Presence and Absence in Pennsylvania

The sculptural bust of Captain John Carlton, ca. 1786, owned by the York County History Center, is a keystone object through which to dissect the intersectionality of historical place on the Susquehanna River and the ways in which indigenous memory has been wiped from south central Pennsylvania identity and common cultural knowledge. Capt. John Carlton, an indigenous man, is unknown in the historical record, and this artwork is currently interpreted through the biography of the artist, the German immigrant and successful clock maker, John Fisher. The bust of Carlton, carved from the trees that gave name to Penn’s Woods, is embellished with metal earrings, real hair, and an inscribed gorget with his name and the specific date of January 3, 1786. There are no state or federally recognized tribes in Pennsylvania, even though the Commonwealth’s most famous identity-inducing image—Penn’s Treaty by Benjamin West and a later version by Edward Hicks—measures indigenous people and their actions against those of the whites. This research project centers the artwork, asking questions about indigenous presence and absence in Pennsylvania.