John James Audubon did not establish the National Audubon Society… at least, not directly. But he no doubt inspired it. Same with the Audubon Magazine.
Much of the inspiration derived from his groundbreaking book, The Birds of America
The most important bird being the bald eagle. We have lots of birds in America, but none can hold a candle to the bald eagle.
We also have a lot of birdwatchers in America, many of whom belong to the National Audubon Society and are regular readers of the Audubon Magazine. I am not among them, but nevertheless, I’ve long been familiar with the name “Audubon” and with his famous bird paintings and prints.
On occasion, J.J. Audubon was himself a painters’ subject. Here’s one of the paintings.
He was born on the island now known as Haiti shortly after the American Revolution, of uncertain parentage.
It’s that uncertainty that attracted my attention. And also the attention of a few journalists writing in the Audubon Magazine. When you’ve named your magazine after someone, it’s natural to be curious about them, even if they died 175 years ago.
Some of the portraits of John James Audubon, like the one above, show him holding a shotgun, and dressed as a frontiersman. As some who didn’t mind hiking out into an unfamiliar forest, and killing things. Perhaps accompanied by a hunting dog.
Here’s another painting, when he was a bit older, but maybe holding the same shotgun.
John James looks relatively relaxed in these paintings, in my opinion. As does his dog.
The shotgun is important to this story, because — according to an article I came across in the Audubon Magazine — John James was able to accurately render the birds included in his book, Birds of America, because he killed them first. His artistic project was undertaken before the invention of photography, so if an artist wanted to accurately render birds — who are not known for posing for a painting — it helped to have them close at hand, and immovable.
Sadly, this suggests that John James killed at least one bald eagle, even though the eagle had been a national symbol of strength and bravery since before John James was born.
He was also known for eating the birds he killed, after the painting was complete. Whether he ate the bald eagle, I cannot say.
But the thing that really caught my attention was a rather lengthy article in the Audubon Magazine written by ornithologist J. Drew Lanham, who — in addition to being a former National Audubon Society board member — also happens to be one of the few Black ornithologists in America. A rare breed, in other words.
The article title: “What Do We Do About John James Audubon?”
From that article:
A simple question from my non-birding wife, Janice, brought another facet of Audubon’s identity to mind. She was in the New Orleans African American Museum of Art, Culture, and History and called to check in.
“Hey, did you know that Audubon was Black?” she said.
It was one of those questions to which she already knew the answer but took premature glee in knowing that I might not. “Ummmm… I knew there was a question about it….”
“Well,” she said, “apparently they know it down here ’cause I’m standing here looking at James John Audubon” (she usually gets his name reversed for some reason) “and he’s on the wall of the museum. They obviously know something y’all don’t.”
In fact, we don’t know if the mother of John James (or James John) was part Black. Some sources suggest that his mother was French. Other sources suggest a Creole mother from Louisiana. Even Wikipedia doesn’t know for sure.
Things went on in Haiti, in the 1700s, that people didn’t talk about in polite company.
Reportedly, the National Audubon Society revealed in 2020 that John James owned slaves. He mostly referred to them as “servants” and “hands,” but never seemed especially concerned that the people helping him could be bought and sold.
That might have been the same year that they revealed that John James ate the birds of America. After painting them.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all. You can read more stories on his Substack account.