Point Counterpoint
William Penn and Tamanend face off
in friendship on Philly’s Market Street
Both William Penn above and the Tamanend statue below have their right hands extended. This figure at Welcome Park is a mini-version of Penn’s huge statue atop City Hall by Alexander Milne Calder. Photo by Jim Murphy, author of Real Philly History, Real Fast.
Mounted on a pedestal, Tamanend, by Raymond Sandoval, looks west toward City Hall and William Penn’s 37-foot-high statue — thought to be the largest atop a building in the world. View is at Front and Market streets. Photo by Gary Glen Price.
People peering up at the Tamanend statue at Front and Market streets in Philadelphia probably have no idea it’s designed to interact with another statue 14 blocks to the west.
But Tamanend was placed there in 1995 by sculptor Raymond Sandoval to directly relate to Philly’s founder, William Penn — whose 37-foot-high-statue stands high atop City Hall.
Sandoval, a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, set the 21-foot-high bronze sculpture of Tamanend on a 16-foot base to look back at the much larger statue of William Penn. Sandoval beat out 3000 applicants for this commission.
Because skyscrapers close to City Hall now block the view, you can’t really see William Penn (or Billy Penn as many Philadelphians call him) today when you look west from Tanamend’s statue. But you know Penn is there — 548 feet above the ground and looking northeast towards Penn Treaty Park several miles away on the Delaware River.
Site of a famous peace treaty
That park is where Tamanend, a sachem (or leader) in the Lenni Lenape tribe, and Penn, the proprietor of Pennsylvania, reportedly agreed to a treaty under a giant elm tree.
Andrew Newman in the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia describes the Treaty of Shackamaxon as an exchange of “promises of perpetual friendship.”
Tamanend lyrically summed up the treaty this way: “We will live in love with William Penn and his children as long as the creeks and rivers run, and while the sun, moon, and stars endure.”
Noting that Quakers could not declare oaths, Newman says: “The French philosopher Voltaire (1694–1778) famously declared it ‘the only treaty between those people [the Indians] and the Christians that was not ratified by an oath, and was never infring’d.’ ”
The Native Americans did live in peace with William Penn
However, the Lenni Lenape learned not to trust Penn’s sons John and Thomas — or James Logan, the provincial secretary of Pennsylvania. The three conspired to cheat the Lenni Lenape out of land about the size of Rhode Island in the infamous “Walking Purchase” of 1737.
Interesting Oddities:
Sandoval sculpted Tamanend in a row house that had the floor beams on the first and second floor removed. He told the Philadelphia Gay News that he also had to build “an enormous armature to hold 5,000 lbs. of water-based clay” for the work.
Tamanend, also known as Tammany, Saint Tammany or King Tammany, became an icon for peaceful negotiations and was honored with American festivals and celebrations on May 1.
George Washington and the Continental Army even spent May 1, 1778 at Valley Forge engaged “in mirth and jollity … in honor of King Tammany,” says Wikipedia.
In a truly unfair twist of fate, Tamanend, a name known for peace, friendship and nobility, was appropriated by Tammany Hall, a notorious New York City organization best known today for its graft and political corruption.
Tamanend’s image has even appeared on logos of 20th century sports teams. In 1912, James E. Gaffney, a member of Tammany Hall, bought the Boston Rustlers baseball, renamed them the Boston Braves, and used Tamanend’s image as his logo. The Boston football team, formed in 1932 and also known as the Braves, did the same thing until it moved to a new park owned by the Red Sox a year later and had to change its name. Wanting to keep the red color and the Tamanend image, the team became the Boston Redskins. That team hightailed it to Washington in 1937. Today, due to recent controversy over the name Redskins, it is known as the Washington Football Team. The franchise says it will announce a new name Feb. 2, 2022.
Possible Changes: In 2011, reports said the Friends of Penn Treaty Park wanted to move the Tamanend statue there. Sandoval is against that very costly move and I have not found any more info about it lately. I did see that the Historic Old City District’s 2026 plans include re-conceiving the 200 Block of Market Street as a pedestrian-oriented, multi-modal plaza, along with a statue relocation. We’ll see what happens there.
FAST FACTS
Statue of: Tamanend, “The Affable One”
Sculptor: Raymond Sandoval
Year Installed:1995
Location: Front and Market Street
What You See: Tamanend stands on a turtle representing Mother Earth. The eagle, a revered messenger of the Great Spirit, grasps a wampum belt recognizing the friendship treaty between William Penn, Tamanend and other leaders of the Delaware or Lenni Lenape Indians.
Some Sources
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/pa02.asp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamanend
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammany_Hall
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walking_Purchasehttps://www.creativephl.org/public-art/recent-conservation-projects/
https://epgn.com/2011/03/17/12387019-over-protests-out-artists-sculpture-could-get-new-home/
https://epgn.com/2021/10/08/raymond-sandoval-an-indigenous-gay-artist-and-his-philly-legacy/
https://hiddencityphila.org/2014/05/respectfully-remembering-the-affable-one/
https://www.associationforpublicart.org/artwork/tamanend/
https://www.bostonherald.com/2014/06/25/byrne-redskins-a-tribute-to-popular-chief/#:~:text=The%20face%20on%20the%20Redskins,Philadelphia%20on%20May%201%2C%201777
https://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/story/lifestyle/columns/2015/05/04/lost-in-time-chief-tamanend/18075729007/
https://www.creativephl.org/public-art/recent-conservation-projects
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ozb6m5ow3v1qhpt/Vision2026%205%20Year%20Update%20document.pdf?dl=0
https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=62016
http://www.penntreatymuseum.org/history-2/peace-treaty/
http://www.penntreatymuseum.org/william-penns-treaty-with-the-indians-at-shackamaxon/
https://www.philart.net/art/Tamanend/380.html
https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/treaty-of-shackamaxon-2/
https://www.theclio.com/entry/23269
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/07/03/redskins-name-change/