Detail View: JCB Archive of Early American Images: Mr. Peter Williamson in the Dress of a Delaware Indian
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Accession number:
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35558
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Record number:
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35558-1
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JCB call number:
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D759 W732f
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Image title:
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Mr. Peter Williamson in the Dress of a Delaware Indian
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Place image published:
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[London]
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Image publisher:
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[Peter Williamson, sold by R. Griffiths]
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Image date:
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[1759]
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Image function:
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frontispiece
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Technique:
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engraving
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Image dimension height:
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11 cm.
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Image dimension width:
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7.2 cm.
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Page dimension height:
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18 cm.
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Page dimension width:
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10.2 cm.
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Materials medium:
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ink
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Materials support:
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paper
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Languages:
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English
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Description:
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Portrait of a European colonist dressed as a native American of the Delaware Indians. Wearing a feathered headdress, wampum belt, gorget, and moccasins and carrying a gun or musket and a scalping knife, the man smokes a hatchet pipe and stands before a group of dancers and men paddling a canoe. Items in the image are numbered for identification in key below.
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Source creator:
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Williamson, Peter, 1730-1799
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Source Title:
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French and Indian cruelty: exemplified in the life, and various viscissitudes of fortune, of Peter Williamson ...
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Source place of publication:
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London
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Source publisher:
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Printed for the unfortunate author, and sold by R. Griffiths, opposite Somerset-House in the Strand
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Source date:
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1759
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notes:
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Williamson wrote of his capture by a professional gang in Aberdeen, Scotland, his sale in America, and subsequent capture by the Delaware Indians. He successfully prosecuted his kidnappers, compiled the first city directory of Edinburgh, established the first penny post there and he kept a tavern where he was known as Indian Peter. The details of his account have been questioned by scholars, but his narrative was popular at the time and served as a model for other captivity narratives. The British and French, realizing the esteem with which Indians held the pipe, began to manufacture metal trade hatchet pipes or tomahawk pipes in the eighteenth century. This image may have been copied from Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix, A voyage to North-America, Paris, 1744; see also image in Charlevoix, Voyage, Dublin, 1766.
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Time Period:
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1751-1800
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References:
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http://www.newberry.org/nl/collections/ProbAmInHist.html (Feb. 2005)
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Owner and copyright:
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©John Carter Brown Library, Box 1894, Brown University, Providence, R.I. 02912
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geographic area:
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North America
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Subject Area:
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Artifacts, industry, and human activities
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Subject Area:
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Indigenous peoples
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Subject headings:
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Captivity narratives
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