GARDNER, Alexander (1821-1882), photographer. Indians on Visit to their "Great Father." Washington, DC, 23 February 1867.

Albumen photograph, 12 3/4 x 18 3/4 in.: mounted on thin, gold-ruled cardstock with letterpress title and credit line for Alexander Gardner, and Publisher, Philips and Solomon.

In the years following the Civil War, Americans flocked to Western lands by the thousands. Conflict with Native groups who had resided in this vast territory for thousands of years quickly turned bloody.

In July, 1867, Congress authorized the creation of an Indian Peace Commission with goals of securing lasting peace, protecting settlers, gaining access to Native lands for the Trans-continental railroad and establishing reservations where Native peoples could be assimilated into white society. The unspoken goal was to completely disenfranchise the semi-nomadic Plains peoples from lands they had occupied for thousands of years.

In 1867 delegations of important leaders from the Yankton, Santee, Upper Missouri Sioux, Sac and Fox, Ojibwe, Ottawa, Kickapoo, and Miami tribes traveled to Washington, D.C. to participate in treaty negotiations

This photograph captures members of the various delegation members standing before the White House balcony with President Andrew Johnson in the center flanked by U.S. Indian Commissioner Lewis V. Bogy and Secretary of the Interior Orville H. Browning. Father Pierre Jean-De Smet, a Jesuit Missionary who worked tirelessly for native peoples stands at the railing at the base of a column to the right, surrounded by Native peoples. Many of the Native delegates were photographed multiple times by Gardner during this trip and with magnification are identifiable as to name and group.

In October 1868, eight months after the White House visit , the Commission was disbanded after having negotiated multiple treaties with dozens of Plains and Southwest bands at Medicine Lodge, Fort Laramie, and Bosque Redondo. Before the ink was dried, depredations began anew. Ultimately, an official policy of assimilation was replaced by one of armed conquest. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was moved from the Interior Department to the Department of War, and a decade of war commenced.

A rare, and remarkable photograph, we could find only two institutional holdings at the National Museum of the American Indian and The Wisconsin Historical Society.

Provenance: Estate of Mrs. Thornton K. Lothrop, 14 May 1931 (manuscript notation on mount verso).

The Larry Ness Collection of Native American Photography

GARDNER, Alexander (1821-1882), photographer. Indians on Visit to their "Great Father." Washington, DC, 23 February 1867.

GARDNER, Alexander (1821-1882), photographer. Indians on Visit to their "Great Father." Washington, DC, 23 February 1867.