On this day, 27 November 1868, a detachment of US troops under the command of General Custer ignored orders to kill only warriors and massacred 103 sleeping Cheyenne in the so-called “Battle of the Washita”. Just one of many atrocities carried out against Native Americans during the colonization of the Americas.
This is an excellent online book on the treatment of Native American by the colonists: https://libcom.org/library/bury-my-heart-wounded-knee-indian-history-american-west-dee-brown
Inuit children at boarding school. The sign on the wall behind them reads, “Please do not speak Eskimo.” (1914)
This reminds me of how whole sects of complex Inuktitut dialects were wiped out by Euro settlers. There were hundreds of different and diverse dialects in Canadian Inuktitut languages alone, and a chunk of that was wiped out during early 20th century. That language is already on the brink of collapse (only 35,000 or so now loosely speak it).
They also took away not just their language, but their surnames, and replaced them with ID-numbers. As if taking their children and capturing them into residential schools (where they were systematically gaslighted, sexually abused and experimented on the regular) wasn’t enough, an Inuit child’s name was legit changed to something like “Annie E7-121.”
A very beautiful image of these smiley blackfoot. It seemed everything was alright…
Photograph by Mary T. S. Schaffer in 1907.
I just love how humanizing this is, it’s the first time I’ve seen us not depicted as the stoic archetype of this period
Pictured here are Sampson, Frances Louise, and Leah Beaver who actually were very close friends with the photographer and were regular subjects of her work. It’s amazing what happens when you view us as people rather than museum objects - you capture us as people, as friends, as lovers, as parents rather than the stoic image of genocide and colonialism in-progress.
If you’re interested in learning more about female photographers and how they aided in representing native peoples through positive representation and ethical photography, I would suggest reading “Trading Gazes.” Mary T.S. Schaffer and other influential female photographers, and friends, of native peoples are given some much-needed recognition in this book while also discussing the white woman’s place in our genocide and colonization.