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In all of your intercourse with the natives, treat them in the most friendly and conciliatory manner which thier own conduct will admit... Jefferson to Lewis & Clark, 1803
Jacob Lawrence American
Not on view
This panel’s title comes from a letter President Thomas Jefferson wrote to Captain Meriwether Lewis and Second Lieutenant William Clark, who were leading an expedition across the American West. Despite Jefferson’s general disregard for Indigenous rights, he asked that the explorers approach Native peoples with cautious respect—to befriend them, attempt to develop trade relations, and collect artifacts. The painting features the expedition’s translator and guide, a Lemhi Shoshone woman named Sacagawea, in a moment of recognition that Clark recorded in a journal entry on August 13, 1805. After the group encountered the Shoshone (in present-day Idaho), Sacagawea acknowledges her brother, Chief Cameahwait, from whom she had been separated since childhood. Lawrence depicted the siblings dressed in vibrant red and blue, imagining a tender reunion by conjoining their strong, columnar forms.
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