Pictured above is "The Rescue", a Horatio Greenough statue ca. 1837 which enjoyed nearly 120 years of prominent display in front of the US Capitol. The subject matter revolves around the struggle between folk hero Daniel Boone and an unidentified Native American. Boone diminishes the Indian in stature, forcibly grabbing him from behind to prevent the Indian from butchering his family with the tomahawk in hand. The statue was widely and popularly received at its unveiling. Greenough wrote that the statue was purposed to "commemorate the dangers & difficulty of peopling our continent, and which shall also serve as a memorial of the Indian race". However, what is being memorialized is a representation of a group of people as Savage and Vicious.
Native American officials succeeded in lobbying Congress to remove the statue from the grand steps finally. In 1958, the statue was removed to prepare the area for building expansion and never restored. No discussion of the statue's fate took place nor were any apologies offered. Instead, the statue just did not reappear; the US government choosing instead to hide their shame with a half-hearted "apology".
This statue predates the desired scope of examination for this project but provides an interesting outlook on changing attitudes. For its earliest audience, the statue was highly popular and the Indian was seen by nearly all as the villain. As America aged, people realized "The Rescue" was an inappropriate image and became embarrassed by the representation on their Capitol steps. Film and television portrayals today are more politically correct compared to 50 or so years ago but there lingers a legacy of hatred and mockery that must be examined in order to understand why it still persists. The majority of this site is to post and examine cultural media representations of American Indians in a contemporary context in order to determine the way in which religious intolerance manifests itself.
