American Historical Ephemera and Early Photography

[NATIVE AMERICANS]. A series of 3 stereoviews from the 1863 visit of an Indian Delegation to the President's Summer House, Washington. New York: E. & H. T. Anthony & Co., n.d.

Stereoviews on yellow mounts, each with affixed paper label to verso bearing image number, title, and publisher's information.

Numbered sequentially, 2733-2735, these views record an historic summit that took place on 27 March 1863, at which a delegation of Southern Plains Native Americans met with President Lincoln at the White House Conservatory, or Lincoln's "Summer House" in Washington.

The first image (No. 2733) shows the long pathway through rows of foliage, the end of which is where the diplomatic party was later photographed together. This image only features a few subjects, including Lincoln's secretary, John George Nicolay (1832-1901), seated on the railing to he viewer's right.

The latter two images (Nos. 2734 and 2735, respectively) feature a group of Native Americans along the bottom row, from left to right: Standing in Water, War Bonnet, and Lean Bear, Cheyenne; and Yellow Wolf, Kiowa. No. 2734 includes a number of other unidentified Native American subjects accompanied by their interpreter, John Smith, posed at the left of the top row. No. 2735 features some of the same unidentified Native American subjects, along with John Smith, and 7 other white subjects, including several women.

This summit was set in the midst of the Civil War, and the delegation met with President Lincoln, who hoped to not only secure peaceful relations with his guests, but also to persuade them not to join the Confederate forces. Within 18 months of the historic meeting, each of the subjects seated in the front row of the later two photographs were dead. Yellow Wolf died of pneumonia days after this series was taken and was buried in Congressional Cemetery. War Bonnet and Standing in Water were killed by the Colorado Territory Militia in the Sand Creek Massacre on 29 November 1864. And Lean Bear, mistaken for a hostile, was killed by the same militia on 16 May 1864, though he protested that he had “visited the home of the white Father.” 

See: Krainik, Cliff and Michele Krainik. "Photographs of Indian Delegates in the President's "Summer House." White House History, no. 25 (Spring 2009): https://www.whitehousehistory.org/photographs-of-indian-delegates-in-the-presidents-summer-house.