What’s in a Picture?
July 10, 2024
The Purchase of Manhattan Island, Alfred Fredericks; 1909
IN Not Stolen: The Truth About European Colonialism in the New World (Bombardier Books, 2023), Jeff Fynn-Paul writes of the book’s cover:
Our cover illustration, which depicts Dutch governor Peter Minuit’s famous purchase of Manhattan Island in 1626, is a painting by the British-American illustrator Alfred Fredericks (1853–1926). Like many paintings of its day, it contains historical anachronisms that make it an easy target for modern critics, who may reflexively condemn it as a sentimental whitewashing of the genocidal theft of Indian land.
But Fredericks’ painting reveals a more nuanced story to those who look past the hype. For one thing, the painter’s brush carefully portrays the Natives’ individuality, humanity, and dignity. Respect for the Indians and their way of life was surprisingly common amongst European-Americans in the later nineteenth century. The Scouting movement was founded on the idea that Indians were role models of bravery, intelligence, honesty and other virtues. Many thousands of Americans dedicated their careers and fortunes to the betterment of Native lives.
Moreover, the focus of the painting is the purchase of Manhattan—by mutual consent. By most definitions, a sale is the opposite of theft. It would be misleading to suggest, as many critics do, that the Natives were cynically taken advantage of when they parted with the island for twenty-four dollars worth of “trinkets.” Dutch administrators studiously recognized Native land claims as a matter of policy. To the Indians themselves, the mosquito-ridden island was of little value, whereas the “trinkets” they were offered—including textiles, metal tools and weapons—were so life changing that many tribes intentionally relocated near the coast in order to trade more easily with the newcomers. They even fought wars with other tribes in order to be closer to the Europeans and their trade goods. In any case, neither party had any conception of what the island would become 200 years later, and judgments based on hindsight miss the point entirely.
