Yup–Mary Eastman, author of the important proslavery novel Aunt Phillis' Cabin (notice the parallel title to Uncle Tom's Cabin–Eastman was writing in response to Harriet Beecher Stowe) was married to Seth Eastman, who was a somewhat important landscape artist. I know, this is really hard to believe–I didn't believe it myself at first.
The image of Seth Eastman's 1834 painting is a link to Hudson River with a Distant View of West Point,in the collection of the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio. More stuffthat could — and should– have gone into "Property and Progress: Antebellum Landscape Art and Property Law"! (It'll go into the next iteration.) For Eastman's post-Civil War paintings of forts, which are in the United States Senate's collection, click here. Or herefor the Boston MFA's pre-war drawing of Fort Defiance.
Very interesting. So Mary and Seth had a child, Mary Nancy, who eventually conceived a child with Many Lightnings, a Dakota Indian. And they were the parents of Charles Eastman, or Ohiyesa. Strange to find that Charles' grandmother was a pro-slavery screed-writer.
Or at least apparently. I'm working off of wikipedia here. 🙂
?! Absolutely astonishing; what an American story.