Henry Schoolcraft - Later Years

Later Years

When the Whig Party came to power in 1841 with the election of William Henry Harrison, Schoolcraft lost his political position as Indian agent. He and Jane moved to New York. She died the next year during a visit with a sister in Canada, while Schoolcraft was traveling in Europe. He continued to write about Native Americans.

In 1846 Congress commissioned him to develop a comprehensive reference work on American Indian tribes. Schoolcraft traveled to England to request the services of George Catlin to illustrate his proposed work, as the latter was widely regarded as the premier illustrator of Indian life. Schoolcraft was deeply disappointed when Catlin refused. Schoolcraft later engaged the artist Seth Eastman as illustrator. An Army brigadier general, Eastman was renowned for his paintings of Native American peoples. He had two extended assignments at Fort Snelling in present-day Minnesota, the second time as commander of the fort, and had closely studied, drawn and painted the people of the Indian cultures of the Great Plains.

Schoolcraft worked for years on the history and survey of the Indian tribes of the United States. It was published in six volumes from 1851-1857 by J. B. Lippincott & Co. of Philadelphia. Critics praised its scholarship and valuable content by Schoolcraft, and the meticulous and knowledgeable illustrations by Eastman. Critics also noted the work's shortcomings, including a lack of index, and poor organization, which made the information almost inaccessible. In 1954 the Bureau of American Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution prepared and published an index to the volumes. (It was not until 1928 that the US government had another overall study of the conditions of American Indians; it was informally known as the Meriam Report, after the technical director of the team, Lewis Meriam.)

After their deaths, Schoolcraft and his wife Mary were each buried in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC.