Description
James Akins earliest-known signed cartoon, The Prairie Dog is an anti-Jefferson satire, relating to Jeffersons covert negotiations for the purchase of West Florida from Spain in 1804. Jefferson, as a scrawny dog, is stung by a hornet with Napoleons head into coughing up Two Millions in gold coins, (the secret appropriation Jefferson sought from Congress for the purchase). On the right dances a man (possibly a French diplomat) with orders from French minister Talleyrand in his pocket and maps of East Florida and West Florida in his hand. He says, A gull for the People. caption in Eyes of the Nation p. 89: In Akins earliest-known signed cartoon, the scrawny prairie dog is Thomas Jefferson, stung into coughing up Two Millions in gold coins by a hornet with the head of Napoléon Bonaparte, who had sold the entire Louisiana Territory to the US in 1803. The artist reflects public indignation over the revelation that the president had sought a secret appropriation from Congress for covert negotiations to purchase the West Florida Territory from Spain in 1804, which Jeffersons critics feared could lead indirectly to war with Britain. A negative portrayal of Jefferson like this is not common. The print was probably published in Newburyport, Massachusetts, where Akin was working in 1804-6.
