Historical Caricature of the Cherokee Nation

A political cartoon from 1886 shows a prostrate, giant-sized Cherokee man, labeled as representing the “Cherokee Nation,” tied down and picked apart by crowds of tiny people representing the United States. The scene is clear reference to Gulliver and the Lilliputians in the book Gulliver’s Travels (1726). The U.S. Courts cut the man’s hair, while missionaries drill into his skull. A man whitewashes the results of an investigation delegation of 1883, while railroads further divide the man, symbolized as pulling apart his legs. The message of the cartoon is that the Cherokee Nation’s land and culture was being taken apart and destroyed to suit various competing interests of the United States.