Há-tchoo-túc-knee, Snapping Turtle

This 1834 portrait of Peter Perkins Pitchlynn by George Catlin entitled Há-tchoo-túc-knee, Snapping Turtle, a Half-breed hangs in the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC.

Like the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminole, the Choctaw had interacted and intermarried with whites for centuries. These tribes were farmers, plantation owners, and educated professionals. Snapping Turtle, also known as Peter Pitchlynn, was a graduate of the University of Nashville and George Catlin's source for “much curious and valuable information of the history and traditions of his tribe.” Catlin painted his portrait at Fort Gibson, Arkansas Territory, in 1834. -- SAAM

George Catlin met Snapping Turtle at an intertribal “ball game” in 1834. Today we’d call it Lacrosse. In his 1969 dissertation, Pitchlynn's biographer William D. Baird remarked that “The artist, impressed with the game and Pitchlynn, painted both.” Catlin included in his 1857 book,  Illustrations of the manners, customs, and condition of the North American Indians, "the portrait of a distinguished and very gentlemanly man, who has been well-educated, and who gave me much curious and valuable information, of the history and traditions of his tribe. The name of this man, is  Ha-Tchoc-Tuck-nee (the snapping turtle plate 222), familiarly called by the whites ‘Peter Pinchlin.’”  

A color version of Catlin's drawing appeared later editions of Catlin's North American Indians; being letters and notes on their manners, customs, and conditions, written during eight years' travel amongst the wildest tribes of Indians in North America, 1832-1839 . This one is from 1913.

This 1842 Lithograph “From  Life on stone” by Charles Fenderich belongs to the Library of Congress.

Snapping Turtle is identified in the caption under his facsimile signature as “P.P. Pitchlynn, Speaker of the National Council of the Choctaw Nation and Choctaw delegate to the government of the United States."

 

Peter P. Pitchlynn is buried in Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC.

The Civil Rights Walking Tour pamphlet says this about him:

Peter Perkins Pitchlynn (1806-1881) was in Washington, D.C., in 1861 when the American Civil War started. He had gone to Washington to address national affairs of the Choctaw but immediately returned home to Oklahoma. Peter P. Pitchlynn was elected Principal Chief of the Choctaws in 1864 and served until 1866. His legacy includes eradicating polygamy, controlling liquor traffic, and establishing the Choctaw Academy.

Although Pitchlynn as a “Choctaw planter” personally owned about 100 enslaved persons, he was so aligned with the United States Government that he supported the Union in the Civil War. The Choctaw Nation, on the other hand, allied itself with the Confederates.

P.P.Pitchlynn
Died
January 17, 1881;
Aged 75 Years.

Chief and Delegate
of the
Choctaw Nation
For Whose Advancement
Many Years of His Life
Were Devoted
---
A Christian Brave
---

The 1998 bronze plaque summarizes Pitchlynn's biography:

Peter Perkins Pitchlynn
(Ha-tchoo-tuc-knee)

Choctaw Chief--Diplomat--Education Leader
Born January 30, 1806
Died January 17, 1881

● Principal Chief, Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma 1864-1866

● Tribal Commissioner for land claims against the U.S. Government

(1853-61 – 1865-81)

● Led two groups of his tribe from Mississippi to Oklahoma during the removal (1831-32)
● Established Choctaw Educational System
● Advocated for Choctaw Constitution and Government in Oklahoma (1834)
● Speaker Choctaw Tribal Council
● Loyal to the Union during the Civil War
● Negotiated the surrender of the Choctaw Confederate Military Forces (1865), and the treaty of peace between the Tribe and the U.S. (1866)
● Faithful Member of the Lutheran Memorial Church and the Masonic Order
● Son of Major John Pitchlynn and Sophia Folsom
● Husband of Rhoda Folsom and Caroline Lombardy

“He was a remarkably handsome man, as stately and complete a gentleman of Nature’s making as I ever beheld; he moved among people like another kind of being”
Charles Dickens (American Notes, 1842)
Upon meeting Pitchlynn during his journey through America

Placed here in remembrance by the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma
1998

But reviewers of Baird's 1972 book portray Pitchlynn in a different light.

“Without a doubt Pitchlynn was a scoundrel, and Baird does not attempt to portray him as otherwise. He possessed leadership ability and intelligence, but these qualities were effectually subjugated by a desire to profit through questionable business practices, misappropriating school funds, and misrepresenting facts.” – Arthur H. DeRosier, Jr. Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 42, No. 2, May 1973.

 “The genuineness of Pitchlynn's attachment to the Choctaws, for example, is open to question. He did not share the hardship of Choctaw removal but traveled separately with his own family! Pitchlynn for the most part played a peripheral role as a leader and did not exert much influence even as a chief during two brief Civil War years. His contribution to Choctaw education was minimal; he placed his self-interest above that of the tribe and often appropriated to his own use the educational funds intended for Choctaw children.” -- Yasuhide Kawashima, The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 38, No. 4, Nov. 1972.

Charles Dickens met Pitchlynn on the Pike steamboat heading from Cincinnati to Louisville. Among other things Pitchlynn told Dickens that Congress “wanted dignity, in an Indian’s eyes.” Dickens described Pitchlynn this way: “He was a remarkably handsome man; some years past forty, I should judge; with long black hair, an aquiline nose, broad cheek-bones, a sunburnt complexion, and a very bright, keen, dark, and piercing eye.”  Pitchlynn even mentioned the Catlin portrait in his steamboat conversation with Dickens.

“This led us to speak of Mr. Catlin’s gallery, which he praised highly: observing that his own portrait was among the collection, and that all the likenesses were ‘elegant.’ Mr. Cooper, he said, had painted the Red Man well; and so would I, he knew, if I would go home with him and hunt buffaloes, which he was quite anxious I should do. When I told him that supposing I went, I should not be very likely to damage the buffaloes much, he took it as a great joke and laughed heartily.” -- Dickens, American Notes, 1842. 

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For  more information on Peter Pitchlynn see:

Baird, William David; Peter Pitchlynn: Choctaw Delegate. 1969 Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Oklahoma. University Microfilms (PDF).

Lanman, Charles;  Peter Pitchlynn, Chief of the Choctaws, The Atlantic Monthly, April 1870.

Dickens, Charles, American Notes for General Circulation, Chapter 12; 1842.