The Youngest Prisoners: General Nelson A. Miles’s Photographs of Apache Children

 

John Choate, Chiricahua Apache children upon arrival at Carlisle Indian School from Fort Marion, Florida, November 4, 1886. Formerly owned by General Nelson Miles. National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution (P06848). Front row (L to R): Clement Seanilzay, Beatrice Kiahtel, Janette Pahgostatum (Pahgostatun), Margaret Y. Nadasthilah, Frederick Eskelsejah (Fred' k Eskelsijah). Middle row (L to R): Humphrey Eseharzay (Escharzay), Samson Noran, Basil Ekarden. Back row (L to R): Hugh Chee, Bishop Eatennah, Ernest Hogee.

 

 

In the May 2013 issue of True West magazine, Fort Sill Apache Tribal Chairman Jeff Haozous gives a compelling account of the Apache Wars (1849­–1886) from an Apache perspective. To illustrate his article, “The Apache Wars in Apache Words,” Mr. Haozous selected two photographs from the museum’s Photo Archives collection. Significantly, General Nelson A. Miles owned these and other Apache War photographs in the collection. Written in collaboration with Mr. Haozous, within the context of his True West article, this post explores a few additional Apache War photographs that belonged to Miles.

In September 1886, Geronimo, Naiche, and other Chiricahua Apache men, women, and children surrendered to Miles in Mexico. In breach of the terms of surrender, the U.S. government separated their prisoners—the men were sent to Fort Pickens and the women and children to Fort Marion. Soon after their arrival in Florida the children were removed to Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. Mr. Haozous explains that many of these children died at Carlisle. To protect its reputation, the school began to send sick children back to their mothers in Florida.

John Choate, Chiricahua Apache children four months after arrival at Carlisle Indian School from Fort Marion, Florida, March 1887. Formerly owned by General Nelson Miles. National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution (P06847). Back row (L to R): Hugh Chee, Frederick Eskelsejah (Fred' k Eskelsijah), Clement Seanilzay, Samson Noran, Ernest Hogee. Middle row: Margaret Y. Nadasthilah. Front row (L to R): Humphrey Escharzay, Beatrice Kiahtel, Janette Pahgostatum, Bishop Eatennah, Basil Ekarden.

How does the fraught history recounted by Mr. Haozous influence the interpretation of the “before-and-after” portraits made of the young Apache prisoners in Pennsylvania? And what associated significance does General Miles’s ownership of two sets of these same photographs have? It is likely that Miles either received as a gift or acquired the photographs as a congratulatory testament to his pivotal role in “civilizing” these Apache children. Mr. Haozous’s history, however, particularly challenges the civilizing narrative intended in the “after” photograph. In this photograph, the coifed hair, full cheeks, noticeably whitened skin (a common photographer’s trick, but put to frightful ideological use in this context), and meticulous uniforms flawlessly conceal the bodily trauma—removal, illness, death—recently experienced by these young people.

                                                                        — Heather A. Shannon (Photo Archivist, NMAI)                                                                         & Jeff Haozous (Fort Sill Apache Tribal Chairman)

Blazing New Frontiers: The National Congress of American Indians and the Inauguration of John F. Kennedy

Congress of American Indian records (NMAI.AC.010), box 593, Inaugural, 1961. P38067

We gather here not only mindful of heavy burdens but also full of hope. We want to believe there is a New Frontier, a New Trail. Our faith is renewed that with our renewed effort and cooperation of the Tribes, their friends, and the U.S. government working together, we will be able to find better solutions to the problems we face. 

 —Angus Wilson, Nez Perce Tribal Chairman
Conventions and Mid-Year Conferences: Speeches, 1961. 
National Congress of American Indian records, box 12.

 

One of the highlights of my job at the NMAI Archive Center is helping people find those bits of information hidden in folders that, when put together, contribute to a picture of the past. Since the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) records is one of NMAI’s largest archival collections, I recently decided to learn more about the history of the NCAI in order to better assist researchers and answer reference questions. For this reason, I picked up Thomas Cowger’s book The National Congress of American Indians : The Founding Years and enthusiastically dove in. I was particularly curious about the role of Helen Peterson (Oglala Lakota), whose papers NMAI also has available for research.

During Peterson’s tenure as Executive Director of NCAI, from 1953 to 1961, one of her tasks was to work with the Indian Organization Committee for the 1961 Presidential Inaugural Parade. The election of John F. Kennedy was seen as a step in a new and hopeful direction for U.S. Indian policy. Accordingly, NCAI thought it only fitting to name its float in the parade “First New Frontier.” Helen Peterson and the NCAI also helped enter four additional parade floats from different Indian communities and arranged for the participation of more than 200 representatives from 22 different tribes.

On the morning of January 20th, 1961, despite a storm the previous night that covered the city in snow, all of the parade participants lined up along the icy streets of Washington to celebrate the inauguration. Hailing from 13 different states, the “Indian Unit” stood out impressively with its five floats, six jeeps, and 64-piece Arizona Navajo Intertribal Band, whose membership had grown to include Zuni, Hopi, Pima, Hualapai, Mojave, and Maricopa musicians. (Interesting side note: The Arizona Navajo Intertribal Band is now called the Navajo Nation Band, and they will be participating in the 2013 Inaugural Parade.  You can see a full list of this year’s parade participants here.)

Determined to keep everyone organized and on schedule, Peterson had laid out in full detail who would be on which float and the order in which they would process down Pennsylvania Avenue. Below are the final float descriptions submitted to the Inaugural Parade Committee. (All descriptions are from the Helen Peterson papers [NMAI.AC.016], box 11, NCAI Subject File, Inaugural, 1961.) 

Float 1: Rosebud Sioux, South Dakota Centennial 1961 

National Congress of American Indian records (NMAI.AC.010), box 593, Inaugural, 1961. P38058

 “Rosebud Sioux Indians, South Dakota, performing traditional and authentic Chief’s Dance honoring President Kennedy. Rosebud Sioux Tribe is joined by Oglala and Standing Rock Sioux Tribes, also with reservations in South Dakota. All performers on the float are 'Plains' Indian tribal members. This is the state of South Dakota float in observance of the state’s centennial.”

 

Float 2: The First New Frontier—1620 

National Congress of American Indian records (NMAI.AC.010), box 593, Inaugural, 1961. P38057

“This float (sponsored by the National Congress of American Indians) symbolizes the friendliness and generosity with which the Indians met the first new settlers and is intended to convey the richness of the continent that was the first new frontier. Squash, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, peanuts, tobacco were among the food products developed by the Indians that were unknown to the Old World. Contrary to popular belief, the Indians first met the white settlers with friendly curiosity. (The snowstorm ruined the display of vegetables and the real turkey that, were to have been a part of the float . . .)”

 

Float 3: Sacajawea and Lewis and Clark Blaze Montana’s New Frontier 

National Congress of American Indian records (NMAI.AC.010), box 593, Inaugural, 1961. P38064

“In the first few years of the 1800s, a Shoshone Indian woman who became the wife of Charbonneaux, a trader, led the Lewis and Clark expedition through the Northwest to open up that vast area. With a baby on her back, Sacajawea was a symbol of peace and cooperation. The small tepee is a symbol of the tepees used by the Plains Indians. The mural on the float was done by a Creek Indian artist in Washington who is employed by the U.S. Department of State. There are many dogs in Indian camps and the dog on this float was loaned by Metropolitan policemen. After the dog was selected from some thirty offers to the Montana committee, it turned out the dog’s name is NIXON.”

 

Float 4: White Mountain Apache Crown Dance 

National Congress of American Indian records (NMAI.AC.010), box 593, Inaugural, 1961. P38060

“This float is composed entirely of White Mountain Apache Crown Dancers, singers and Apache women from Arizona. The dancers are students from the high school in White River, Arizona. One of the singers is Chairman of the Tribe, elected by his people. This float indicates some of the differences among the Indian Tribes of which there are more than a hundred major tribes in the U.S. today with significant populations or land holding, the title to which is held in trust by the U.S. Government.”

 

Float 5: Contributions of the First Americans  

National Congress of American Indian records (NMAI.AC.010) Box 593, Inaugural, 1961. P38068

“Sponsored by the Navajo Tribe which spreads over almost sixteen million acres in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, this float calls attention to the many contributions the First Americans have made to the social, economic and political life of the United States. 'Miss Indian America' is a symbol of the rich resource of Indian youth. She is Vivian Arviso, member of the Navajo Tribe, 18 years old, and a student at Colorado College.”

 

Though many participants were undoubtedly cold and damp by the end of the parade, spirits must have been high: NCAI won runner-up for most creative float.

For more information on the NCAI records or the Helen Peterson papers, please feel free to contact the Archive Center at NMAIArchives@si.edu. The NMAI Archive Center also would like to welcome tribal community members to Washington, D.C., for the Native Nations Inaugural Ball and the “Out of Many Festival” which will be held January 18th through the 20th at the museum on the National Mall.

—Rachel Menyuk, archives technician, NMAI Archive Center

Digitizing the Museum's Photo Archives: 75,000 Images and Counting

By Will Greene

My primary function at the National Museum of the American Indian is the creation of digital versions of the museum’s extensive archive of tens of thousands of historical photographic negatives, prints, transparencies, and lantern slides. Digitization affords many benefits both to the collection itself and to users of the archive. Direct handling of archival materials is rendered largely unnecessary, and the possibility of damage or loss is correspondingly dramatically reduced. Because the image files contain detailed embedded information on the date and time of digitization (along with many other things), each is a snapshot condition report on the photograph showing scratches, discoloration, tears, cracked glass, etc. Once digitized, an image can be printed, burned to a disk, or transmitted over a network or the Internet. Digital copies can be created in a variety of file sizes and formats, and every copy will duplicate the detail and tonality of the original digital image much more closely than was possible with traditional silver image photo technology. Once entered into a searchable database, the photos can be accessed and analyzed rapidly and efficiently by anyone with computer access.

Over the course of my career at NMAI, I have been able to digitize more than 75,000 photos, making substantial inroads into the overall task. In the early years we suffered through some fits and starts in determining standards, but once those were established we began to accumulate significant digital resources. Initially materials were digitized in response to end-user requests, both from internal and external institutions and individuals. In the years leading up to the opening of the museum on the National Mall in Washington, creating new digitizations for exhibitions and books took most of my time. As the museum’s digital resources have grown and new tools for search and retrieval have come along, more and more image requests can be fulfilled from existing image files. This has afforded an opportunity to direct further digitization efforts in a more rational and focused way, concentrating on completion of significant collections or on materials that demand special handling or are particularly fragile. 

One such project is digitizing the Churchill collection. Frank C. Churchill (1859–1912) was an inspector of reservations for the U.S. government from 1899 to 1909. In this position, Churchill traveled the country from Florida to Alaska, often with his wife, Clara. As an avid photographer he assembled a significant personal archive. The museum collection contains some 469 negatives and 3,710 prints housed in 28 photo albums.

The photo albums present a number of challenges. Hundred-year-old leather covers and album pages wrinkled with age must be handled very carefully. The pages have been interleaved with acid free paper to prevent deterioration, and this material must be removed and replaced each time you turn a page. Any handling of these old albums, no matter how careful, will result in some debris and the scanning equipment must be cleaned constantly. It’s a time-consuming process, and the best, most efficient method is to go through each album completely and digitize every print that has relevance to the museum. 

Because most of the photos in the albums have not been widely seen, I’ve tried to use broad criteria in deciding which images to scan. I’m looking for named individuals (many of the photographs have information on the date, location, and tribe); folks wearing traditional apparel and/or engaged in traditional crafts or activities; significant and/or traditional structures (such as the Cherokee National Capitol in 1905 or an Apache wikiup in 1899); group photos which have dates and locations (there are lots of school groups); photos of the creators of the albums (but not every one—the Churchills loved to photograph each other); or gatherings like dances, ceremonies, etc., especially when a date and location are noted. I’ve also included some images of famous and much-photographed places, mostly in the Southwest—Mesa Verde, various pueblos, etc., where the date is given, as these might prove useful to anyone tracking the changes in these places.

I think perhaps the greatest value of the albums is the caption material linking the images to a particular time and place with a very high degree of reliability. This greatly enhances their research value. 

The photograph above—which was given the museum catalog number P23360_143—was taken at the Santa Fe Indian School circa 1904. It is captioned in the margin, “Just arrived—Navajo Indian girls.” Then, “Several of these girls had never seen a white man until they met the clerk of the agency who brought them to the school.”

Unfortunately, many photographs' captions, like this one, fail to record the subjects' names. Sometimes the museum has been able to recover that information, working with tribal museums and scholars. By sharing digitized images with more viewers, I hope the museum will reach community and family members who can help us link photographs to individual lives and histories. 

You don’t have to know the whole sad history of the government boarding schools, however, to look at the faces of these six girls and see the fear, anger, anxiety, and resentment written there. Sometimes a picture is truly worth a thousand words, and we’ve got lots and lots of pictures. 

Will Greene is a digital imaging specialist on the museum's Photo Services staff. This is the first in a series of blog posts about his work and the museum's photography collections.

If you have information about a photograph Will discusses, and you would rather not post it as a comment, you can reach him via email at NMAISocialMedia@si.edu. 

Telling the Story: Illuminating Native Heritage through Photography

Choctaw Man, Jim Tubby, 1908, Mark Raymond Harrington (Photographer),
Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, P12169

In celebration of American Indian Heritage Month, NMAI's Photo Archives has posted a blog entry, Telling the Story: Illuminating Native Heritage through Photography, to the Smithsonian's Photo Initiative (SPI) blog, The Bigger Picture. The article, by Lou Stancari, highlights the use of photography by early MAI collectors, such as Frank G. Speck and Frederick M. Johnson, and how photos and objects together document and tell the story of Native Peoples of the Western Hemisphere. These images were recently contributed to the NMAI's Collections search and the Smithsonian Flickr Commons photostream. Please take a look and post comments to the blog.

Snapshots of Transition: Native American Reservation Life in the Early 1900s

Chiricahua Apache women from the sewing society work on a quilt together. Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, N53228.

In celebration of American Indian Heritage Month, NMAI's Photo Archives has posted a blog entry, Snapshots of Transition: Native American Reservation Life in the Early 1900s, to the Smithsonian's Photo Initiative (SPI) blog, The Bigger Picture. The article, by Emily Moazami, highlights a collection of photographs, by Reverend James O. Arthur, recently contributed to the NMAI's Collections search and the Smithsonian Flickr Commons photostream. Please take a look and post comments to the blog. A second entry will post next week highlighting fieldwork photography and the object collection.