Aboriginal Life among the Navajoe Indians, near Old Fort Defiance, N.M. [sic]

TIMOTHY O'SULLIVAN (1840-1882)

Aboriginal Life among the Navajoe Indians, near Old Fort Defiance, N.M. [sic]

1873

O'Sullivan took the photograph displayed here during Lt. George M. Wheeler's (1842-1905) 1873 survey of eastern Nevada and Arizona. Wheeler twice described O'Sullivan's domestic image, once in 1874 and again in 1889, and his remarks reflect the changes that had occurred in the Western political landscape. In 1874, Wheeler saw in the photograph a people who were making "good progress towards civilization" and would be no threat to potential white neighbors. Fifteen years later, unruly tribes no longer plagued the frontier, and so Wheeler consigned the subjects of O'Sullivan's photograph-now dependent on U.S. government rations and a threat to no one-to a distant and forgotten past: "The head and lord of the family looks on with phlegmatic equanimity at the patient industry of the squaw and indulges in dreams, undoubtedly of victories of war or excitement of the chase, performed by him or his ancestors. They gather a scant harvest of corn and grain, but depend now for the greater part upon government rations."

Albumen print

Princeton Collections of Western Americana, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Purchase, J. Monroe Thorington Fund.