Penn's Treaty with the Indians

Edward Hicks

National Gallery of Art

Eight pale-skinned men and thirteen brown-skinned, indigenous Lenape men, women, and a baby gather on a grassy field close to us in this horizontal painting. The white men are cleanshaven and have puffy gray, shoulder-length hair. Most wear black tricorn hats, and they all wear coats, vests, and pants in shades of tan, gray, red, brown, and white. An unfurled scroll in the middle of this group reaches from shoulder to calf, and most of the word “Pennsylvania” is legible there. Two bareheaded men kneel in front of the Lenape, holding a bolt of red cloth. The Lenape men wear black, red, and white feathered headdresses and gold earrings. Some are bare-chested and others wear furs or other garments in black or white. Three men are seated and look at the group of white men beyond the bolt of cloth. Others stand and look on, as two women and a baby sit in a trio to our left, under a tree. The women wear beaded headdresses and wear white or blue. One of the seated Lanape men holds a long, white clay pipe that spouts smoke from the short bowl. A bow and a quiver with arrows lies on the ground nearby. All the people are painted simply with large eyes, rounded lips, and oversized noses. To our right of the whole group, a pale-skinned man sits on a wooden chest with one foot resting on another chest. A second man there leans on another box or piece of furniture, and both look to our left. The grass slopes gently down to an ivory-white body of water in the distance. White and Lenape men meet near the shoreline. A boat carries seven people between us and a long white, two-storied building on the far shore. The sky above is pale pink along the horizon with wispy white clouds kicking up under an ice-blue band of sky along the top edge of the canvas. Closer to us, the grassy plateau ends with a shallow, rocky ledge. Text painted in a gold-brown field below the scene reads, “PENNS TREATY with the INDIANS, made 1681 with out an Oath, and never broken. The foundation of Religious and Civil LIBERTY, in the U.S. of AMERICA.” The surface of the canvas is cracked in some areas and is especially noticeable in the sky.