Description:

TOMAHAWK & PIPE OF PEACE: A PRESENTATION PIPE TOMAHAWK.
North American, late 18th century. Spontoon-style iron axe-head, the polished hard wood haft, file branded with dark rich patina. 15.1"l.

Numbered "103" on the haft and inscribed indistinctly
"Pipe Tomahawk belonged to/
Chief Cornplanter Seneca Indians./
Ft. Harmer(sic) Treaty, 1789./
..... collection thence/
to J.G. Braecklein."
Chief Cornplanter was a Seneca war chief and diplomat born between 1732 and 1746. The son of a Seneca woman, Gah-hon-no-neh (She Who Goes to the River), and a Dutchman, Johannes "John" Abeel, Cornplanter was a war chief during the French and Indian war, later led negotiations with the United States, and was a signatory of the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1784.

In 1789, near present-day Marietta Ohio, the Treaty of Fort Harmar was signed, with the intention to address outstanding issues remaining following the Treat of Fort Stanwix, as well as the Treaty of Fort McIntosh in 1785. The treaty was signed on January 9, 1789, between Arthur St. Clair, the Governor of the Northwest Territory and representatives of the Iroquois Six Nations, uncluding the Seneca Nation.

Inscribed as belonging to "Chief Cornplanter Seneca Indians," this rare and important presentation pipe tomahawk commemorates the Fort Harmar Treaty and dates back to the late 18th century. It was later in two private collections, including the collection of J.G. (John George) Braecklein (1865-1958) a Kansas City architect, who was responsible for designing the Heist Building, the city's first skyscraper.

In gratitude for his lifetime of assistance to the state, the federal government gave Chief Cornplanter a grant of 1,500 acres in Pennsylvania in 1796, along the western bank of the Allegheny River, about three miles below the southern border of New York state, named the Cornplanter Tract. Cornplanter died on the Cornplanter Tract in 1836, and the monument which was installed over his grave by the State of Pennsylvania in 1866 is believed to be the first monument erected in honor of a Native American in the United States.

Ex Jim Dressler, Bargersville, Indiana.

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