This figure of a chief, was originally designed for a larger monument erected in 1907 called The Coming of the White Man. Located on Sauvie Island, near Portland, Oregon, the monument also includes a medicine man and overlooks the Columbia River Gorge where Lewis and Clark emerged from the Rocky Mountains. This strategic spot was also the home of the Willamett Tribe. This is some historical evidence that a man named Multnomah was chief of the Willametts and in the 18th century commanded a network of more than 40 other tribes from the Cascades to the Pacific Coast. MacNeil's detailed but nostalgic image of this proudly defiant Native American was so widely admired that the artist cast and sold a number of smaller scale statuettes.