Lesson 7: History Through Art
In the painting today, it looks like white European traders are exchanging goods with First Nations, something that obviously was a mutual benefit to both sides. The indigenous people are happy to get metal products, blankets, and beads, and all sorts of things that you probably already know about. And the Europeans were particularly focused on things like furs and fish.
The painting in today’s lesson is commonly associated with the modern concept that Europeans used biological warfare by distributing blankets with the smallpox virus. There is no question that smallpox was an epidemic that destroy the lives of thousands of Indigenous people.
Was purposeful biological warfare widespread? Let’s hear what Mr. McMurtry has to say.
Article The Theme of “Blankets & Smallpox” in Canadian History has more information by Mr. McMurtry.
Art Featured: Penn’s Treaty with the Indians, by Benjamin West (1771). This painting depicts a legendary meeting between William Penn and members of the Lenni Lenape tribe at Shackamaxon on the Delaware River. Honoring his own Quaker heritage, West employed a Neoclassical style to suggest both visual and political harmony. By depicting the three factions that shaped Pennsylvania for most of the eighteenth century – Native Americans, Quakers, and merchants – united in the act of settlement, West created a powerful symbol of peace. source
