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Christopher Cardozo Collection of Photographs of Native Americans
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Held at: Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division [Contact Us]
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Christopher Cardozo (1948-2021) was a white American art collector, dealer, publisher, and photographer with a lifelong interest in Native American culture. Cardozo devoted his career to promoting the photography of Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952), an earlier white photographer and ethnographer whose work also focused on Indigenous people of North America. Cardozo curated numerous exhibitions and authored nine monographs on Curtis, and also founded the Minnesota-based Cardozo Fine Art, through which he bought and sold Curtis's works. In 2014, he initiated the 10,000 Print Repatriation Project, which sought to find the descendants of Indigenous people who posed for Curtis's portraits and provide them with high-quality reproductions.
Consists of a selected group of over sixty photographs of Native American people collected by Christopher Cardozo (1948-2021), an American art collector, dealer, publisher, and photographer. Mostly taken by white photographers in the mid to late 19th century and around the turn of the 20th century, these photographs depict people from the following Indigenous communities (and likely others that are unidentified): Sioux, Dakota, Chippewa (Ojibwa), Winnebago, Duwamish, Paiute, Ute, Yuma, Mojave, Arapaho, Apache, Gila, Maricopa, Kiowa, Nez Perce, Flathead (Salish), and Comanche. Photographers include Frank A. Rinehart, J. E. Whitney, C. Alfred Campbell, H. C. Miller, F. J. Haynes, C. R. Savage, Daniel P. Sink, John Karl Hillers, Charles H. Devenny, Elias A. Bonine, Ross Calgary, A. F. Randall, W. H. Jackson, Arthur Benjamin Smith, Forman Hanna, Rose & Hopkins, Karl Moon, F. A. Hartwell, Carleton E. Watkins, Edward S. Curtis (possibly), and others.
While the photographs are mostly miscellaneous, there are several notable groupings of material, including a series of eleven carte de visite photographs by Joel E. Whitney related to the Sioux Uprising of 1862. These images picture Cut Nose, Wowinape, Wa-Kan-O-Zhan-Zhan/Medicine Bottle, Ta-Tanka-Nazin/Standing Buffalo, Anpetu-Tokeca/Other Day, and Old Bets (Sioux); Mis-Ko-Pe-Nen-She/Red Bird (Lake Winnipeg Band of Chippewas); Po-Go-Nay-Ke-Shick/Hole in the Day (Chippewa); Little Hill (Winnebago); and Nah-Gun-E-Gah-Bow/Standing Forward (Rabbit Lake Band of Chippewas). There is also a small group of photographs by Elias A. Bonine documenting Gila, Yuma, and Maricopa people in Arizona (circa 1870s-1880s), as well as a number of photographs by Frank A. Rinehart depicting Arapaho, Sioux, Kiowa, Flathead (Salish), and Apache leaders (circa 1880-1900). Rinehart's photograph of Geronimo has a 1898 Trans Mississippi and International Exposition sticker attached to it.
Additional people who appear in portraits and who are identified in captions include Tachiar, Ce-Gee-Che, Ta-Wee, Tau-ruv, and Sai-ar and family (Ute); Geronimo and Daisy White Mountain (Apache); Black Bird, John Hollow Horn Bear, and High Hawk (Sioux); Chief Whiteman (Kiowa); Paul (Flathead/Salish); Man who Packs the Eagle (Pabaska/Cut Head Dakota); Chief Joseph (Nez Perce); Princess Angeline (Duwamish); Quanah Parker and Tonarcy (Comanche); Little Bear; Alice White Bear; Fred Harvey; and Charlie Rudy. Spellings of names are often taken from photograph captions and may be incorrect.
Some of the original photograph captions contain racial slurs.
Materials are physically housed into three boxes by size but have not been arranged according to any arrangement scheme.
Purchased from Christopher Cardozo Fine Art in 2021 (AM 2022-077). This collection was acquired by the Friends of Princeton University Library in honor of James Axtell.
For preservation reasons, original analog and digital media may not be read or played back in the reading room. Users may visually inspect physical media but may not remove it from its enclosure. All analog audiovisual media must be digitized to preservation-quality standards prior to use. Audiovisual digitization requests are processed by an approved third-party vendor. Please note, the transfer time required can be as little as several weeks to as long as several months and there may be financial costs associated with the process. Requests should be directed through the Ask Us Form.
Baseline processing of this collection was completed by Kelly Bolding in January 2022. Materials have not been arranged or described below the collection-level. A collection-level finding aid was written by Kelly Bolding in January 2022. The following sources were consulted when drafting the finding aid and biographical note: the Cardozo Fine Art website, including Christopher Cardozo's obituary drafted by Mark Schwartz.
No materials were removed from the collection during 2022 processing.
People
- Angeline, Suquamish Indian, -1896
- Bonine, Elias A., 1843-1916
- Géronimo, 1829-1909
- Joseph, Nez Percé chief, 1840-1904
- Parker, Quanah, 1845?-1911
- Rinehart, F. A. (Frank A.)
- Whitney, Joel E. (Joel Emmons), 1822-1886
Organization
Subject
- Apache Indians
- Arapaho Indians
- Comanche Indians
- Dakota Indians
- Duwamish Indians
- Kiowa Indians
- Maricopa Indians
- Mohave Indians
- Nez Perce Indians
- Ojibwa Indians
- Paiute Indians
- Salish Indians
- Ute Indians
- Winnebago Indians
- Yuma Indians
- Dakota War, Minnesota, 1862
- Indians of North America -- Photographs
- Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition (1898 : Omaha, Neb.)
- Publisher
- Manuscripts Division
- Finding Aid Author
- Kelly Bolding
- Finding Aid Date
- 2022
- Sponsor
- Baseline processing of this collection was sponsored by the Delafield fund.
- Access Restrictions
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This collection is open for research.
- Use Restrictions
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Single copies may be made for research purposes. To cite or publish quotations that fall within Fair Use, as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission is required. For instances beyond Fair Use, it is the responsibility of the researcher to determine whether any permissions related to copyright, privacy, publicity, or any other rights are necessary for their intended use of the Library's materials, and to obtain all required permissions from any existing rights holders, if they have not already done so. Princeton University Library's Special Collections does not charge any permission or use fees for the publication of images of materials from our collections, nor does it require researchers to obtain its permission for said use. The department does request that its collections be properly cited and images credited. More detailed information can be found on the Copyright, Credit and Citations Guidelines page on our website. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us through the Ask Us! form.
Collection Inventory
3 boxes