Hoowanneka (Little Elk), Ho-Chunk (Winnebago)

This portrait is tied to a larger early nineteenth-century effort to document indigenous cultures believed to be on the edge of extinction. Little Elk is one of the almost two hundred portraits of Native American leaders that Charles Bird King painted for Thomas McKenney, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs in the U.S. War Department. An outspoken champion of westward expansion and a strong advocate for Indian removal, McKenney aspired “to collect whatever of the aboriginal man can be rescued from the ultimate destruction which awaits his race.” Little Elk sat for King while he was in Washington, DC, to negotiate a treaty on behalf of the Winnebago tribe of Illinois and Wisconsin. King portrayed his subject as an appeased warrior. The hands painted on his chest boast of his battlefield exploits, while the presidential peace medal around his neck, a ceremonial gift from the War Department, signals his loyalty to the United States.