Trappers (Jacob Lawrence, 1956)

The forceful shapes of two freshly killed Rocky Mountain elk dominate this stark composition. Even in death, their antlers, dramatically silhouetted against the white and blue snow, are locked, as if engaged in battle. Now, the elk share a common enemy, a fact Lawrence emphasized with bright blood seeping from both animals. Fur trapping and trading among Salish, Nez Perce, and Euro-American people in the Bitterroot Valley (in present-day Montana) intensified in the 1810s. Lawrence envisioned the vanquished prey as a metaphor for the land, material resources, and freedoms at stake in the War of 1812 and subsequent westward expansion. Like a few other panels in the Struggle series, the single-word title, Trappers, is apparently not linked to a specific historical textual source.