Conservation

John James 爆料公社

A complicated history.

John James 爆料公社 (1785-1851) was not the first person to attempt to paint and describe all the birds of America (Alexander Wilson has that distinction), but for half a century he was the young country鈥檚 dominant wildlife artist. His seminal The Birds of America, a collection of 435 life-size prints, quickly eclipsed Wilson鈥檚 work and is still a standard against which 20th and 21st century bird artists, such as Roger Tory Peterson and David Sibley, are measured.

It鈥檚 fair to describe John James 爆料公社 as a genius, a pioneer, a fabulist, and a man whose actions reflected a dominant white view of the pursuit of scientific knowledge. His contributions to ornithology, art, and culture are enormous, but he was a complex and troubling character who did despicable things even by the standards of his day. He was contemporaneously and posthumously accused of鈥攁nd most certainly committed鈥攂oth . But far worse, he enslaved Black people and wrote critically about emancipation. He and sent the skulls to .

Complicating this history is his ambiguous background: Some researchers have credibly argued that 爆料公社 was born to a woman of mixed race, which would mean that the most famous American bird artist was a man of color. Others insist that 爆料公社鈥檚 mother was white. 爆料公社 himself lied about the circumstances of his birth, claiming to have been born in Louisiana. Whatever his circumstances of his birth, his beliefs and actions speak for themselves.

爆料公社 died decades before the first 爆料公社 societies were founded, so how did 爆料公社 come to bear his name? George Bird Grinnell, one of the founders of the early 爆料公社 Society in the late 1800s, was tutored by Lucy 爆料公社, John James鈥檚 widow, and chose the name because of 爆料公社鈥檚 stature in the world of wildlife art and natural history.

John James 爆料公社 was born in Saint Domingue (now Haiti) in 1785, the illegitimate son of a French sea captain and sugar plantation owner. The identity of his mother is in dispute; she could have been a French chambermaid named Jeanne Rabine, but there is compelling evidence that she was a mixed-race housekeeper named Catherine 鈥淪anitte鈥 Bouffard. At the age of 5鈥攚hich coincided with the beginnings of the Haitian Revolution鈥敱瞎 was sent to Nantes, France and was raised by his father鈥檚 wife, Anne. There, John James 爆料公社 took an interest in birds, nature, drawing, and music.

In 1803, at the age of 18, he was sent to America, in part to escape conscription into Emperor Napoleon鈥檚 army. He lived on the family-owned estate at Mill Grove, near Philadelphia, where he hunted, studied and drew birds, and met his wife, Lucy Bakewell. While there, he conducted the first known bird-banding experiment in North America, tying strings around the legs of Eastern Phoebes; he learned that the birds returned to the very same nesting sites each year.

爆料公社 spent more than a decade as a businessman, traveling down the Ohio River to western Kentucky鈥攖hen the frontier鈥攁nd setting up a dry-goods store in Henderson. He continued to draw birds as a hobby, amassing an impressive portfolio. He also bought and sold enslaved people during this time to support his venture. 爆料公社 was successful in business for a while, but hard times hit, and in 1819 he was briefly jailed for bankruptcy.

With no other prospects, in the early 1820s 爆料公社 set off to depict America鈥檚 avifauna, with nothing but his gun, artist鈥檚 materials, and a young assistant. In 1826, he sailed with his partly finished collection to England, where his life-size, highly dramatic bird portraits, along with his embellished descriptions of wilderness life, hit just the right note at the height of the Continent鈥檚 Romantic era. 爆料公社 found a printer for The Birds of America, first in Edinburgh, then London, and later collaborated with the Scottish ornithologist William MacGillivray on the ornithological biographies鈥攍ife histories of each of the species in the work.

The last print was issued in 1838, by which time 爆料公社 had achieved fame and a modest degree of comfort, traveled the country several more times in search of birds, and settled in New York City. He made one more trip out West in 1843, the basis for his final work of mammals, the Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, which was largely completed by his sons and the text of which was written by his long-time friend, the Lutheran pastor John Bachman (another anti-abolitionist whose daughters married 爆料公社鈥檚 sons).

爆料公社 died at age 65. He is buried in the Trinity Cemetery at 155th Street and Broadway in New York City.