Wah-pe-séh-see, Mother of the Chief

Wah-pe-séh-see was the mother of the Kaskaskia/Miami chief Kee-món-saw, or Little Chief (see 1985.66.246). George Catlin, who described her as “a very aged woman,” probably painted her portrait at Fort Leavenworth (in today’s Kansas) in 1830. (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 47, 1841; reprint 1973)