Indians of North America -- Great Plains Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Ledger drawings
Date:
ca. 1853
Scope and Contents:
These are the original drawings that accompanied Edwin Thompson Denig's 451 page manuscript, entitled "Report to Hon. Isaac I. Stevens, Governor of Washington Territory, on the Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri, by Edwin Thompson Denig." The drawings depict utensils, tools, game pieces, plants, warfare, hunting, a tipi, a scalp dance, and a map. Five of the drawings are attributed to anonymous Assiniboine artists. The drawings that are not attributed to the Assiniboine may have been drawn by Edwin T. Denig. All of the drawings were likely created between 1853 and 1854, while Denig was working on the report. Records indicate that his original manuscript included 15 pages ink drawings. The manuscript was published in 1930, in the Forty-sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Prior to being photographed for the publication, the 15 pages of drawings were trimmed into 39 smaller drawings, which were subsequently arranged and pasted onto 19 mounts. Included with the drawings is typed page identifying the drawings as "Original sketches for Plates 64-80 and Figs. 30-35 of Denig's "Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri," edited by J.N.B. Hewitt, BAE-AR 46, Washington, D.C., 1930. " The page also contains a list of negative numbers.
Biographical / Historical:
Edwin T. Denig was born on March 10, 1812 in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. He entered the fur trade in 1833 as an employee of the American Fur Company. He would be employeed in the fur trade for the next 23 years. During this period he worked at Fort Pierre and Fort Union, eventually rising to the position of bourgeois at the latter post. In 1854 he authored a 451 page manuscript, entitled "Report to Hon. Isaac I. Stevens, Governor of Washington Territory, on the Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri, by Edwin Thompson Denig." Denig left Fort Union in 1856. He died on September 4, 1858 near the city of Winnipeg, Canada. For further biographic information, see Edwin Thompson Denig, Five Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri: Sioux, Arickaras, Assiniboines, Crees, and Crows (edited and with an introduction by John C. Ewers), University of Oklahoma Press, 1961.
Fort Union trading post was constructed by the American Fur Company in 1828 and was located near the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers. It was established to open trade with the Assiniboine, yet it served a variety of tribes, including the Crow, Arikara, Mandan, Hidatsa, Plains Cree, Chippewa, Blackfeet, and Sioux. These tribes exchanged beaver pelts and buffalo robes for trade goods at Fort Union. In 1866, the trading post was sold to the Northwestern Fur Company. A year later, the United States Army purchased the facility, which it subsequently dismantled. For further information, see: National Park Service, Fort Union Trading Post: Grandest Fort on the Missouri http://www.nps.gov/fous/history.htm Edwin Thompson Denig, Five Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri: Sioux, Arickaras, Assiniboines, Crees, and Crows (edited and with an introduction by John C. Ewers), University of Oklahoma Press, 1961.
MS 7135 Fielding Lucas Jr. Scrapbook, including illustrations and original watercolor and wash sketches of James Otto Lewis, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Collection is open for research but the Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalogs are stored off-site and are restricted due to fragile condition. Researchers should consult microfilm in NMAH library for 1880-1983 editions, drawer 692. Some additional items may be restricted due to fragile condition. Contact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
Series Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Series Citation:
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana Subject Categories: Dry Goods, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Funding for partial processing of the collection was supported by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF).
0.75 cu. ft. (1 document box) (1 half document box)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Field notes
Manuscripts
Place:
Alaska
Date:
1865-1867
Descriptive Entry:
This collection includes correspondence, mostly to Spencer F. Baird, from members of the Scientific Corps of the Western Union Telegraph Expedition, including Kennicott,
Dall, Bannister, and Elliott; copies of reports submitted to divisional chiefs from expedition staff members; newspaper clippings concerning the expedition; copies of notes
on natural history taken by Robert Kennicott; and a journal containing meteorological data recorded by Henry M. Bannister from March to August, 1866.
Historical Note:
The Western Union Telegraph Expedition, 1865-1867, also known as the Russian-American Telegraph Expedition, was undertaken to study the possibility of setting up a
communications system with Europe by way of Alaska, the Bering Straits, and Asia. The expedition was organized in three divisions, working in Canada, Russian-America (Alaska),
and Asia. Robert Kennicott, the veteran Alaskan explorer, was placed in charge of the Russian-American division. Under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution and the
Chicago Academy of Sciences, a Scientific Corps was established, with Kennicott in command, to accompany the Russian-American division and make collections in natural history.
Naturalists William H. Dall, Henry M. Bannister, and Henry W. Elliott served as members of the Scientific Corps. On the death of Kennicott on May 13, 1866, Dall became chief
of the Scientific Corps until the expedition was terminated in July 1867 due to the successful laying of the Atlantic Cable.
Restrictions:
It appears that some of the material in this collection was removed from the official correspondence files of the Smithsonian.
Indians of North America -- Great Plains Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Photographs
Date:
Apr 29 1834
Biographical / Historical:
Original pencil sketch by Carl Bodmer, April 29, 1834.
Fort Pierre, at the mouth of the Teton River, was the American Fur Company's principal trading post among the Teton Dakota (Western Sioux). The Indian tipis depicted near this post are undoubtedly Sioux. (--JCE)
Indians of North America -- Great Plains Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Photographs
Date:
Feb 1834
Scope and Contents:
Distant view of the fort, and earthlodge village near it on the bluffs. From their appearance, Indians in foreground, and crossing river on the ice, could be either Mandan or Hidatsa. (--JCE)
Biographical / Historical:
Fort Clark was the American Fur Company trading post for both the Mandan and the Hidatsa. (--JCE)
Tintypes depicting fur trader Robert Meldrum and his wife Medicine Tree [Apsáalooke (Crow/Absaroke); also known as Margaret].
Scope and Contents:
P08166
This collection contains two circular gem tintypes pasted to a mat board. The tintypes depict Robert Meldrum and his wife Medicine Tree [Apsáalooke (Crow/Absaroke); also known as Margaret]. The photographs were shot by an unidentified photographer in St. Louis, Missouri, circa 1858-1865.
According to the original inventory, the tintypes were part of a jewelry locket. At some unknown point in time, the tintypes were removed from the locket and pasted to a mat board.
Arrangement:
The tintypes are arranged on a mat board inside an archival phase box.
Biographical / Historical:
Robert Meldrum (1802-1865) was a fur trader and interpreter for the Apsáalooke (Crow/Absaroke) tribe.
Born in 1802, Meldrum and his family emigrated from Scotland to Canada in 1812 and eventually moved to the United States. By the late 1820s, Meldrum was living in St. Louis, Missouri and working in the Rocky Mountain fur trade industry.
The American Fur Company hired Meldrum in 1833 to act as a liaison between the company and the Crow community in Montana. He was stationed at various American Fur Company trading posts and commercial forts along the Yellowstone and Upper Missouri Rivers including Fort Cass, Fort Alexander, Fort Sharpy, and Fort Sharpy II. At these posts, Northern Plains tribes brought various furs to be traded for guns, ammunition, clothing, beads, and other goods.
Meldrum also learned to speak the Apsáalooke language and served as an interpreter between the tribe and U.S. Government. The tribe conferred Meldrum the status of chief and gave him the name "Round Iron" because of the iron trinkets he gifted. Meldrum reportedly married several Apsáalooke women over the years, including Medicine Tree (Margaret), although very little was written about them.
On July 10, 1865, Meldrum died at the American Fur Company's Fort Union on the Upper Missouri River.
Related Materials:
The Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives also holds a photograph of Robert Meldrum.
Separated Materials:
The National Museum of the American Indian also holds other objects from Jirah Isham Allen's collection (object catalog numbers 147472 to 147486).
Provenance:
Formerly in the collection of Jirah Isham Allen (Colonel Ike Allen, 1839-1929, a Montana prospector, pioneer, and storekeeper) and probably collected by him between 1862 and about 1920; purchased by MAI from Jirah Allen in 1926.
Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archives Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiphotos@si.edu. For personal or classroom use, users are invited to download, print, photocopy, and distribute the images that are available online without prior written permission, provided that the files are not modified in any way, the Smithsonian Institution copyright notice (where applicable) is included, and the source of the image is identified as the National Museum of the American Indian. For more information please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use and NMAI Archive Center's Digital Image request website.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Tintypes of Robert Meldrum and Medicine Tree, P08166, NMAI.AC.386; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Chardon's journal at Fort Clark, 1834-1839 / edited with historical introduction and notes by Annie Heloise Abel ; introduction to the Bison Books edition by William R. Swagerty