Early Life and the Call of the Frontier George Catlin, born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in 1796, was a man destined to become a bridge between worlds—the established American society of his time and the rapidly vanishing cultures of Native American tribes. His childhood was deeply imprinted with tales of the frontier, stories recounted by his mother, Polly Sutton, who had herself endured the harrowing experience of capture during an Indian raid. These narratives ignited within young Catlin a fascination with the West, a land perceived as both dangerous and profoundly romantic. Though init…