Benjamin West's Painting of Penn's Treaty with the Indians

WEST'S PAINTING OF PENN'S PEACE TREATY99 BENJAMIN WEST'S PAINTING OF PENN'S TREATY WITH THE INDIANS By Ellen Starr Brinton WHEN BENJAMIN WEST, in 1771, placed on canvas his conception of William Penn's peace treaty with the Indians, he little knew how often that picture would be copied, reproduced, and imitated during succeeding generations. Whether the popularity of this subject is due to the peace motive, the novelty of the episode, or the striking presentation one can only guess. The picture was acclaimed as soon as it was completed. Reproductions were made in England by the best engravers, and these were copied in Scotland, Ireland, Italy, France, Germany , and Mexico and the United States, and all kinds of variations introduced. One of the early writers about the Society of Friends said in 1806 that while Quakers refrained from loading their houses with the usual furniture of the period, nearly every Friend's family had a framed print of "the famous Treaty between William Penn and the Indians of America." 1 Manufacturers of household goods for England and the new trade in the United States were quick to profit by any current market, and used the picture freely as a decorative motive. By the 1850's one could have the peace treaty not only as a framed 1 See frontispiece, and the Boydell-Hall engraving, p. 169. Thomas Clarkson, in A Portraiture of Quakerism, London 1806, vol. i pp. 289-297, gives a very interesting description of the Quaker homes in England of that time. He says in regard to paintings or prints in frames (p. 292 ??) : "I seldom remember to have seen above three or four articles of this description in all my intercourse with the Quakers. Some families had one of these, others a second, and others a third, but none had them all ; and in many families neither the [one] nor the other was to be seen. One of the prints to which I allude, contained a representation of the conclusion of the famous Treaty between William Penn and the Indians of America. . . . The second was the print of a Slaveship , published a few years ago. . . . The third contained a Plan of the Buildings of Ackworth School." There is also another interesting note in Roger Fry by Virginia Woolf (Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1940), p. 12: "Even in the 19th century almost the only picture to be found in a Quaker household was an engraving of Penn's Treaty with the Indians—that detestable picture, as Roger Fry called it later." VoL 30, No. 2. Autumn 1941 100 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION picture for wall ornamentation but also on dishes, candle screens, hand-painted trays, bed curtains, window curtains, whisky glasses, bed quilts, and iron plates. Now a hundred years later there is another wave of interest in this memorable episode. During the Christmas season of 1940 an insurance company used a copy of the West painting on its annual calendar; a department store engraved the picture on its "Merchandise Bonds" ; a publishing house sent out gift subscription cards on which the peace treaty was a conspicuous feature.1 These were probably not planned as peace propaganda; and yet it would seem that the revival of this picture—in the midst of the worst conflict the world has ever known—illustrates a universal craving for understanding, justice, and peace. The happy arrangement between William Penn and the Indians nearly two hundred and sixty years ago remains an ideal to which minds repeatedly turn. After one has seen a number of versions of the peace treaty picture and possibly read a few descriptions of the event, there eventually arises a question as to what really happened. Was there actually a formal treaty as most pictures suggest? When was it negotiated ? Who was present ? Where are records now ? Is any one picture more nearly correct than another? Partly to answer these questions and partly from sheer fun in collecting and research, the writer has attempted to gather some definite information. THE PAINTING BENJAMIN WEST was born 1738 at Springfield, Pennsylvania , about ten miles west of Philadelphia, the exact location of his home now being the "Benjamin West...