Orlando Scott Goff

[grahamew]

Rain in the Face, taken, one presumes, during his brief captivity at Fort Abraham Lincoln in 1874; there was no other opportunity to sit him in front of the camera until his surrender in 1880 at Fort Keogh, where Huffman photographed him.


Joseph, taken a few weeks after his surrender in 1877.

Both have been credited to other photographers, especially Haynes, but the sharp-eyed among you will see the same tree at the right of both shots and here it is again in Goff's photograph of Louise Van Solen (the half Lakota/half French daughter of Eagle Woman/Matilda Picotte Galpin), taken at Fort Abraham Lincoln:
.

It does 'appear' in one Haynes' photo, though; this one:


Probably taken when the surrendered Lakota arrived at Standing Rock from Forts Keogh and Buford in spring/summer 1881 (though I have seen the date given as 1883, perhaps on the occasion of the 'last' buffalo hunt).

[grahamew]

Sitting Bull, 31 July 1881

When he surrendered at Fort Buford on 20 July, he was suffering from an eye infection and wore a calico handkerchief, partly over his eyes (Utley, The Last Sovereigns p.116). The smoked goggles were presumably given to him at Buford. Every version of the top photo I've seen has had the backdrop blurred/painted out.

This is the first portrait of Sitting Bull that has come to light. There is an earlier photo taken by (Thomas) George Anderton at Fort Walsh that is said to show Sitting Bull and other Lakota. One interpretation I read suggested it showed a meeting between Sitting Bull and Crowfoot, perhaps, considering four of the participants seem to be wearing the same kind of hat, following a trip to the trading post. When I first saw this, I was quite excited, but blowing up the image, I don't think it is him. If you compare the man who is said to be Sitting Bull with the 1881 photo and the later Barry one, then you may well doubt the man's identity. There are also several men whose hairstyle isn't Lakota and one at the back is also wearing a shirt with a beaded disc; I know that Lakota wore these too, but weren't they more common among the Blackfoot and Assiniboine?












It's possible Anderton did photograph Sitting Bull and it hasn't come to light, but I've only see two of his images that show Lakota people, one of Long Dog outisde log cabin walls (a favourite backdrop)...


and one showing Tahnoncoach, allegedly Sitting Bull's niece and the Lakota wife of NWP member George Pembridge, against another favoured backdrop, a blanket:


The only other Indian group I've seen photographed by Anderson out of doors but inside the fort consists of a party of Cree dancing in the barrack square/parade ground, where the camera is set up pretty mch in the same position as for the 'Sitting Bull' photo, but I've only come across a really small version of this:




. 

[Dietmar]

I second Grahame´s thought about Sitting Bull not being in the Fort Walsh photo.

Going back to the Arikara pictures, this man is identified in Ben Innis` book on Bloody Knife as Soldier, third in command of the Indian scouts at the Little Bighorn:


Soldier, Arikara

Is this really Bloody Knife? Not sure.



I`ve tried to find out who was "Mr. De Frane" (I´ve seen him also as Frances De Frane), but nada. Perhaps rather De France? I don´t know.

[nicolas (carlo)]

Jan 3, 2022 9:15:57 GMT -5 Dietmar said:

I`ve tried to find out who was "Mr. De Frane" (I´ve seen him also as Frances De Frane), but nada. Perhaps rather De France? I don´t know.

Dufresne? Just a shot in the dark of course, but this surname is typically pronounced De Frane in English.

[grahamew]

Thanks, Dietmar. I'm not convinced it's Bloody Knife either. Might it be Little Sioux? It looks like the kneeling guy in the photo of Custer, Bloody Knife and Goose(?) taken on the Black Hills trip.

Goff took a number of photographs of Standing Rock people against the same background as the Sitting Bull photo above. The assumption, therefore, is they were taken in 1881 in Bismarck.


Wolf Necklace, Upper Yanktonai



Thunder Hawk, Hunkpapa. Note that under his shirt, he seems to be wearing one of those knitted tops that Red Dog wears in one of the Godkin photos


Miniconjou girl? Not sure about the presence of a Miniconjou here...Maybe she's the daughter or wife of one of the men pictured.




Goose - this is the Sihasapa not the Yanktonai, isn't it...? Interesting that Goff took his image three times - or at least three times. Wonder if he did that with any of the others.


Goose's daughter - I've also seen her identified as Left Hand, a Hunkpapa


Bear's Rib, Hunkpapa


One Feather or Long Feather, Sihasapa

I wonder if there's any connecton between these images and those of Sitting Bull other than sharing the same backdrop. I wonder if they'd come to Bismarck to greet him or perhaps impress upon him the need to toe the line, although I would expect to see Running Antelope too. There's a James Lucas photo of Thunder Hawk that cannot have been taken too many years earlier that underlines his importance on Standing Rock at the time:



If you blow the image up, you can see that the item attached to the shoulder of his army jacket says, "Head Chief, Uncpapas"

[grahamew]

Goff seems to have taken a break from photographing the various tribes in the early 1880s, passing the baton to David Barry while embarking on a political career. Although he was established in Bismarck, in 1884 he travelled to Forts Custer and Assiniboine to take more photographs. Following this, there is a brief hiatus to take illness and more politics into account and then he travelled to Montana again. There are several backdrops in evidence. The one with the gate seems to be the later one, with images from 1887 and beyond.


Two Whistles, who lost his arm below the elbow following a wound sustained in the Sword Bearer rebellion, which dates the image to late 1887, at least.


Fights/Coups Well Known. You can see he wears half-leggings over his blanket leggings. I think this man is one of the troop of Crow scouts in a photo I'll post later - maybe the man with the short hair and sword posted earlier:



Unidentified women


Unidentified girl


Unidentified young girl


Unidentified young woman.

 No fence here, but the painted backdrop is the same:




Plenty Coups




Curley


Spotted Horse (fairly sure this is the same backdrop)

[grahamew]

A few more Crow photos:


Unidentified Hot Dancer


Unidentified woman with baby

Unidentified woman - pretty sure this is the same woman and child as above


Pretty Eagle (at right)


Unidentified


Unidentified girl


Root Digger


Three young men


Medicne man or another Hot Dancer?


Big Ox. Not sire about the identification here. Big Ox was photographed by Miller sometime around 1900 or maybe a little later and he looked more like the man below (not sure of the photographer) than the stouter man above. Maybe it's just the poor quality image!



Part of the problem with attributing some of these photos is that there were several photographers visiting Fort Custer in the 1880s - Haynes and Barry being the obvious examples, but there were others, like Locke in the 1880s and 90s.

I've seen this one credited to Goff, but most of the portraits like this tend to be by Haynes:



Goes Ahead


Iron Fork

[grahamew]

Crow scouts at Fort Custer, 1890 - or are they Indian troopers?


And again. This group was originally labelled as Cheyenne.


Bear Don't Walk before he enlisted, 1890


Two Crow scouts/Indian soldiers at Fort Custer - initially labelled 'Sioux.'


Bull Snake (mounted)


Crow scout and his wife - the winter backdrop is the same one used for a couple of the images in the previous post


Unidentified Crow scout


According to the Montana Memory Project, this is Pierre de Chein, a part Crow/part African-American scout and interpreter who was married to a Crow woman or he was "Brady Jewell, a soldier in the U.S. Army Tenth Cavalry who was both Indian and African-American." 
www.mtmemory.org/nodes/view/73773?keywords=goff&type=all&highlights=WyJnb2ZmIl0=&lsk=e886bc6c7b66c415195e4d5cb5d50e14

[nicolas (carlo)]

'Pierre de Chien' is noted on official documents as Pierre Shane, Pierre Chene, and Pierre Chêne. The latter is his real surname, but descendants took up the anglicized Shane. He had several Crow wives and a brother named Tom Chêne, who also lived on the Crow Reservation in the late 1870s. He was noted to be French-Canadian and/or Metis (by his descendants!); I have never seen him mentioned as part Crow/African American, so the inital identification as Brady Jewell, who actually served as a 'Buffalo Soldier' (see his medal) seems appropriate to me.

[Dietmar]

I think that Carlo is right. However, when I got interested in Brady Newell, I couldn't find anything. There was a mixed-blood (of Seminole and African American heritage) soldier at Ft. Clark, Texas called Jewel Brady, but he seems to young for the man in the Goff photo.

[Dietmar]

We had this Goff picture before...




...but interestingly the University of Michigan identifies the man as "Medicine Joe" or "Joe No Heart":




Actually, I think he indeed resembles Joseph No Heart, who was a police officer at Standing Rock.

[grahamew]

I think it is No Heart, moreso when you compare the image with later photos. This one is by Scott - I'm assuming eight or so years later:



And this one by Fiske? 20+ years later:



I thought the one you posted was by Barry, to be honest. I'd also never noticed there were two versions!

[Dietmar]

Yep, that´s him. This No Heart should not be confused with a man of the same name at Cheyenne River. The latter was named Abraham No Heart.

[grahamew]

There are any number of exterior shots taken around Fort Custer supposedly by Goff. Some of these turn up credited to other people - Finch, Miller, TN Barnard, Locke and Peterson, Fansler (who later occupied a studio that Barry and Goff had used, so it's feasible, I guess, that he was selling their works) and Haynes, for example.












This particular group, allegedly showing Rain in the Face and John Grass dancing with the Crow at a tenth anniversary 'celebration' of Little Bighorn, has been discussed here: amertribes.proboards.com/thread/201/rain-face?page=10

The consensus is that Grass and Rain simply aren't there; indeed on the Montana Memory site, credit is given to Goff and the photographs were said to have been 'taken on a camping trip of 10th Cav. from Ft. Custer, Montana, 1894-95.'

The Montana Memory ( www.mtmemory.org/ ) site has many of these photos, including some of those that crop up auction sites, so I don't intend to post all them because they are readily accessible.




I'm guessing that's the same flag pole as in the first


Scouts with soldiers



This is clearly related to the first two images.
'In April 2016, Grant Bulltail provided information about this photograph: This is part of a Hot Dance Society ceremony, which started out as a war dance. Dancers brought their tail bustles or dance bustles and placed them on the ground, and then danced four times. Raised hands indicates the opening part of the ceremony.' https://www.mtmemory.org/nodes/view/74482?keywords=goff&type=all&highlights=WyJnb2ZmIl0=









White Man Runs Him at right


Is that Pretty Eagle standing third from right? It's pointed out on the Montana Memory site that while this is titled, 'Waiting for Rations,' there are no women present.


Same as above - the man in the centre at the front is Medicine Crow




Crow village


Pretty Eagle is said to be the man seated at the left in the white hat


Plenty Coups at the right; the man in the dark vest in the middle is said to be Bell Rock. Is that not also him next to the man with the raised fan in the photo above?





Drying meat


Sweat lodge - credited to William B Finch (which should maybe be WR Finch) on an auction site, Montana Memory Project credits it to Goff


Crow village - also credited to Finch on the auction site, but Montana Memory says it's a Goff


Cheyenne village


This is said to have been taken in the winter of 1894-5. Strangely, the Montana Memory site claims the man is holding a pipe, but it's obviously a telescope/spyglass.

[Dietmar]

Same series, isn´t it?:




Note the man in white shirt and cap!