Talk:Crow War

The above picture dated 1887 and claimed to be Crow prisoners.

This picture is shown by the Cherokee Museum as " Cherokees being removed from their home" during the trail of tears era. Another site shows it also as Cherokees- in a group of pictures under the heading Trail of Tears Pictures. If you look at the picture closely you can see that the soldiers are holding mussel loading guns, which were still in use during the 1830's trail of tears era. By the time the Crows were fought the Army were using breech loaders. In a book I saw as a child this same picture was shown as Cherokee people. The clothing of the Cherokee and Crows in the 1800's was a mixture of traditional and European cloth clothing. Both tribes wore lots of strands of beads. I know headscarves, like the one worn by the woman in this picture, were commonly worn by Cherokee women. Eva Kaiser (talk) 15:17, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Do you mean this image? The source of the image is the National Archives and they clearly describe it as Eight Crow prisoners under guard at Crow agency, Montana and date it to 1887. The subjects are highly unlikely to be Cherokee in Montana and, although I am no expert, the dress does not look right to me. Photography of that quality was not available (or at all) during the trail of tears era, that is much too early. Also, the soldiers weapons appear to be too modern, but again, I am no expert. SpinningSpark 19:03, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

The landscape is western and the soldiers' uniforms are clearly 1880s vintage. Montanabw^(talk) 22:40, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Agreed, the uniform jacket with five buttons down the front was introduced to the US Army in 1874. [1] The rifles look very similar to the Springfield model 1873. Our article, History of photography, says that the Daguerreotype process "was commercially introduced in 1839, a date generally accepted as the birth year of practical photography", prior to that, an exposure time of "several days" was required. See also this discussion at the Humanities Reference Desk. Alansplodge (talk) 00:41, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

One further point, the image caption says that chief Plenty Coups is in the picture, who was not a prisoner, he had ordered the Crow police to arrest the belligerents. Presumably he is the Indian standing slightly to the left of the group of prisoners and does indeed look very much like other images of him that are available. SpinningSpark 14:38, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

The cartridge belts alone indicate this is a later picture. No way it's from the 1830s. Intothatdarkness 17:55, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Frederick E. Hoxie uses the picture in "Parading Through History. The making of the Crow Nation in America, 1805-1935.", Cambridge, 1995, page 161. The text goes, "... the young prisoners are flanked by Deaf Bull, the band leader ..."Naawada2016 (talk) 14:55, 9 July 2017 (UTC)