Indians Returning from the Hunt (from McGuire Scrapbook)

The Michigan-born Lanman traveled extensively through the eastern and midwestern United States, making hundreds of sketches on his journeys. He produced numerous panoramic landscapes inhabited by American Indians, usually depicting the figures from a distance and with a nostalgic sensibility. In his travel writings, Lanman occasionally reflected on the settlement of the Great Lakes
region and the Indians’ forced migration from their native lands. In "A Summer in the Wilderness" (1847), he wrote:
"Many years ago, the whole region lying between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi was the home and dominion of the Illinois Indians. For them alone . . .did the finest of rivers roll their waters into the lap of Mexico, and bear upon their bosoms the birchen canoe, as they sought to capture the wild water fowl; and for them alone did the dense forests, crowding upon these streams, shelter their unnumbered denizens."