"Swarthy monarchs" - Colonial Williamsburg collection incudes prints of portraits made in England of four Native American ' Kings' - Brief Article

Magazine Antiques, Sept, 2000 by Eleanor H. Gustafson

It is hard to imagine which would have been the more astonishing sight--London of 1710 to the four American Indian kings who went there on a visit to the queen, Anne, or the four "swarthy monarchs" themselves in their picturesque finery, whom Londoners swarmed by the thousands to see. The trip to London was organized in part to make amends to the Iroquois--a confederacy of the Cayugas, Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, and Senecas--for failing to provide them with needed naval support in an aborted expedition against the French in the North American colonies in 1709. However, Sir Francis Nicholson, formerly colonial governor of Maryland and Virginia, who organized the visit, almost certainly also saw it as a way to encourage the Indians' allegiance in future campaigns, as well as to promote their further conversion to Christianity.

Embarking from Boston in February 1710, accompanied by Nicholson, the kings arrived in Portsmouth, England, in April, and traveled by coach to London, where they were enthusiastically received. By order of the queen, they were entertained royally: they were presented with mantles of scarlet and gold and conveyed around the city by royal coach and barge, not only to their audience with the queen but also to sightsee at Greenwich, the Banqueting House at Whitehall, and to dinners with the likes of James Butler, the duke of Ormonde. One night they attended a performance of Macbeth at the Queen's Theatre in Haymarket, where so many came to see them that they were asked to sit upon the stage, and the actor William Bowen welcomed them with a specially composed epilogue. Their theatrical outings in the course of that week also included two operas and half a dozen more plays--quite a schedule considering their limited English.

During the visit the kings sat for portraits by three artists: first by the court painter Johannes Verelst, then by John Faber, and finally by Bernard Lens Jr. Verelst's likenesses (collection of the National Archives of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario) were quickly reproduced in mezzotint by John Simon, and the prints were widely distributed, not least to the Colonies as yet another means of furthering relations with Britain's Native American allies. In 1712, more than two hundred sets were brought here, one intended for the council chamber of the Capitol in Williamsburg, Virginia, which burned in 1747. Recently, a set was acquired by Colonial Williamsburg, and it now hangs in the council chamber of the rebuilt Capitol.

For his likenesses, Verelst drew upon the traditional format for representing nobility, showing each monarch full length and with a background and objects emblematic of his character and role. For instance, Sa Ga Yeath Qua Pieth Tow (illustrated at upper left) is surrounded by a scene and objects suggestive of his skill as a hunter, and with a bear, his clan totem animal, while Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Row (illustrated at bottom right), the most elevated of the kings, is shown with a wampum belt, symbolic of statecraft and with a particularly ferocious wolf as his clan totem.