When researching southern history, it is always interesting to find first-person accounts of earlier times but it is most fascinating to find early images. It is surprising just how many of those early images are around and how they can relate to the present.
In the last several years there has been a search in the Columbus, Starkville, West Point area for Hernando de Soto’s 1540-41 winter camp at the Indian village of Chicaza. One of the incidents that occurred there was the cutting off the hands of several Chickasaw Indians after they had stolen some Spanish hogs. The Indians had taken the hogs in response to the Spanish having taken some of the Indians’ winter food supplies. A 1706 engraving of de Soto’s cruelties to the Indians would be the earliest known European illustration of northeast Mississippi. Interestingly, it shows a fancifully landscape with mountains.
Many of the flowers that we are all familiar with in local gardens were first pictured in Curtis’ Botanical Magazine. It was established in England by William Curtis in 1787 and contained hand-colored engravings of plants and flowers with descriptive articles about each. It is still published today as Curtis’ Botanical Magazine by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
An 1804 illustration in the magazine comes to mind. It is of the Oak Leaf Hydrangea which was first recorded in south Alabama around 1780. William Bartram, in 1791, published a book with what is probably the first illustration of the Oak Leaf Hydrangea. As a child growing up in Columbus, I can remember going with my grandmother to dig up wild specimens to transplant to our yard.
From the earliest European exploration of North America, many artists have sketched or painted their view of Native American people. Probably the most vivid images were water colors by John White, who sailed with Sir Walter Raleigh to Roanoke Island in 1585. During the early 1590s Theodore de Bry turned those watercolors and paintings by Jacques le Moyne into what became widely published engravings. De Batz during the 1730s and du Pratz between 1718 and 1754 provided illustrations of the Choctaws and the Natchez Indians. Other artist also attempted to visualize the New World. Unfortunately many of the early artists give European attributes to both the southern landscapes and peoples.
Between 1820 and 1830, Charles Bird King painted portraits of notable Native Americans. The portraits were placed in the Indian Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. That gallery burned in 1865 and most of the portraits were lost. One portrait that has survived in private hands is of Pushmataha, the great Choctaw chief. Though most of the originals were lost, 120 of King’s paintings had been published as lithographs by Thomas McKinney and James Hall between 1838 and 1842.
McKinney and Hall were not the artists but the publishers who commissioned the lithographs. In doing so, they have preserved many historic images that otherwise would have been forever lost. Pushmataha’s portrait was one of the images that was published.
The most prolific of all of the artists of early America scenes was George Catlin. From 1830 to about 1860 he painted hundreds of American and Native American scenes. Among his portraits were images of Choctaws, including Ha-Tchoo-Tuc-Knee (Peter Pitchlynn) and Mo-Sho-La-Tub-Be, who lived in what is now Lowndes and Noxubee counties. Another very interesting painting that he did was of the “White Sand Bluffs, on Santa Rosa Island” which is a view of the Gulf beach near Pensacola. Catlin’s book, “Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians,” can still be found in print and contains about 300 illustrations.
When thinking of historic images, most people do not think of John J. Audubon, but his illustrations not only contain birds and animals but also his subjects in their natural habitat. So although his birds are interesting it is often the background that catches my attention. Those backgrounds provide beautiful illustrations of the flora and landscape of the south during the 1820s.
Other paintings and drawings were done by local artists. Mary Billups painted a swamp scene south of Columbus around 1890. It shows what looks like Spanish moss hanging from trees. That would normally place the scene a hundred miles south of Columbus. However, in a Tombigbee swamp seven or eight miles south of town, I remember seeing what looked like Spanish moss but was a different plant known as grandpa’s beard or Old Man’s Beard. It is a lichen while Spanish moss is a bromeliad which is not found much further north than Jackson. Spanish moss, by the way, is in the same family as pineapple.
The development of photography in the mid-1800s resulted in untold numbers of photographs of people and places. Also mid-1800s billheads often contained engravings of the store front or type of merchandise offered for sale. The widespread introduction of illustrated magazines in the second quarter of the 19th century additionally provided a wealth of images. Because of the large number of these later images a search for an image can be more local. Archives such as the Billups-Garth Archives at the Columbus Lowndes Public Library or Special Collections at the Mississippi State University Library or the Mississippi Department of Archives and History are filled with photographs and other images of local interest.
Southern history and art are deeply intertwined and to fully study one requires an understanding of the other.
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 32 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.