Global trade and an 18th-century Anishinaabe outfit

(piano music) - [Dr. Zucker] We're in the National Museum of the American Indian looking at this magnificent

Anishinaabe outfit. - [Dr. Penney] It was

collected by a lieutenant in the British Army, a

guy named Andrew Foster, who was stationed in the Great Lakes area between Detroit and Michilimackinac, the head quarters of

the British occupation of the Great Lakes. So in this important strategic zone where the British could

control trade routes. - [Dr. Zucker] First the French came in, looking for furs in this area and were eventually

displaced by the British. This was a very lucrative trade. Now this is a complicated moment. This is about 1790, so the United States has already declared its independence from Britain and there are tensions

between the young republic on the East Coast and Britain, which controls what we know call Canada and this area around the Great Lakes. - [Dr. Penney] So the United

States has been trying to claim its possessions and determine

what the border's going to be in the Great Lakes and

the British of course trying to protect their trade

interests are resisting. Their allies are their

native trade partners like the Anishinaabe

also known as the Ojibwa, Chippewa, Odawa, Ottawa,

all under the umbrella of the term Anishinaabe which is the word that in Anishinaabuem language means "the people", means "ourselves". After the revolution, many

loyalists had escaped to Canada the border in between the

United States and Canada was very unclear and

contested in the 1790s so the British needed their allies, they stepped up their diplomatic efforts, they increased the amount

of trade and all in response to the threat of the Americans

coming from the south. - [Dr. Zucker] We use the

term collected to refer to Andrew Foster taking

ownership of this outfit but likely it was made

for him specifically and it was made as part of ritual trade. - [Dr. Penney] Part of

the relationships between the British and their

Native allies would include opportunities for mutual gift giving and many of the gifts were clothing so the leaders among the

Anishinaabe would receive military coats and other

elements of uniforms, several British officers

received complete outfits like this one and very

likely in the ritual they are dressed from head to toe. It really was about mutual respect. - [Dr. Zucker] When we

look at the outfit closely, we see this is part of an

international trade network. - [Dr. Penney] The cotton

shirt was in fact manufactured in Britain but the cotton

the shirt was made from was grown and exported from

the subcontinent of India brought to Britain the

milled in their factories, with an eye to its

export to North America, so the length of the shirt, the use of that floral patterning,

all was intended to appeal to their native trade partners. - [Dr. Zucker] So this

is being manufactured specifically to the styles that the Native Americans would be receptive to. - [Dr. Penney] Exactly, so

if we look at the necklace with the two panels with thunderbirds, we can see that they are

made out of glass beads, the glass beads were produced in Venice and exported but the

white and dark blue color were an attempt to replicate

the color and the texture of shell beads, known

technically as wampum so we often refer to

that as imitation wampum but they're beads created

to resemble a bead that's made out of shell in North America. - [Dr. Zucker] Although the

shirt was likely manufactured in Britain, it's been

ornamented, it's covered with little silver ringlets which were also meant specifically for trade. - [Dr. Penney] We call them broaches and they're created individually

and traded individually but then you can arrange

them in these patterns, you can see kind of a grid on this shirt or clustered all over the headdress. There are also a number of

objects that are made out of materials native to North America, he's wearing a little

belt pouch on his sash that's made out of deer hide

that's been dyed a darker brown with black walnut hulls

and then decorated with porcupine quills, same

is true for his moccasins where he has deer skin moccasins that are decorated with porcupine quills. - [Dr. Zucker] And those

moccasins may not be Anishinaabe, they may be Huron-Wendat which

speaks to the trade networks of the Native Americans themselves. - [Dr. Penney] And a certain

amount of craft specialization, this is a kind of moccasin that we see around the Great Lakes, we think they were manufactured

downriver from Detroit but they show up all

around the Great Lakes area and we think they're made

by Huron-Wendat women and then exchanged and traded. - [Dr. Zucker] And obviously sought after. - [Dr. Penney] You see the

tremendous craftsmanship, particularly with the

decoration on the vamp where there are a number of

different kinds of techniques, the quills have to be

processed, sorted to size, flattened, dyed and then

are applied to the surface, sometimes in that zigzag

rows you see on the outside or in very tight woven patterns. - [Dr. Zucker] They're really beautiful and they're a bit iridescent. - [Dr. Penney] And there's

also an audible quality to them this fringe of red, they're

attached to little tin cones that have been bent and that

red deer hair is inserted so that when you walk they kind of tinkle. - [Dr. Zucker] And I see that

also in the pouch on the belt and in the headdress and I can imagine that the silver broached also make sound and so I can imagine

just how much this outfit comes alive when it's worn. - [Dr. Penney] The headdress

is of a turban form, made of black cloth, decorated

with those silver broaches and standing straight up are

a series of eagle feathers. The feathers are supported by

what we call feather sticks wrapped with porcupine quills

and those wonderful red and sort of black and

white checkerwork patterns and then attached to the feather sticks are those tassels of red dear hair. - [Dr. Zucker] It's what we're

seeing is this astonishing synthesis of indigenous

traditions with new imports and this willingness to

adopt new technologies. - [Dr. Penney] This is really the genius of Native women artists of this era, they're taking these raw materials of these manufactured products,

the wool, wool yarn, silk, metal and so on and

then transforming them with a variety of different

meticulous techniques based upon traditional

techniques of working with indigenous fibers but

then updated to include these new materials and new tools as well. Steel needles and most

importantly scissors. - [Dr. Zucker] So we

have cotton from India, manufactured in Great

Britain, sent and reworked in the New World and then

given to a British officer who would then bring it back to Britain and presumably even wear

it, there is one example of a man wearing and outfit from this area in a portrait that is now in Liverpool. I find fascinating that these cultures that we often think of as so separate have such an integrated relationship. - [Dr. Penney] And of

course that was the notion of the British Empire,

to knit all this together where they were able to

assemble raw materials from all over the world,

remanufacture them or reconstitute them

as marketable products. So Andrew Foster,

lieutenant of the 24th Foot was stations in Mackinac

to help this progress of British Empire and

its commercial success. He left in 1796 and then

we learn subsequently sadly he was part of

an expeditionary force to South Africa and

died in battle in 1806. (piano music)