The collection brings together images by well-known Western photographers such as A.F. Randall, John Grabill, C.S. Fly, Stanley Morrow, Ben Wittick and John Choate. Primarily images of famous Indian leaders, as well as other portraits and scenes.
Arrangement note:
Negatives: organized in individual sleeves; arranged by negative number
Prints: organized in folders; arranged by print number
Biographical/Historical note:
General Nelson A. Miles fought for the Union in some of the Civil War's most crucial battles, including Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and the Appomatox campaign. Wounded four times, he rose in rank to become a major general of volunteers and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his personal bravery at Chancellorsville. After the Civil War, Miles played a leading role in nearly every phase of the army's campaign against the tribes of the Great Plains. Three of the greatest Indian leaders---Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, and Geronimo---surrendered to him. In 1874-1875, he was a field commander in the force that defeated the Kiowa, Comanche and Southern Cheyenne along the Red River. In 1876-1877, he led the winter campaign that scoured the northern Plains after Custer's defeat at the Little Bighorn, forcing the Lakota and their allies onto reservations. Then, in the winter of 1877, he drove his troops on a forced march across Montana to intercept the Nez Percé band led by Chief Joseph that had eluded or defeated every unit sent against it over the course of a 1,500 mile retreat from Oregon to the Canadian border.
The 1890 Ghost Dance "uprising" on the Lakota reservations brought Miles back into the field once again. In an effort to restore peace throughout the area, Miles directed troop movements that inadvertently panicked many Lakota bands into leaving their reservations and led both to Sitting Bull's death and to the massacre of Big Foot's band at Wounded Knee. Miles reacted to these developments by working aggressively to implement his longstanding belief that the Lakota should be forcibly disarmed and placed under military control. In his later years, Miles commanded the troops that put down the Pullman strike riots in 1894, and was commander of the army during the Spanish-American War. He retired from service in 1903, confirmed in his belief that graduates of West Point had an unfair advantage in promotion and were on the whole less capable of command than those who rose through the ranks as he had.
Restrictions:
Access is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment.
Rights:
Copyright: National Museum of the American Indian
Citation:
General Nelson A. Miles collection, 1869-1892, National Museum of the American Indian Archives, Smithsonian Institution (negative, slide or catalog number).
Copy of photograph depicting Geronimo holding rifle, made during negotiations for Geronimo's surrender to federal authorities, March 25-27, 1886.
Biographical/Historical note:
Camillus Sidney Fly (1849-1901) was a photographer and owner of Fly's Photography Gallery in Tombstone, Arizona. In March 1886, he accompanied General George Crook to photograph negotiations with Geronimo in Canyon de Los Embudos.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 81-15
Reproduction Note:
Copy prints made by Smithsonian Institution, 1980.
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Original C. S. Fly prints depicting Geronimo at these negotations, including an original of this copied image, can be found in the National Anthropological Archives in Photo Lot 87-2P and Photo Lot 24.
The National Museum of the American Indian Archives holds Camillus S. Fly photographs and negatives from 1886.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Citation:
Photo lot 81-15, C. S. Fly photograph of Geronimo, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
The bulk of the collection consists of portraits of identified Native Americans and some government officials and interpreters. It includes cabinet cards, other mounted prints, newspaper articles, illustrations, and a photographic postcard. Depicted individuals include American Horse, Oglala; Black Hawk, Sauk; Bob Tail, Cheyenne; Crowfoot, Hunkpapa; Gaul, Hunkpapa; Geronimo, Chiricahua; John Grass, Teton; Chief Joseph, Nez Perce; Little Wound, Oglala; Medicine Bull, Hunkpapa; Osceola, Seminole; Ouray, Ute; Litte Raven, Arapaho; Plenty Coups, Crow; Pocahontas, Powhatan; Rain in the Face, Hunkpapa; Red Cloud, Oglala; Red Iron, Dakota; Short Man, Piegan; Sitting Bull, Hunkpapa; Standing On Prairie, Siouan; Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant), Mohawk; Two Guns White Calf, Piegan; Two Moon, Cheyenne; and Washakie, Shoshoni.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 87-2P
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Citation:
Photo lot 87-2P, United States National Museum Department of Anthropology photograph collection relating to Native Americans, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Indians of North America -- Southwest, New Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Photographs
Date:
March 30, 1886
Scope and Contents:
"Geronimo, son and two . . . braves. Man with long rifle is Geronimo."
Local Numbers:
NAA INV.1000095
OPPS NEG.2575-f
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Collection Citation:
Photo lot 87-2P, United States National Museum Department of Anthropology photograph collection relating to Native Americans, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Indians of North America -- Southwest, New Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Photographs
Local Numbers:
NAA INV.1000098
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Collection Citation:
Photo lot 87-2P, United States National Museum Department of Anthropology photograph collection relating to Native Americans, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Indians of North America -- Southwest, New Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Prints
Engravings
Place:
Colorado
Yellowstone National Park
Arizona
Snake River (Idaho)
Shoshone Falls (Idaho)
California
Date:
circa 1850-1900
Scope and Contents note:
Scenic views of California, Colorado, Idaho, and Arizona. California images include Mount Shasta, San Francisco, Tehachapi Mountains, Coronado, San Isabell, San Jacinto, Toquich Canyon, and a government school in Agua Caliente. Additional photographs depict Yellowstone National Park and Yellowstone River; Shoshone Falls and Snake River, Idaho; Dragoon Mountains, Arizona; Garden of the Gods, Colorado; and an Isleta wine press.
Photographers include Camillus S. Fly, W. E. Hook, William Henry Jackson, Francis Parker, Rheas Brothers (San Diego View Company), Rifenburg and Murphy, I. W. Taber, and H. C. Tibbets. Additionally, there are photographs of Thomas Moran paintings, a William A. Rogers engraving of a Pueblo wind press, an engraving of Portsmouth Square in San Francisco in 1850, and a few other illustrations from publications.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 29
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Additional Jackson photographs can be found in the National Anthropological Archives in Photo Lot 24, Photo Lot 37, Photo Lot 40, Photo Lot 60, Photo Lot 93, Photo Lot 143, Photo Lot 87-2P, Photo Lot 90-1, Photo Lot 92-3, the records of the Department of Anthropology, and the BAE historical negatives.
Additional Parker, Hook, and Taber photographs held in National Anthropological Archives Photo Lot 24 and Photo Lot 90-1.
The National Museum of the American Indian Archives holds Camillus S. Fly photographs and negatives from 1886.
See others in:
Photograph collection related to California and views of the west, circa 1850-1900
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Citation:
Photo Lot 29, Photograph collection relating to California and views of the west, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
These are mostly nineteenth-century prints of some negatives in the glass negative collection. Included are a few images made from negatives that apparently have since been broken or lost. Some of the prints were acquired by the Department of Anthropology of the United States National Museum and have accession and/or catalog numbers. Others were apparently made for exhibit purposes. The collection has not been sufficiently studied to allow the positive identification of the print makers but many were probably prepared by Charles Milton Bell, De Lancey W. Gill, John K. Hillers, and Antonio Zeno Shindler. Some of the prints have been hand colored by Shindler.
Arrangement:
Roughly by tribe
Citation:
Prints of Indian Negatives, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Images depict the Seneca Iroquois Indians on the Cattaraugus Reservation in New York.
Scope and Contents:
The Keppler collection consists primarily of informal portraits of Seneca men and women made in 1900, 1904, 1905, 1908 and 1910. Keppler made most of these photographs on the Cattaraugus Reservation (including a photograph of Edward Cornplanter's Indian and Minstrel show) but also on the Tonawanda, Onondaga, and Allegany Reservations. Aside from the portraits, the photographs depict Seneca dwellings and ceremonials. Also by Keppler is a group of photographs depicting Seneca and Cayuga athletes playing lacrosse and standing for a group portrait. These he made in 1902 at the Crescent Athletic Club in New York City. In New York State, he also photographed Oneida, Onondaga, and Tuscarora individuals. The collection includes several potraits of Keppler and approximately 15 photographs dated ca. 1937 of the interior of Keppler's home. The latter showcase Keppler's American Indian object collection. He also made portraits of Native sitters in his home. There are several photographs in the collection that Keppler did not make. Among them is an 1886 print by Camillus S. Fly entitled "Council between General Crook and Geronimo," and studio portrait made before 1870 of a group of Kiowa sitters, including Lone Wolf and his wife, and full-length studio portrait of a Shoshone or Bannock man dating ca. 1870. Some of the negatives are later copy negatives.
Arrangement note:
Negatives Arranged by negative number (N18567-N18589, N21231-N21314, N21803-N21806, N23071, N23087, N23089, N23091, N23093, N23095-N23096, N23106-N23114, N34852, N36800-N36801, N37887)
Prints Arranged by print number (P00277, P01535-P01536, P01622, P01625, P01652, P01737-P01738, P02640, P10029, P12499-P12518, P13246-P13247, P13252-P13253, P13256, P13258, P13756, P16081, P16084, P16111, P16112, P16114, P25274-P25295, P37581)
Biographical/Historical note:
Udo J. Keppler, who changed his name to Joseph W. Keppler, Jr. in honor of his father, was a political cartoonist for Puck Magazine and an avid collector of Indian artifacts, as well as being an Indian activist. This interest led him to an association with George G. Heye, director of the Museum of the American Indian. Keppler often acted as an intermediary between other collectors and Native artisans, facilitating the expansion of the Iroquois collection of the Museum of the American Indian and others. He was elected honorary chief of the Seneca in 1899 and given the name Gy-ant-wa-ka.
Biographical / Historical:
Born Udo J. Keppler, Joseph W. Keppler (1872-1956), or "Kep," was the son of Joseph Keppler, the great political cartoonist and founder and publisher of the popular and highly influential magazine, Puck. The younger Keppler was born in St. Louis, Missouri and educated in Munich, Germany and New York City. Like his father, he too was a political cartoonist. He became the art director at Puck and, when his father died in 1894, took over as publisher. Joseph W. Keppler ran the magazine until he sold it in 1914. The younger Keppler's two great interests in life were said to be Puck and American Indians. Evidently, Keppler's deep interest in Indians and Indian affairs developed out of his desire to collect Indian objects and his friendship with Mrs. Harriet Maxwell Converse, an early advocate for Native rights. Through Converse, Keppler built friendships with Iroquois living on reservations in New York State and Canada, but especially with Senecas living on the Cattaraugus and Tonawanda reservations in New York. At Converse's funeral in 1903, the 31-year-old Keppler was adopted by the Seneca Nation and made a member of the Wolf Clan. Like Converse, Keppler served as an advocate for Senecas. Most importantly, he worked to help defeat or modify plans to allot Iroquois reservations in New York State. Keppler became a major collector of American Indian objects and his passion to collect led to an association with George G. Heye. In 1901, Heye apparently accompanied Keppler to the Seneca and Cattaraugus Reservations; this trip might have been Heye's first to a Native community. From 1927 to 1942, Keppler served on the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation board of trustrees and for a time was also the Museum's vice president. In 1944, Keppler and his (second) wife Vera left New York and moved to California. Keppler died in La Jolla, California, at the age of 84.
Restrictions:
Access is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment.
Rights:
Restricted: Cultural Sensitivity
Genre/Form:
Photographic prints
Black-and-white negatives
Photographs
Citation:
Joseph W. Keppler, Jr. collction of negatives and photographs, National Museum of the American Indian Archives, Smithsonian Institution (negative, slide or catalog number).
Indians of North America -- Southwest, New Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Photographic prints
Photographs
Date:
1886
Local Numbers:
NAA INV.02007500
OPPS NEG.43003B
General:
Perico and Fun identified by Bryan Jones (April 22, 2008), great great grandson of Perico and Cultural Coordinator for the Fort Sill Apache Tribe of Oklahoma.
Local Note:
Black and white photoprint on standard card
Place:
Arizona ?
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Citation:
Photo Lot 24 SPC Sw Apache BAE 30-49 02007500, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
