Summary Of Elizabeth Hutchinson's The Dress Of His Nation

Elizabeth Hutchinson’s “‘The Dress of His Nation’ Romney’s Portrait of Joseph Brant” centers its analysis on one of the most impactful American Indian leaders of the eighteenth century, Joseph Brant. With a long, illustrious, and arguably controversial career, it is unsurprising that numerous depictions of Brant are in circulation. However, for the purposes of Hutchinson’s article she zones in one particular depiction of the figure, which serves as the foundation for her examination into issues of depicting not just Brant, but Native Americans as well. Hutchinson argues that George Romney’s portrait of Brant serves as a vehicle to depict the Mohawk leader as a cultural interlocutor, and examines how this portrait ultimately reconfigures social …show more content…
Despite the abundance of Brant portraits in circulation, Hutchinson’s argument is centered specifically on George Romney’s 1776 rendition, Thayeadanega, Joseph Brant the Mohawk Chief. Yet, Hutchinson does not isolate the Romney portrait in her discourse and instead puts the portrait in dialogue with other works, such as After Romney’s Joseph Brant and Jonathan Spilsbury after Mason Chamberlin’s The Reverend Mr. Samson Occom, in addition to the contextual information provided. In fact, the Romney rendition of Brant is not even the first portrait Hutchinson introduces into her argument. She instead opens with an anecdote of the Mohawk leader’s portrait sitting with Ezra Ames to raise issues of Indian dress, Native identity, and intercultural relations that will be addressed later in her essay. Furthermore, “The Dress of His Nation” is noticeably partitioned with segments focusing on everything from formal and contextual analysis of Brant portraits to social and biographic discourses. The juxtaposition of different types of evidence complements Hutchinson’s argument and she is able to weave together the various aspects of her research seamlessly. For instance,