Image
Bird's-eye View of the Mandan Indian Village, 1800 Miles above St. Louis, by George Catlin, 1839.
Credit: Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr. 1985.66.502
A devastating outbreak of smallpox in 1837 had decimated the once numerous Mandan of North Dakota and reduced them to a single tribe before George Catlin painted this Bird's-eye View of the Mandan Village, 1800 Miles above St. Louis, in 1839.