North Eastern Indians

Northeastern North America is home to many Indigenous nations, including Haudenosaunee, Wendat, Lenape and numerous Algonquian-speaking peoples. Around the Great Lakes, Sauk and Meskwaki communities add other distinct histories.

Clothing, ornaments and body markings helped make individual and community identities visible. Portraits of leaders show different combinations of feathers, jewellery, painted skin and carefully chosen garments.

In the seventeenth century, Mohawk traders formed important relationships with Dutch colonists. Trade goods and firearms brought new opportunities, while introduced diseases caused devastating losses.

Later wars divided communities and changed their homelands. Many British-allied Haudenosaunee families moved to Canada after the American Revolution, while others remained elsewhere. The portraits of leaders such as Tecumseh reveal people facing expanding colonial power, rather than anonymous figures in one regional costume.