Main content
Course: The Seeing America Project > Unit 2
Lesson 2: 1200-1870- America before Columbus: a Mississippian view of the cosmos
- Fashioning diplomacy: the Anishinaabe, Britain, and 18th-century America
- Wilderness, settlement, and American identity
- Before the Civil War, the Mexican-American War as prelude
- Before the Civil War, the Mexican-American War as prelude
- Jasper Francis Cropsey, Mount Jefferson, Pinkham Notch, White Mountains
- Representing freedom during the Civil War
© 2024 Khan AcademyTerms of usePrivacy PolicyCookie Notice
Fashioning diplomacy: the Anishinaabe, Britain, and 18th-century America
The Anishinaabe outfit, housed in the National Museum of the American Indian, tells a story of global trade and alliances from 1790. Crafted with materials from Britain, India, and Native America, it reflects the interconnected world of the time. The outfit's detailed design highlights the artistic brilliance of Native women. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- These outfits are amazing the materials come from all sorts of trades around the world.(5 votes)
- 5:28did they mention what type of hair that is?(3 votes)
- Who else is interested with these outfits?(3 votes)
- furs.......okay its kinda boring and again,pro:WE CAN LEARN HISTORY!,con:soooooo boring.....(0 votes)
- When I feel myself as bored, it's usually a problem within me. I'm bored with myself, so all things are boring to me.(7 votes)
- How long do you think it would take to make and collect all the resources?(1 vote)
- who was he fighting in South Africa?6:34(1 vote)
- friendship and cooperation between indigenous peoples and their colonizers is a very interesting thing to me(1 vote)
Video transcript
(piano music) - [Dr. Zucker] We're in the National Museum of the American Indian looking at this magnificent
Anishinaabe outfit. - [Dr. Penney] It was
collected by a lieutenant in the British Army, a
guy named Andrew Foster, who was stationed in the Great Lakes area between Detroit and Michilimackinac, the head quarters of
the British occupation of the Great Lakes. So in this important strategic zone where the British could
control trade routes. - [Dr. Zucker] First the French came in, looking for furs in this area and were eventually
displaced by the British. This was a very lucrative trade. Now this is a complicated moment. This is about 1790, so the United States has already declared its independence from Britain and there are tensions
between the young republic on the East Coast and Britain, which controls what we know call Canada and this area around the Great Lakes. - [Dr. Penney] So the United
States has been trying to claim its possessions and determine
what the border's going to be in the Great Lakes and
the British of course trying to protect their trade
interests are resisting. Their allies are their
native trade partners like the Anishinaabe
also known as the Ojibwa, Chippewa, Odawa, Ottawa,
all under the umbrella of the term Anishinaabe which is the word that in Anishinaabuem language means "the people", means "ourselves". After the revolution, many
loyalists had escaped to Canada the border in between the
United States and Canada was very unclear and
contested in the 1790s so the British needed their allies, they stepped up their diplomatic efforts, they increased the amount
of trade and all in response to the threat of the Americans
coming from the south. - [Dr. Zucker] We use the
term collected to refer to Andrew Foster taking
ownership of this outfit but likely it was made
for him specifically and it was made as part of ritual trade. - [Dr. Penney] Part of
the relationships between the British and their
Native allies would include opportunities for mutual gift giving and many of the gifts were clothing so the leaders among the
Anishinaabe would receive military coats and other
elements of uniforms, several British officers
received complete outfits like this one and very
likely in the ritual they are dressed from head to toe. It really was about mutual respect. - [Dr. Zucker] When we
look at the outfit closely, we see this is part of an
international trade network. - [Dr. Penney] The cotton
shirt was in fact manufactured in Britain but the cotton
the shirt was made from was grown and exported from
the subcontinent of India brought to Britain the
milled in their factories, with an eye to its
export to North America, so the length of the shirt, the use of that floral patterning,
all was intended to appeal to their native trade partners. - [Dr. Zucker] So this
is being manufactured specifically to the styles that the Native Americans would be receptive to. - [Dr. Penney] Exactly, so
if we look at the necklace with the two panels with thunderbirds, we can see that they are
made out of glass beads, the glass beads were produced in Venice and exported but the
white and dark blue color were an attempt to replicate
the color and the texture of shell beads, known
technically as wampum so we often refer to
that as imitation wampum but they're beads created
to resemble a bead that's made out of shell in North America. - [Dr. Zucker] Although the
shirt was likely manufactured in Britain, it's been
ornamented, it's covered with little silver ringlets which were also meant specifically for trade. - [Dr. Penney] We call them broaches and they're created individually
and traded individually but then you can arrange
them in these patterns, you can see kind of a grid on this shirt or clustered all over the headdress. There are also a number of
objects that are made out of materials native to North America, he's wearing a little
belt pouch on his sash that's made out of deer hide
that's been dyed a darker brown with black walnut hulls
and then decorated with porcupine quills, same
is true for his moccasins where he has deer skin moccasins that are decorated with porcupine quills. - [Dr. Zucker] And those
moccasins may not be Anishinaabe, they may be Huron-Wendat which
speaks to the trade networks of the Native Americans themselves. - [Dr. Penney] And a certain
amount of craft specialization, this is a kind of moccasin that we see around the Great Lakes, we think they were manufactured
downriver from Detroit but they show up all
around the Great Lakes area and we think they're made
by Huron-Wendat women and then exchanged and traded. - [Dr. Zucker] And obviously sought after. - [Dr. Penney] You see the
tremendous craftsmanship, particularly with the
decoration on the vamp where there are a number of
different kinds of techniques, the quills have to be
processed, sorted to size, flattened, dyed and then
are applied to the surface, sometimes in that zigzag
rows you see on the outside or in very tight woven patterns. - [Dr. Zucker] They're really beautiful and they're a bit iridescent. - [Dr. Penney] And there's
also an audible quality to them this fringe of red, they're
attached to little tin cones that have been bent and that
red deer hair is inserted so that when you walk they kind of tinkle. - [Dr. Zucker] And I see that
also in the pouch on the belt and in the headdress and I can imagine that the silver broached also make sound and so I can imagine
just how much this outfit comes alive when it's worn. - [Dr. Penney] The headdress
is of a turban form, made of black cloth, decorated
with those silver broaches and standing straight up are
a series of eagle feathers. The feathers are supported by
what we call feather sticks wrapped with porcupine quills
and those wonderful red and sort of black and
white checkerwork patterns and then attached to the feather sticks are those tassels of red dear hair. - [Dr. Zucker] It's what we're
seeing is this astonishing synthesis of indigenous
traditions with new imports and this willingness to
adopt new technologies. - [Dr. Penney] This is really the genius of Native women artists of this era, they're taking these raw materials of these manufactured products,
the wool, wool yarn, silk, metal and so on and
then transforming them with a variety of different
meticulous techniques based upon traditional
techniques of working with indigenous fibers but
then updated to include these new materials and new tools as well. Steel needles and most
importantly scissors. - [Dr. Zucker] So we
have cotton from India, manufactured in Great
Britain, sent and reworked in the New World and then
given to a British officer who would then bring it back to Britain and presumably even wear
it, there is one example of a man wearing and outfit from this area in a portrait that is now in Liverpool. I find fascinating that these cultures that we often think of as so separate have such an integrated relationship. - [Dr. Penney] And of
course that was the notion of the British Empire,
to knit all this together where they were able to
assemble raw materials from all over the world,
remanufacture them or reconstitute them
as marketable products. So Andrew Foster,
lieutenant of the 24th Foot was stations in Mackinac
to help this progress of British Empire and
its commercial success. He left in 1796 and then
we learn subsequently sadly he was part of
an expeditionary force to South Africa and
died in battle in 1806. (piano music)