Passage III

HUMANITIES: This passage is adapted from the article "Photography Changes How Cultural Groups Are Represented and Perceived" by Edwin Schupman (@˝2012 by The Smithsonian Institution).

The author of the passage is a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma.

Using photographs as educational resources presents particular challenges and must be done with care. There is always more than face value in any photo, and historical photos of American Indians are no exception. Photography’s rise in the late nineteenth century coincided with great change in American Indian communities—an era that capped over three hundred years of diseases, wars, cultural disruption, and land dispossession. As Indian people struggled to adapt to catastrophic changes to their old ways of living, photographers took thousands of studio portraits and made what they believed to be neutral ethnographic images of the "vanishing Indian." As Indian cultures bent under pressure to assimilate into mainstream America, photographers routinely captured images that compared the new "civilized" Indian to the tradition-bound "savages." Indian delegations that traveled to Washington, D.C., to defend tribal treaty rights were photographed in studios and in front of federal buildings. Photographers also accompanied government expeditions to the West where they documented traditional cultures, leading the way for tourists and commercial photographers who followed, carrying their cameras and preconceptions into Native American communities. These efforts generated a legacy of photographic images of American Indian people that can serve today as rich educational resources. But if used carelessly, they can also fuel romanticized and stereotypical perceptions of American Indians.

Consider some of the many photographs of Goyathlay, the Apache man who Mexicans named "Geronimo." He and other Chiricahua Apaches fought a protracted war from 1863 to 1886 against the United States for the right to live in their traditional homelands rather than on reservations.

The Chiricahua Apaches' fight for freedom captured the American imagination in the late nineteenth century. "Geronimo," especially, became a legendary figure and a media phenomenon whose legacy has lasted into the twenty-first century. He became synonymous with courage, daring, and savage ruthlessness. World War II paratroopers shouted his name as they jumped from airplanes into combat. Movies, television shows, comic books, popular songs, posters, T-shirts, and American cities have borne his image and name. One photo that shows Goyathlay and three other Chiricahuas in their camp just prior to surrendering to U.S. forces in 1886 documents a critical and difficult day for the people who had fought so diligently for their freedom.

In another well-known studio portrait, circa 1890, Goyathlay poses with a rifle. To late-nineteenth-century Americans, Geronimo was a dangerous enemy, yet at the same time a curiosity and romantic symbol of the "Wild West." This photo personifies the renegade image but, strangely, it was taken about two to four years after Goyathlay surrendered—while he was a prisoner of war. Why, then, was this photo taken? What meaning did it convey at the time? What must have been in Goyathlay's mind? What does the photo mean today? Is it loaded with historical truths or is it as empty as the prisoner’s bullet chamber?

A few years later, Goyathlay was photographed again, this time in a more pastoral pose and place—holding a melon in a garden with his wife and three of their children. What was the meaning behind this photo? Did people of the time see it as a simple family photo, or did it personify the government’s policy toward Indians at the time—subduing feared and hated warriors, "re-educating" them, and teaching them to farm in order to guide them toward a "better" way of life? Ironically, the Apaches had long farmed as part of the traditional life they fought so tenaciously to protect.

The educational potential of photographs is enormous. However, photographs are not objective; they can easily tell as many lies as truths. As much as any written document, they have to be read with care in order to be understood accurately in unbiased and non-stereotypical terms. Every photo of people contains history, culture, and context. To do justice to the subjects and their stories, it is crucial to fill in the information gaps. In addition to conducting background research, try putting yourself inside these photos—stand next to Goyathlay, his peers, his wife, and their children, and imagine their lives—you might begin to understand the world from their points of view. Framed with factual information and viewed empathetically, each photograph can reach its richest potential as a significant educational opportunity and resource.