Fur Traders Descending the Missouri 1845

George Caleb Bingham created *Fur Traders Descending the Missouri* using oil on canvas. Although undated, it captures the essence of westward expansion and trade in 19th-century America. The painting depicts two figures in a canoe—one, perhaps a French fur trader, and the other, of mixed European and Indigenous heritage. The pair are accompanied by a black cat, suggesting a domestication of the wild, both literally and metaphorically. Bingham, growing up in the frontier state of Missouri, may have been trying to portray the relationship between man and nature and the harmony between them. Yet, we must question whether this is a romanticized version of the interactions between the native inhabitants of the land and the newcomers. The serene, almost melancholic mood of the painting invites contemplation on the complexities of cultural exchange and the displacement and exploitation that came with America's westward expansion. It makes you wonder what story the man in the stern of the canoe would tell us.