Facinating cabinet card featuring a composite engraving of "Noted Indian Chiefs" produced in 1881 by Choate of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Choate selected the Chiefs in his composite based on who had visited the Carlisle Indian School, a boarding school for young Native Americans. Carlisle Indian School was one of many such instituations across the United States established in the later part of the 19th century to forcibly assimilate young Native Americans into "American" life. Carlisle in particular had a reputation for corporal punishiment and other extreme methods to "Kill the Indian, Save the Man."

Controversial even for the time, this photograph was produced as a type of propaganda that implied the support of the various Chiefs pictured.



[Antique Photography, Daguerreotype, Ambrotype, Albumen, carte-de-visite, CDV, Tintype] [Native American, Indian, Western]