Prolific scholar, geologist, adventurer, and professor John Wesley Powell created this map of North American Indigenous languages, which became one of the most essential pieces of ethno-etymology in the United States during the latter portions of the nineteenth century as scores of indigenous tribes were moved from ancestral lands to reservations across the Oklahoma territory and other regions of the American Southwest as well as the Pacific Northwest and areas of Florida and the East Coast. Powell endeavored on numerous trips down the Green and Colorado Rivers following the conclusion of the American Civil War, where he conducted the first official US expedition through the Grand Canyon in 1869.

Powell was appointed as the director of the Bureau of Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution in 1879, a post he would hold until his death and where he would create this work which classifies and chronicles the Indigenous Languages and gives historians insights into their pasts, cultural development, and distinct differences among tribes across North America. This print illustrates the vast differences between tribes with a visually stunning representation that bears a distinctive aesthetic and unique style that immediately transports the viewer back in time, creating a link between the past and present.

This production became a time capsule of North American Indigenous People's linguistic heritage and legacy. It remains an essential piece of their cultural evolution and development as immigrants from Western Europe and The United States established new towns and communities across the American West and Pacific Northwest.

Prolific scholar, geologist, adventurer, and professor John Wesley Powell created this map of North American Indigenous languages, which became one of the most essential pieces of ethno-etymology in the United States during the latter portions of the nineteenth century as scores of indigenous tribes were moved from ancestral lands to reservations across the Oklahoma territory and other regions of the American Southwest as well as the Pacific Northwest and areas of Florida and the East Coast. Powell endeavored on numerous trips down the Green and Colorado Rivers following the conclusion of the American Civil War, where he conducted the first official US expedition through the Grand Canyon in 1869.

Powell was appointed as the director of the Bureau of Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution in 1879, a post he would hold until his death and where he would create this work which classifies and chronicles the Indigenous Languages and gives historians insights into their pasts, cultural development, and distinct differences among tribes across North America. This print illustrates the vast differences between tribes with a visually stunning representation that bears a distinctive aesthetic and unique style that immediately transports the viewer back in time, creating a link between the past and present.

This production became a time capsule of North American Indigenous People's linguistic heritage and legacy. It remains an essential piece of their cultural evolution and development as immigrants from Western Europe and The United States established new towns and communities across the American West and Pacific Northwest.