Painting, Portrait, Colonel A.S. DePeyster

Portrait in oils of Colonel Arent Schuyler De Peyster in uniform of the Dumfries Volunteers, of which he was Commandant 1794 - 1822. De Peyster, born in New York in 1736, was an officer with the King’s Regiment during their time in North America. He was one of the key negotiators who persuaded Indigenous North Americans Chiefs to fight on the side of the British during the American War of Independence. The King’s Regiment, in conjunction with ‘The British Indian Department’, played a key role in the negotiations with Indigenous North American Tribes. De Peyster, commanding the westernmost post, was one of the most skilled British officers engaged in the treaty process, who worked to gain the trust and rapport of a number of Chiefs. He eventually retired to Scotland after his service where he befriended the poet Robert Burns. De Peyster, himself a published poet, died in 1822.