The Female Eagle - Shawano

1828

Married: Clara Bartlett Gregory Catlin

1830

First journey west with Governor Clark

He accompanies William Clark, governor of the Missouri Territory, on a diplomatic mission to Fort Crawford and then up the Mississippi into Native territory.

1830–1836

Five journeys into the American West

St. Louis was his base for the five trips and the steamer Yellowstone of the American Fur Company his first transport; he visited 48 tribes in all (other accounts say about fifty). On trips along the Arkansas, Red and Mississippi rivers, in Florida and around the Great Lakes he painted more than 500 pictures and gathered a substantial collection of artifacts.

1832

Up the Missouri to Fort Union

He ascends the Missouri more than 3,000 km to the Fort Union trading post (today on the North Dakota–Montana border) and spends several weeks among peoples little touched by European culture. Visiting eighteen tribes, among them the Pawnee, Omaha, Ponca, Mandan, Hidatsa, Cheyenne, Crow, Assiniboine and Blackfeet, he paints the most vivid portraits of his career.