Early Life and the Call of the Frontier George Catlin, born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in 1796, was destined for a life profoundly shaped by the frontier—a world both alluringly romantic and relentlessly challenging. His childhood wasn’t one of quiet refinement but rather steeped in tales spun by his mother, Polly Sutton, a woman who bore the indelible mark of her own harrowing experience: capture during an Indian raid. These narratives, filled with vivid descriptions of wilderness survival and the clash between cultures, ignited within young Catlin a deep fascination with the West—a lan…