Buffalo (Beshekee)

"Vincenti is making a good likeness of a fine bust of Buffalo. I think I will have it put into marble and placed in a proper situation in the Capitol as record of the Indian culture. Five hundred years hence it will be interesting."
--Montgomery Meigs,
superintendent of the U.S. Capitol extensions, 1855

Born about 1759, Buffalo (whose name in his own language appears variously as Beshekee, Pee-Che-Kir, Peshiki, etc.) was a leader of the La Pointe band of Ojibwa during a century of dramatic cultural change. According to Buffalo's own account he was not a chief in the traditional sense, but instead a "speaker." "The gift," he said, "has descended to me." As a senior statesman, his role among his people was an important one. Buffalo traveled to Washington in February of 1855 together with his colleague, Flat Mouth, and a delegation of fourteen Native American leaders from Wisconsin and Minnesota. During a month in the city they held discussions with President Franklin Pierce and signed a treaty transferring ten million acres in north central Minnesota to the U.S. Government in exchange for $1 million in payments and services. At the time of the trip and sittings for this bust, Buffalo was ninety-six years of age; he died later the same year in Wisconsin and is buried at his birthplace on Madelaine Island in Lake Superior.

--U.S. Senate Collection Office of Senate Curator, 1996