During much of its history, the United States government invited delegations of Native Americans to Washington, D.C. in order to make treaties and to impress them.  From the 1850s onwards many of the delegates and groups were also photographed by both professional and government photographers.  Indeed Indians were the subject of the first recorded exhibit of photography in an American museum at the Smithsonian in the late 1860s.  Over the years though, proper identification of the Indian delegates, the photographers and specific dates have become confused or lost. 

My book, North American Photography at the Smithsonian:  The Shindler Catalogue provides corrected information for many misattributions.  My research centered on locating relevant newspaper stories from the 1850s-1899, which are transcribed below.  Using these document helps to provide a deeper understanding of historical events as they relate to Native American relations as well as pinpointing which photographers were in Washington, D.C. and could have taken photographs.  (The results of my 19^th-century D.C. photographers research will eventually be posted in the next section.)