“Indian of the Nation of the Shawanoes”

This engraving, entitled “Indian of the Nation of the Shawanoes,” appeared in A Journey in North America (1826) by Georges Henri Victor Collot. The engraving, probably by Jean Baptiste Pierre Tardieu, was based on a sketch by Collot, drawn during his 1796 cartographical journey on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Collot intended the sketch to be representative of what an average member of the Shawnee looked like, as the purpose of his travels was to create a resource that would be of political use to the French government, at that time interested in reviving imperial interests in North America.