Catlin's Lament: Indians, Manifest Destiny, and the Ethics of Nature

George Catlin gained renown for his nineteenth-century paintings of Indians and their lands, sympathetic portraits that counterbalanced those of other Americans eager to conquer and dominate both. In this first book to probe the attitudes that shaped and constrained Catlin’s career, John Hausdoerffer argues that, despite his sympathies, Catlin's work embodied the same prevailing sentiment toward Nature that sanctioned Indian removal and thus undercut his own alternate vision for westward ex...