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Imagery & Stereotyping Explained
Indian Caricatures |
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How some people try to distance themselves from these images |
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The End of "The Indian Threat": 1881-1913
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In the July 1891 edition of Century Magazine,
an article appeared written by Major George W. Baird,
in which he recounts his glory days as an Indian fighter
under the command of General Nelson A. Miles. Illustrated
with engravings by Frederic Remington, the article
covers Mile's career from its beginning at Fort Dodge
in 1874 to its conclusion six months earlier at Wounded
Knee, where armed troops opened fire on a group of
Big Foot's band of Lakota people killing 200-250 men,
women and children who were illegally performing the
Ghost Dance. Already by July 1891, Baird recognized
that Wounded Knee represented the climax of what he
called "the battle of civilization," and
that the Indian threat in the West was now over. With
White hegemony secured, Baird was now in a position
to offer a more magnanimous approach to what remained
of the "Indian problem":
There are but two goals for the
Indians--civilization or annihilation...I feel
for the Indians, not only friendly feeling but
admiration for many of their qualities...The American
people, those who really wish and hope to save
the Indians from extinction and degradation, must
be prepared to use great patience and summon all
their wisdom.
The signal that a new day had come in the history
of the West elicited two public responses. There was
a new wave of reform, most evident in the creation
of Indian boarding schools designed to civilize the
Native through forced assimilation. And there was
an acceleration of efforts to re-characterize this
"battle of civilization" in the public imagination;
to cast the Indian as an "other", distinct
from Euro-American civilization and deserving of displacement
to make the wilderness safe for the civilized farmer.
Ever since 1881, when Sitting Bull surrendered at
Fort Buford, every generation has recreated this historic
conflict with the Plains Indians dramatically; in
photographs, Wild West Shows, Victorian Adversing,
dime novels, paintings, early cinema, pulps, literature,
comic books, movies, radio, and on television. That
the Western genre of entertainment still thrives reflects
the dominant culture's need to dramatize its history
and to believe in the righteousness of that history's
outcome. This section emphasizes the critical time
period from 1881-1913, when the mythic American West
became firmly entrenched in the popular imagination. |
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| The beginning of America's need to dramatize
its conflict with the Plains Indians in popular
culture can be traced back at least as early
1881, when Sitting Bull surrendered to authorities
at Fort Buford. Five years after the fiasco
at Little Big Horn, Sitting Bull was a living
representation of the Indian resistance. The
Indian leader subsequently spent two years in
captivity at Fort Randall, where newspaper reporters
and tourists flocked to see him. At this time,
photographers also took advantage of Sitting
Bull's physical captivity to capture his image
on film. Most noteworthy was the work by a Nebraskan
photographer named William R. Cross, who assembled
a series of twenty-four photographs in such
a way as to chronicle the story of Sitting Bull's
capture and incarceration. Twenty-one of these
were published as stereoviews, a popular media
format in the later Nineteenth Century. They
were successfully marketed by Joshua Bradford
Bailey, Dr. George P. Dix, and John L. Mead,
an indication of the public's hunger for a popular
cinematic construction of the Plains Indian.
The photographs contain all the major elements
of what would later comprise the traditional Western movie plot: Savage Indians, Euro-American
agents of civilization in the form of (often
victimized) settlers, guardians of civilization
in the form of the American military, and a
moral message in the form of the inevitable
and righteous triumph of civilization over savagery.
In these images, the Noble Savage is hardly
evident. With the Plains conflict ongoing, the
Noble Savage |
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was put
on hiatus until such time as the Indian threat
had passed. In the Cross photographs, the Indians
are generally depicted as subdued and defeated,
now reliant on civilization for their very survival.
This theme surely provided much needed reassurance
to the general public that Euro-Americans were
in control. With Sitting Bull safely ensconced
at Fort Randall, news reports and interviews with
him quickly confirmed his celebrity status. Sitting
Bull himself was reported to have taken advantage
of the attention by selling some of his personal
artifacts and his autograph for outrageous sums.
Cross chose the stereoview as his format for publication
doubtless because he knew it would appeal to a
wide audience and maximize profits. The chronicle
begins with an autographed cabinet card of Sitting
Bull. Printed at the bottom of the card is an
anglicized spelling of his Indian name, followed
by the autograph. Below that is the dramatic caption,
"The above is a true Photo and Autograph
of 'Sitting Bull', the Sioux Chief at the Custer
Massacre." On the reverse are printed personal
statistics about him such as his height, weight,
and the number of wives he had, followed by the
declaration that although the |
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Sioux admits to no wrongdoing, he and his band
are nevertheless "prisoners at Fort Randall."
On Sitting Bull's lap are staged two symbolic
items, a weapon and a peace pipe. The suggestion
seems to be that the Indian is now at a crossroads.
The Indian can choose peace and become civilized,
or he can choose futile resistance. The other
two images that are not stereoviews are also cabinet
cards, and likewise they are of other Indian leaders
who represent contrasting futures for the Indian.
One is a portrait of Steps, a "Nes Perce
Indian" who "lost his feet above the
ankles, also his right hand while being frozen,
having been caught in one of the severe snow storms,
21 years ago." The other is an image of One
Bull, Sitting Bull's defiant nephew, shown brandishing
a weapon. On the reverse is printed, "had
to be knocked down and carried aboard the boat
to be brought as a prisoner to the fort."
Image number 4 begins the stereoviews, and the
depiction of Sitting Bull's captivity. Four views
of the iconic Indian tepee are shown, with the
explanation on the reverse that an effort was
made to show the scene in a manner more attractive
than is actually found in reality. Other Indian
objects are the subjects of other stereoviews,
likewise displayed in a romanticized manner. These
images of the vanishing Plains culture included
animal skins, totem poles, and tools employed
by the Indian medicine man. Cross was careful,
however, to not overly romanticize the Indian. |
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In one image titled "Women's
Rights," women are shown working, accompanied by
the following explanation. "Two squaws sitting
beside their tepee, resting after carrying the wood
seen beside them on their backs, as seen in view No.19,
for half a mile, while their liege lords and master
(the noble red men), are smoking." This satirical
description was part of a growing theme in American
popular culture in which the Indian male was singled
out for negative stereotyping as being lazy.
The civilizing force in Cross's narrative is represented
by the Twenty-fifth Infantry, a unit of black "Buffalo
Soldiers" commanded by White officers. One stereoview
titled "Battalion Drill" emphasizes the orderly
conduct of soldiers, and thereby of the force of civilization.
Another image titled "Issuing Rations" emphasizes
the growing dependence of the Indian on Euro-American
taxpayers. The caption reads, "An Indian with a
pipe in his hand in the foreground watching the artist,
some officers and their families with Indians standing
and squating around them." On the back are listed
the specific rations allotted to these dependent former
nomads. Another image emphasizes the humaneness of treatment
these Indians received by listing all of the goods the
Indians were issued, from paper to combs to handkerchiefs.
Following the introduction of the military and the assurance
that the Indian was subjugated but treated humanely,
the sequence of photographs concludes with scenes that
introduce the Euro-American settler to the narrative.
Most |
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telling is the image of Sitting Bull sitting
before his tepee with members of his family
in a posture suggesting submission to a social
hierarchy. Sitting Bull and his family are at
one end, closest to the ground. Next to them,
but higher up, sits a White female, representative
of the settler for whom the West is being made
safe. She can sit safely next to the Indian
"savage," now that he's been tamed.
At the top of the hierarchy, in the background,
a military soldier, the Indian tamer, sits astride
his mount, keeping a watchful eye on the situation.
Sitting Bull was charged with, but acquitted
of being the person who killed General Custer.
He was in May 1883 to the Standing Rock Agency
to be with his people. His notoriety saw him
become an Indian spokesperson at public ceremonies
and events, including the one marking the completion
of the Northern Pacific Railroad in Bismarck
in 1883. In 1885 he was recruited by Buffalo
Bill Cody to be a star in his traveling Wild
West show, where he was paid enormous sums of
money to represent the "bloodthirsty savage"
in front of adoring crowds. After declining
to follow the tour to Europe in 1887, Sitting
Bull took on the cause of trying to stop White
encroachment of Sioux lands. He was assassinated
on December 15, 1890, during the days leading
up to the massacre at Wounded Knee. |
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When Sitting Bull agreed to join Buffalo Bill's
Wild West Show in 1885, he probably didn't realize
he was about to make a major contribution to
the stereotyping of the American Indian and
the romanticizing of the American West in the
popular imagination. Sitting Bull himself was
a major attraction, as thousands of spectators
turned out to catch a real-life glimpse of the
infamous "Killer of Custer." A photograph
of Sitting Bull with Buffalo Bill taken by William
Cross in 1885 was one of the most popular souvenirs
of the show. Invented in 1883 by Buffalo Bill,
the Wild West Show became an enormous entertainment
attraction well into the early Twentieth Century,
particularly in the Eastern American cities.
At the same time the real frontier was coming
to a close, Eastern cities were filling up with
native-born Americans and European immigrants
who were wholly unfamiliar with the unique American
frontier experience. Buffalo Bill and others
gave it to them in the form of vaudeville-style
theatrics that forever mythologized the West
with their presentation of that rapidly vanishing
way of life. Buffalo Bill even took his show
to Europe in 1886, to wild acclaim.
It seems logical that the idea for a Wild West
Show would first come to William F. Cody, a
man who was himself already mythologized in
the East in a dime novel by Ned Buntline called The King of Border Men (1869). Cody earned
a reputation as a good shot and a frontiersman
while getting paid to kill buffalo to feed the
hungry railroad workers who were building the |
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railroad. He served as a scout for the US Army,
and was well-paid to guide wealthy Easterners
on buffalo hunting trips. Following the publication
of Buntline's book, a theatrical version was created,
and soon Cody was cast to play himself in the
lead role. In 1883 the very first performance
of his Wild West Show was conducted in Omaha,
Nebraska. Before long Cody had a well-established
formula for success. Historical reenactments were
a large part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.
Specific historical events included the Lewis
and Clark Expedition, The Battle of Little Bighorn,
and many other battles from the Plains Wars. But
the show also performed generic fictionalized
events of typical Western life, such as the buffalo
hunt, a train robbery, or a wagon train crossing
the prairie. These reenactments were combined
with displays of marksmanship and skill with rope
and horse by some truly talented people, including
Annie Oakley, Wild Bill Hickok, Bronco Bill, and
Will Rogers. Buffalo Bill himself was said to
be an excellent marksman, especially with a rifle
on horseback. Other Native |
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| Americans who performed with
the show included Geronimo, Chief Joseph, and Rains
In The Face, who reportedly was the Indian who had actually
killed General Custer at Little Bighorn. The show featured
as many as 1200 performers and hundreds of large animals,
including a large herd of buffalo, |
one of the last still surviving in the United
States. Typically, the show concluded with a
grand finale, often a dramatization of savage
Indians attacking and burning a White settlement,
only to be repulsed by Buffalo Bill and other
cowboys.
Buffalo’s Bill’s Wild West Show captivated
audiences from 1883-1913. In 1887 Cody responded
to a request by Queen Victoria to appear at
her Golden Jubilee at Windsor Castle by taking
the entire troop overseas on several ships,
including 200 passengers, 97 Native Americans,
18 buffalo, 181 horses, 10 elk, 4 donkeys, 5
longhorns (Texas steers), 2 deer, 10 mules,
and the deadwood concord stagecoach. The Show
toured England for the next six months, and
then the following year returned to tour Europe
until 1892, and again in 1906. By taking his
Show overseas, Buffalo Bill spread the myth
of the American West to people whose frontier
has been settled centuries before, and who were
hungry for the exciting adventure of the American
West. To some Europeans, the Wild West show
not only represented the west, but all of America,
and it likely influenced the decision of many
to immigrate to the United States. Bill also
created the cowboy as an American icon. He gave
the people of England, France, Spain, Italy,
Belgium, Netherlands, and Germany a taste of
the wild and romantic west. |
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| In 1893 the show performed
at the Chicago World’s Fair to a crowd of 18,000.
This performance represented the peak of the show’s
popularity. Thereafter, it saw a steady decline. A series
of unfortunate business decisions and the poor economic
climate of the country, as well as the invention of
the motion picture contributed to the show's end. In
1913 Cody was bankrupt and took down his tents for the
last time. Nevertheless, the impact of Wild West Shows
on the creation of a mythic past for the United States
can hardly be overestimated. Not only did it serve to
mythologize America's past, but it forever identified
the Plains Indian and his lifestyle as the Indian,
and fixed the Euro-American image of the Indian in time.
By the late Nineteenth Century, Euro-Americans were
well on their way to identifying the Indian as a people
of the past. |
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The success of Buffalo Bill's
Wild Show spawned many imitators. By the early 1900s
Bill had more than a dozen competitors. A partial list
of Wild West Shows includes:
* Allen Bros. Wild West (1929-1934) - Charles and Mert
H. Allen
* Arlington & Beckman's Oklahoma Ranch Wild West
(1913) - Edward Arlington and Fred Beckman
* Austin Bros. 3 Ring Circus and Real Wild West (1945)
* Barrett Shows and Oklahoma Bill's Wild West (1920)
* Bee Ho Gray's Wild West (circa 1919-1932)
* Broncho John, Famous Western Horseman and his Corps
of Expert Horsemen (1906) - J. H. Sullivan
* Buckskin Ben's Wild West and Dog and Pony Show (1908)
Benjamin Stalker
* Buckskin Bill's Wild West (1900)
* California Frank’s All-Star Wild West (1911)
- Frank Hafley
* Colonel Cummins’ Wild West Indian Congress and
Rough Riders of the World - Frederick T. Cummins
* Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show for Kids
* Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders
* Diamond Dick's Wild West
* Fred Akins Real Wild West and Far East Show (1909-1910)
* Gene Autry's Flying A Ranch Stamped (1942)
* Irwin Brothers Cheyenne Frontier Days Wild West Show
* Jones Bros.' Buffalo Ranch Wild West (1910)
* Texas Jack's Wild West (circa 1900)
* Miller Bros. 101 Ranch Real Wild West
* Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show
* Zach Mulhall's Congress of Rough Riders and Ropers |
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With the closing of the American frontier in the
late Nineteenth Century and the success of the Wild
West Show, Euro-Americans quickly came to see the
Native American, especially the Plains Indian, in
mythological terms, and as a people of the past. Once
no longer a threat, the Noble Savage made a comeback.
Though he never completely replaced the Ignoble Savage,
the Noble Savage was appropriated to represent that
vanishing culture, whose demise was inevitable, if
tragic, given the march of White hegemony under the
banner of manifest destiny. The demise of the Indian
coincided with the rise of a new form of advertising;
the Victorian trade card. These postcard-sized lithographed
images were mass produced in the latter quarter of
the Nineteenth Century and became the most important
form of advertising of the era. They were widely distributed
in stores and as premiums packaged with some products,
and were collected by many Americans because of their
often lush, colorful graphics. The manufacturers of
trade cards catered to America's carnivalesque fascination
with imagery, and they often mined the racial attitudes
of the time to promote a sense of Euro-American middle
class consumer solidarity. Blacks, Asians, Irish,
and Indians were all marginalized in Victorian trade
advertising in order to foster this sense of White American identity.
By the 1880s, Eastern Indians had somewhat assimilated,
certainly more than had those in the West, and thus
had become largely invisible to Euro-Americans. Since
most Americans in the era had never seen a "real
Indian" (one "in the wild" of the Plains),
their exoticness became the perfect advertising vehicle.
Most prevalent were Quack medicines that identified
themselves with Indianness. Part of the Indian myth
included the notion that Indian communion with nature
put them more in tune with the natural healing powers
of the earth. Indians held medicinal secrets lost
to the science of civilized man, except for the product
being advertised, of course. In an era of consumerism
when there were virtually no regulations controlling
medicinal products, manufacturers pumped out pills,
oils, and potions that claimed to cure everything
from falling down stairs to migraines to "women's
diseases" to liver ailments. Containing mainly
innocuous ingredients, these products were successfully
marketed by connecting them with Indian mythology
in the minds of Euro-American consumers. In doing
so, the noble savage Indian stereotype was restored,
to coexist side-by-side with the ignoble savage. The
Indian squaw became the "princess," while
the male often became the noble, picturesque warrior:
clean, stoic, dressed in feathers, in harmony with
nature. By connecting the Indian with products, the
consumer endorsed the inherent righteousness of the
displacement of that primitive culture of the past
by the more civilized, capitalist culture of the future,
and further cemented the image of the Indian as a
people of the past in the minds of Americans of the
present. |
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