The brave old Hendrick the great Sachem or Chief of the Mohawk Indians...

This portrait of indigenous leader Hendrick Theyanouin reveals with particular clarity the central role of indigenous allies, and of Hendrick Theyanouin himself, in the British military effort to gain the upper hand against the French and their own indigenous allies in the Hudson Valley, and north eastern North America more generally. Theyanouin was a Mahican diplomat who worked tirelessly during the decades before the Seven Years War to strengthen and sustain the Mahican-British military and political alliances. He was a true Anglophile who dressed in the English dress displayed in this print, including in 1755 as he rode into battle, leading a war party in the Battle of Lake George on horseback at 75 years of age, during which he was killed. The print was based on a now-lost painting, and was sold in London by English print-seller and publisher Elizabeth Bakewell.