Moanahonga (Great Walker), An Ioway Chief

In this striking portrait of Moanahonga (Great Walker), Charles Bird King carefully renders markers of the sitter's leadership and power—his extraordinary gunstock war club with pierced decoration on the iron blade, his tufted deerskin headdress (called a roach), red-tipped feathers, silver and shell jewelry, and his body paint in red and black, all of which refer to his tribal status and skill as a warrior. Commissioned by the U.S. government, King produced over a hundred such portraits of Native American leaders who had come to Washington, D.C., during the 1820s and 1840s to negotiate treaty settlements. The visit in 1824 by Moanahonga and seventeen Ioway (Iowa) leaders resulted in the dispossession of their land in the northern half of Missouri and the group's removal westward to what is now the Kansas-Nebraska border.