American Indians and Scottish Identity in Sir William Drummond Stewart's Collection

Abstract

Scotsman Sir William Drummond Stewart spent seven years traveling in the Rocky Mountains. During his travels, he began to collect American Indian material as well as western American flora and fauna. This article argues that Stewart's collecting grew out of a sustained interest in Native American life that cannot be explained solely in terms of the Romantic period's fascination with so-called exotic cultures. Rather, Stewart's interest in Native American culture may have been founded in beliefs about similarities between Native American and Scottish Highland cultures and prompted, in turn, by a growing interest in Scottish cultural identity during the 1820s and 1830s.