COMPOUND OBJECT (3 Items)
American Elm Item Info
- Title:
- American Elm
- Description:
- There is a legend of a treaty between the Lenni Lenape and William Penn taking place under an elm, the Treaty Tree at Shackamaxon, in 1682. Despite no written record of this happening under an elm, the council by Penn's Elm became iconic. In the 1870s that elm was immortalized in the Frieze of American History in the Rotunda of the US Capitol. Benjamin West painted it in his 1771 painting and Edward Hicks included the ‘Treaty Elm’ in many of his 62 Peaceable Kingdoms in the 19th century. The elm itself fell in a gale in 1810, and there were actual eulogies in newspapers around the country. Souvenir hunters snatched bits of the tree until all that was left was the trunk. Horticulturists took cuttings that grew into second-generation trees. And Penn Treaty Park, which the City of Philadelphia opened in 1894. If I can reference an article written by Jared Farmer in 2019 Journal of American History: the celebrations and veneration of the Treaty Elm references Indigenous tree culture. Farmer wrote that ‘The early tree-themed peace medals from colonial Pennsylvania owed as much to native symbology as European’. Farmer wrote about The Hiawatha wampum belt of the Haudenosaunee —and its oral constitution— which featured the tree under which Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas came to agreement. While the treaty itself has become associated with the theft of Native lands by colonizers, the symbol of the elm is connected to peace.
- Type:
- record
- Format:
- compound_object
Attribution
- Citation:
- "American Elm", Quaker Roots Walking Tour, Friends Historical Library, https://github.com/QRoots/Quaker-Walking-Tour/items/qr1.html