The Portrait of Hanadagá•yas; or, George Washington Reconsidered

Abstract

This essay considers the first known portrait of George Washington, painted by Charles Willson Peale in 1772, as a portrait of “Hanadagá•yas,” the Haudenosaunee name for Washington meaning “Town Destroyer.” The painting references coveted Indigenous land and represents Washington in his militia uniform from the Seven Years’ War (1756–63), an imperial conflict for North American territory. George Washington later inspired narratives about national expansion and became entangled in the myth of the Lost Cause when it was donated to Washington and Lee University. A history of the painting that foregrounds the acts of dispossession perpetrated by Washington and American educational establishments reveals how art and fiction operate in tandem with institutions to preserve violent myths of empire.