur Company established in Bellevue.  First American Fur Company Post established north of Omaha.

1830s  Office of Indian Affairs established in Bellevue.  Baptist missionaries establish mission near Bellevue.  Treaty of Bellevue the Omaha Indian cede land east of the Missouri River for land near Bellevue

1840s. Peter Sarpy establishes ferry near Bellevue.  Presbyterian mission is established in Bellevue.  Mormons under Brigham establish temporary residence in Winter Quarters, now Florence, and Kanesville, now Council Bluffs.

1850s. Nebraska becomes a territory and Omaha becomes the capital.  Omaha becomes a major outfitting point for the Colorado Gold Rush

1860s. Civil War takes place, Telegraph and Railway construction begins.  Nebraska becomes a state and the capital is moved to Lincoln.

1870s   Union Pacific railway bridge is completed over the Missouri River.  Creighton University is established in Omaha.  Ponce Indian Chief wins landmark case in Omaha establishing Native Americans as people.  Telephone service comes to Omaha.

1880s Northwestern Electric Light Company brings electricity to Omaha.  First passenger bridge across the Missouri charges 5 cent toll per person.  South Omaha established as meet packing area.

1890s Tom Dennison establishes political maching in Omaha.  Knights of Aksarben crown first king and queen.  Prague Hotel becomes community center of Czech citizens.  Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition takes places in north Omaha.

1900s  Omaha and Council Bluffs Street Railway Company established.  J.L. Brandeis & Sons modern department store established.  James C. Dahlman is elected mayor.

1910s tornado hits Omaha.  WWI begins and is ater joined by the United States.  Dundee, South Omaha, Florence and Benson communities are annexed by Omaha.  Father Flanagan opens first boys home.  1919 riots and lynching of William Brown.

1920s radio begins broadcasting. Orpheum Theater is built.  Henry Fonda takes the stage at Omaha Community Playhouse.  Malcolm X is born in Omaha.

1930s. The film Boys Town premiers in Omaha.  WWII begins in Europe.  Omaha Union Station opens.

1940s. Pearl Harbor attacked and AMerica joins WWII.  Martin Bomber Plant at Offutt in Bellevue employs 14,000 people and produces B-29s including those that dropped nuclear bombs in Japan.  National scrap drive is initiated in Omaha.  After the war Offutt becimes Strategic Air Command.  Elizabeth Davis Pittman is first black woman to graduate from Creighton University and practice law in Nebraska.  Television comes to Omaha.

1950s. Omaha stockyards surpass Chicago for busiest in the world.   Omaha's centennial is celebrated.  Street cars discontinue service in 1959.  College World Series comes to Omaha.

1960s The meat packing companies in Omaha begin to close.  Bob Boozer wins gold in basketball at the Olympics in Rome becoming the only African American from Omaha to do so.  Bob Gibson of Omaha wins Cy Young Award.

1970s Elizabeth Davis Pittman becomes a judge, first African American and first woman judge in Omaha.  Millard is annexed into Omaha.  Amtrak takes over passenger train service and the Omaha Union Station closes.  Central Park Mall (later to become Gene Leahy Mall) is authorized.  Omaha is hit by wether, both blizzard, resulting in five deaths and many rescued by National Guard, and tornado.  Western Heritage Museum (later Durham) takes up residence in Omaha Union Station.  

1980s Brandeis store closes and telemarketing becomes a big business in Omaha.  ConAgra Foods comes to Omaha.

1990s Joselyn Art Museum opens in Omaha.  Omaha Stockyards close.

2000. First National Tower (tallest building in Omaha) opens.  Qwest Center (CHI Health Center) opens.  Holland Performing Arts Center opens.  Omaha Nebraskan Warren Buffet announces larges philanthropic gift in history.

1898 The Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition: Model at Durham Museum

 As I noted in a different b log, most of the world's fair from 1898 is gone except for a small portion that was made into a park.  Durham Museum has a model of the exposition.  A large lagoon was created with surrounding buildings.  The construction was not meant to be permanent and was removed after the exposition.

A model replica under glass

This replica is of larger size and you can walk through the arch.