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Group gathered for the Treaty signing, Fort Laramie, Dakota Territory

Catalog Data

Artist:
Alexander Gardner, 17 Oct 1821 - 10 Dec 1882  Search this
Sitter:
Unidentified Group  Search this
Medium:
Albumen silver print
Dimensions:
Image: 23.7 × 31.9cm (9 5/16 × 12 9/16")
Type:
Photograph
Date:
1868
Exhibition Label:
Indian Peace Commission staff regularly posed for Alexander Gardner, including its secretary, Ashton S. H. White (seated, second from right), who appears in at least five Laramie views. The commissioners posed as a group only once for an orchestrated photograph, although several had prior experience sitting for Gardner. Gardner’s Civil War acquaintance General William T. Sherman, now commander of the Military Division of the Missouri, was one of three active military appointees to the commission, which Congress convened in July 1867 to negotiate peace and to inaugurate “some plan for the civilization of the Indian.” Sherman initially expressed impatience with his civilian colleagues, who wished for a peaceable solution. Finally deciding there was “little difference whether [the Indians] be coaxed out by Indian commissioners or killed,” he identified common ground with his less hawkish counterparts: the forced concentration of North American Indians on defined reservations.
Topic:
Exterior\Landscape\Plains  Search this
Nature & Environment\Animal\Horse  Search this
Portrait  Search this
Credit Line:
Owner: National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution
Object number:
P15386
Restrictions & Rights:
Usage conditions apply
See more items in:
Catalog of American Portraits
Data Source:
Catalog of American Portraits
GUID:
http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/sm4195de669-ff60-4a0d-bf5e-cc2e83a462ef
EDAN-URL:
edanmdm:npg_P15386