Record: the document says itPattern: documents line upOur lens: how we read itNext dig: help us find it
Year: 1859 · Places: Oklahoma & the Five Tribes, Africa
The case
Our case: the face most people picture when they hear Indian was made. A banker paid for it, a photographer staged it with a shared wig and erased what didn't fit, an Italian actor played it, and the penny was modeled on a statue of Venus. Our families were passed over.
What this case proves for us
Point 7: Same games, new names. The image was paid for, staged, cast and coined: the picture, not the people, set what an Indian looks like.
Point 1: We are of this land. Black Native people were left out of the picture; even the Smithsonian calls our history seldom viewed.
Background
Edward S. Curtis made The North American Indian, twenty volumes of photographs. Iron Eyes Cody played Indians in film and in the Keep America Beautiful ads. The Indian Head cent was first struck in 1859. The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian held IndiVisible in 2009–2010.
Our evidence
Exhibit A · Record: The moneyJ. P. Morgan agreed in 1906 to pay Curtis "a total of $75,000, or $15,000 a year for five years." The first plate of volume 1 is titled "The Vanishing Race."
Exhibit B · Record: The stagingIn "In a Piegan Lodge" (1910), "the clock is missing, erased from the photographic plate." Curtis carried "a long black wig, used for a number of his male models"; "Curtis never denied paying his models."
Exhibit C · Record: The actorIron Eyes Cody, the "Crying Indian," was born Espera Oscar de Corti (1904) to Sicilian immigrant parents, per a 1996 Times-Picayune report citing his sister.
Exhibit D · Record: The coinFor the 1859 Indian Head cent, designer James B. Longacre "referred to this profile in letters and official memoranda as being that of the Venus Accroupie."
Exhibit E · Record: The museum's admissionThe Smithsonian's IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas (Nov. 10, 2009 – May 31, 2010) told "the seldom-viewed history" of people of African and Native ancestry.
Exhibit F · Pattern: Paid, staged, cast, coinedThe national picture of the Indian came from a banker, a wig, an actor and a statue.
Exhibit G · Our lens: Our lensThe face was a selection, and our families were passed over.
The colonizer lens
Curtis documented the real Indian before he vanished.
Who says it: The title of his own first plate: The Vanishing Race.
What it covers: The wig, the erased clock, the paid models, and who was never photographed.
Cross-examination
If the pictures were documents, why erase the clock and pass one wig between models?
Who was chosen for the coin, the film and the book, and who was left out?
Verdict: we won
We won on their own records: the money, the wig, the erased clock, the actor's birth and the coin designer's own letters. The face of the Indian was made.
How we won
Paid: Morgan's $75,000.
Staged: the wig and the erased clock.
Cast and coined: an Italian actor and a statue of Venus.
Left out: the Smithsonian calls our history seldom viewed.
Our next dig: Whether Curtis photographed the Five Tribes for his Oklahoma volume (vol. 19); casting and model records. Found something? Help us dig.
Where this gets us
Level 1: Awakening. Proof that the popular face of the Indian was manufactured.
To reach level 2, Paperwork, we still need:
Whether Curtis photographed the Five Tribes for his Oklahoma volume (vol. 19).
Photographs of Black Native families from the same years, dated and shown beside the Curtis plates.
Casting and model records: who was chosen and who was turned away.
The original card
SUMMARYThey made the face of the Indian (Nov 13, 2026; dossier 14)
RECORDJ. P. Morgan agreed in 1906 to pay Edward S. Curtis "a total of $75,000, or $15,000 a year for five years" for The North American Indian. The first plate of volume 1 is titled "The Vanishing Race." In "In a Piegan Lodge" (1910) "the clock is missing, erased from the photographic plate." Curtis carried "a long black wig, used for a number of his male models"; "Curtis never denied paying his models."
RECORDIron Eyes Cody, the "Crying Indian" of the Keep America Beautiful ads, was born Espera Oscar de Corti (1904) to Sicilian immigrant parents, per a 1996 Times-Picayune report citing his sister
RECORDfor the 1859 Indian Head cent, designer James B. Longacre "referred to this profile in letters and official memoranda as being that of the Venus Accroupie," a classical statue
RECORDthe Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian opened IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas (Nov. 10, 2009 – May 31, 2010) on "the seldom-viewed history" of people of African and Native ancestry
PATTERNthe national picture of the Indian was paid for, staged, wigged, cast and coined
LENS (WW9)the face was a selection, and our families were passed over; even the Smithsonian calls our history seldom viewed
OPENwhether Curtis photographed the Five Tribes for his Oklahoma volume (vol. 19); casting and model records
SOURCEThe Morgan Library; JSTOR Daily; Performing Archive (USC); Iron Eyes Cody; CoinSite; NMAI press release.