Antique & Vintage Postcards

Her face a topographic map of nearly a century of life, Princess Angeline — the last surviving child of Chief Seattle for whom the great Pacific Northwest city is named — gazes out from this vivid early color postcard with quiet, undiminished dignity, her crimson kerchief bright against a green shawl. Angeline, born Kikisoblu of the Duwamish people around 1820, became an iconic and often-photographed figure in early Seattle; she died in 1896, so this card was produced posthumously from earlier photographic portraits, colorized and issued by the Pacific Novelty Company of San Francisco and Los Angeles. The card is unused, the back formatted in the undivided-back transitional style with only an address panel and "STAMP" box, placing it circa 1901–1907. It is a poignant artifact at the intersection of early tourism, Indigenous portraiture, and the mythology of the American West.