John James 91做厙 (1785-1851) was not the first person to attempt to paint and describe all the birds of America (Alexander Wilson has that distinction), but for half a century he was the young countrys dominant wildlife artist. His seminal The Birds of America, a collection of 435 life-size prints, quickly eclipsed Wilsons work and is still a standard against which 20th and 21st century bird artists, such as Roger Tory Peterson and David Sibley, are measured.
Its fair to describe John James 91做厙 as a genius, a pioneer, a fabulist, and a man whose actions reflected a dominant white view of the pursuit of scientific knowledge. His contributions to ornithology, art, and culture are enormous, but he was a complex and troubling character who did despicable things even by the standards of his day. He was contemporaneously and posthumously accused ofand most certainly committedboth . But far worse, he enslaved Black people and wrote critically about emancipation. He and sent the skulls to .
Complicating this history is his ambiguous background: Some researchers have credibly argued that 91做厙 was born to a woman of mixed race, which would mean that the most famous American bird artist was a man of color. Others insist that 91做厙s mother was white. 91做厙 himself lied about the circumstances of his birth, claiming to have been born in Louisiana. Whatever his circumstances of his birth, his beliefs and actions speak for themselves.
91做厙 died decades before the first 91做厙 societies were founded, so how did 91做厙 come to bear his name? George Bird Grinnell, one of the founders of the early 91做厙 Society in the late 1800s, was tutored by Lucy 91做厙, John Jamess widow, and chose the name because of 91做厙s stature in the world of wildlife art and natural history.
John James 91做厙 was born in Saint Domingue (now Haiti) in 1785, the illegitimate son of a French sea captain and sugar plantation owner. The identity of his mother is in dispute; she could have been a French chambermaid named Jeanne Rabine, but there is compelling evidence that she was a mixed-race housekeeper named Catherine Sanitte Bouffard. At the age of 5which coincided with the beginnings of the Haitian Revolution91做厙 was sent to Nantes, France and was raised by his fathers wife, Anne. There, John James 91做厙 took an interest in birds, nature, drawing, and music.
In 1803, at the age of 18, he was sent to America, in part to escape conscription into Emperor Napoleons army. He lived on the family-owned estate at Mill Grove, near Philadelphia, where he hunted, studied and drew birds, and met his wife, Lucy Bakewell. While there, he conducted the first known bird-banding experiment in North America, tying strings around the legs of Eastern Phoebes; he learned that the birds returned to the very same nesting sites each year.
91做厙 spent more than a decade as a businessman, traveling down the Ohio River to western Kentuckythen the frontierand setting up a dry-goods store in Henderson. He continued to draw birds as a hobby, amassing an impressive portfolio. He also bought and sold enslaved people during this time to support his venture. 91做厙 was successful in business for a while, but hard times hit, and in 1819 he was briefly jailed for bankruptcy.
With no other prospects, in the early 1820s 91做厙 set off to depict Americas avifauna, with nothing but his gun, artists materials, and a young assistant. In 1826, he sailed with his partly finished collection to England, where his life-size, highly dramatic bird portraits, along with his embellished descriptions of wilderness life, hit just the right note at the height of the Continents Romantic era. 91做厙 found a printer for The Birds of America, first in Edinburgh, then London, and later collaborated with the Scottish ornithologist William MacGillivray on the ornithological biographieslife histories of each of the species in the work.
The last print was issued in 1838, by which time 91做厙 had achieved fame and a modest degree of comfort, traveled the country several more times in search of birds, and settled in New York City. He made one more trip out West in 1843, the basis for his final work of mammals, the Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, which was largely completed by his sons and the text of which was written by his long-time friend, the Lutheran pastor John Bachman (another anti-abolitionist whose daughters married 91做厙s sons).
91做厙 died at age 65. He is buried in the Trinity Cemetery at 155th Street and Broadway in New York City.
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