Gardner at Fort Laramie 1868

[Dietmar]

Alexander Gardner, who was born 1821 in Glasgow, Scotland, became one of the most important photographer of American Indians in the 19th century.
In 1868 he made his way to Wyoming to photograph the treaty negotiations at Fort Laramie, where he arrived on April 29th, one day after the Sicangus had already signed the treaty. He took a whole series of highly interesting images of Northern Plains Indians, soldiers and surrounding landscape.

In this thread I would like to stimulate a discussion about the photos Gardner had taken on this occasion.

Let´s start with this one:


from left to right: Gray Eyes, Running Water, Mrs. Moran, unidentified woman, Young Elk, (and five children)

Do we have more information about these individuals, other than Young Elk was Mnicoujou?

[kingsleybray]

Gray Eyes crops up in several Oglala censuses in the 1870s, usually listed as a member of the Loafer band. Mr. Moran was well-known in the Platte River trading community, he also turns up at Red Cloud Agency in the 70s.

The Young Elk identification as Miniconjou is interesting - because I don't know on what basis it was made. Some of the identifications on the Gardner photo's seem to me to be highly contentious. The guy identified as Spotted Tail at the far left of the famous image including Lone Horn, Old Man Afraid of His Horse, Roman Nose, et al. - surely he isn't Spotted Tail. Now I read somewhere (where?) that some of these id's were made in the early 1900s when Walter Camp visited the reservations with a set of prints. Maybe someone else knows more about this.

That aside the Gardner set, photographs and stereographs, is simply a priceless record of a key event and a key period of transition. Discussion necessary!

[Dietmar]

Here´s another Gardner photo in which Young Elk is portraited together with Lone Horn, both identified as Miniconjou. I speculated for myself that he perhaps was related to Lone Horn (nephew?), but of course that´s pure guessing.


Lone Horn (Miniconjou), Pipe (Oglala), Grass (Oglala), Young Elk (Miniconjou)

[grahamew]

Grey Eyes again.
The woman with him appears in this photo too:

[Dietmar]

I have the following identifications for Grahame´s last photo:

left to right:
The One Who Trades, Mrs. Gray Eyes, Thigh, child, Bears Tooth, The Deaf and Dumb Indian, 2 children

I doubt that The Deaf and Dumb Indian is really his name, but who knows. The names are from a scan from the Minnesota State Historical archives. They were written on the original border of the "Scenes in the Indian Country" series published by Gardner.

Thigh: I assume he is the Brule delegate who went to Washington in 1872 and there again was photographed by Gardner.

[grahamew]

Mrs Grey Eyes can be seen here too:

[Dietmar]

Kingsley,

I looked for anything about the Walter Camp identifications, but the only hint I have is a paper from Smithsonian Archives where the curator in 1945 states that Camp has identified the individuals in the Gardner pictures c. 30-35 years earlier.


Here is photo I have seen often designated as "Ute Indians" or "Snake Indians", sometimes with the imprint of another photographer, but it´s clearly a Gardner one. Young Elk is there again. The man in the center with hat appears in at least one other 1868 photo... so does the man on the horse with hat:

[grahamew]

I've seen this in a Carter mount, although I guess that doesn't mean too much. Either way, there's another photo of some of this group:

[Dietmar]

I checked my copies I received from the Smithsonian years ago and found a sheet regarding the photograph with Gray Eyes, Running Water, Mrs. Moran and Young Elk. The identified names are all type-written, but the someone has afterwards added handwritten the tribe affiliation "Miniconjou" behind the name of Young Elk. Whatever that means, and whoever that was.

[Dietmar]

... another view of the Gray Eyes and Running Water group... this time without Young Elk:


Gray Eyes, Running Water & woman with child

[Dietmar]

...and here is a group photograph, mostly showing Indian women, who include the alleged Mrs. Gray Eyes again:




Mrs. Gray Eyes (close-up)

The photo also pictures a man who - from the pipe and the fan he´s wearing - could be a prominent chief. But hard to say who he is without a higher resolution picture:


unknown chief (close-up)

[Dietmar]

I admit I erred in questioning "Deaf and Dumb´s name. There was a Brule by that name and there were descendants (for example Mary Deaf and Dumb) on Rosebud Reservation that received allotments later on.

Regarding Young Elk: A friend of mine suggested that Young Elk could have been Whistling Elk´s son. Do we know something about Whistling Elk´s descendants?

[risto]

Hi there! I have a photocopy listing all Gardner photographs at Newberry Library. For the benefit of those who are not familiar with these, Gardner returned to Washington from Laramie with 200 glass plate negatives, half of them were later sold as "Scenes in the Indian Country" prints and the other half were stereographs. The negatives for the latter are not found but one set of prints from these are in Newberry Library, and part of them can be found in internet but without the accompaniyng cards

A few of the phographs were identified by Mr Camp, 9-10-19 and a few more by Elmo Scott Watson 2-28-1948. The listing is available from Newberry Library but I can check the cards of some of them if you can give me the number on the picture, should look something like this: AP506

Raymond J DeMallie made a nice article "Scenes in the Indian Country" A portfolio of Alexander Gardner's stereographic views of the 1868 Fort Laramie treaty councils, in Montana, the magazine of western history,p 42-59,summer 1981, presenting 24 of those 54 stereographs portraying Indians at Laramie. The magazine might be available from the Montana Historical Society.

[Dietmar]

Welcome risto,

thanks for offering your help. My wish for this thread is to compile and identify all Gardner photographs taken in 1868 at Fort Laramie that are available. Your list would be very helpful.
I will upload more scans from time to time. I´ll try to find out their numbers.

The article of DeMallie is essential, a must-have. Thanks for reminding us.

Best wishes

Dietmar

[Dietmar]

As many have already noted, there are some fantastic photographs online now at the British Museum site, inclusive at least a dozen scans of Gardner´s Laramie photographs.

Here is one that is new to me:


Photograph (black and white) from an album; portrait of Samuel F Tappan standing on the left, wearing a cap, a tie, a shirt, a jacket and a pair of trousers, shaking hands with Roman Rose; Roman Rose is wearing a feather in his hair, and has a blanket wrapped around himself; Major Guines standing on the right, wearing a hat, and a three piece suit;