DC -- Natl Museum of the American Indian -- Exhibit: Americans -- The Indians Win:
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Description of Pictures: Americans -- Room: The Indians Win: The Battle of Little Bighorn was one of the most shocking events in American history
January 18, 2018 – 2022
American Indians represent less than 1 percent of the U.S. population, yet names and images of Indians are everywhere: military weapons, town names, advertising, and that holiday in November. Americans invites visitors to take a closer look, and to ask why. Featuring nearly 350 objects and images, from a Tomahawk missile to baking powder cans, Americans examines the staying power of four stories—Thanksgiving, Pocahontas, the Trail of Tears, and the Battle of Little Bighorn—that are woven into the fabric of both American history and contemporary life. By highlighting what has been remembered, contested, cherished, and denied about these stories, and why they continue to resonate, this exhibition shows that Americans have always been fascinated, conflicted, and profoundly shaped by their relationship to American Indians.
Online exhibit: https://nmai.si.edu/americans/
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AMAMWI_180120_001.JPG: Who really won the Battle of Little Bighorn? It's complicated
AMAMWI_180120_008.JPG: 1876
The Indians win
AMAMWI_180120_012.JPG: Why had the country so vividly remembered a lost battle for more than a century?
AMAMWI_180120_022.JPG: The importance of the Paha Sapa
AMAMWI_180120_033.JPG: Leadership on the northern plains
AMAMWI_180120_037.JPG: Hunkpapa Lakota shirt
North or South Dakota, ca 1870
AMAMWI_180120_040.JPG: The Battle of the Greasy Grass
AMAMWI_180120_047.JPG: Plains ceremonial shirts
AMAMWI_180120_057.JPG: Lakota shirt
North or South Dakota, ca 1875
AMAMWI_180120_061.JPG: Battle of Little Bighorn (detail), 1881
Red Horse
South Dakota
AMAMWI_180120_064.JPG: The Battle of Little Bighorn through Lakota and Cheyenne eyes
AMAMWI_180120_069.JPG: Tsitsistas (Cheyenne) shirt
ca 1885
AMAMWI_180120_072.JPG: Lakota virtues
AMAMWI_180120_076.JPG: Wichoun
A Lakota way of life
AMAMWI_180120_083.JPG: Wichoun
A Lakota way of life
AMAMWI_180120_086.JPG: Hunka wands
AMAMWI_180120_088.JPG: A giveaway
AMAMWI_180120_090.JPG: Channununpa
AMAMWI_180120_093.JPG: Warriors
AMAMWI_180120_106.JPG: Spiritual shields
AMAMWI_180120_120.JPG: Sicangu (Brule) Lakota wapaha, or eagle-feather headdress
South Dakota
ca 1880
AMAMWI_180120_124.JPG: A leader's headdress
AMAMWI_180120_137.JPG: Indians in the age of mechanical reproduction
AMAMWI_180120_154.JPG: Wild west
AMAMWI_180120_158.JPG: A shock to the nation
AMAMWI_180120_163.JPG: Why remember a lost battle?
AMAMWI_180120_166.JPG: A furious debate that never ends
1881: The first major painting of the battle is completed by John Mulvany. It tours the country for 17 years.
AMAMWI_180120_169.JPG: 1896: Anheuser-Bursch commissions artist Otto Becker to create Custer's Last Fight. It is distributed as a print to saloons all over America. It might be in some bars today.
AMAMWI_180120_172.JPG: Early vision of Mount Rushmore features Indians
AMAMWI_180120_175.JPG: 1902: Eight thousand people attend the first major Little Bighorn reenactment in Sheridan, Wyoming.
AMAMWI_180120_182.JPG: 1940: Santa Fe Trail, a Western about abolitionist John Brown, is released. It features Ronald Reagan as Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer.
AMAMWI_180120_185.JPG: 1963: The TV show The Twilight Zone airs an episode called "The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms." Present-day soldiers taking part in a war game near the Little Bighorn battlefield site become lost in time and participate in the battle.
AMAMWI_180120_189.JPG: 1970: The popular film Little Big Horn recasts the US Cavalry as villains during the Indian Wars and portrays Custer as a madman. The movie is received as a commentary on the Vietnam War.
AMAMWI_180120_195.JPG: 1923: The superintendent of the South Dakota State Historical Society proposes a memorial carved from mountains. Instead of presidents, he suggests Buffalo Bill Cody, Lewis and Clark, and Chief Red Cloud and other Lakota leaders. The project eventually becomes Mount Rushmore.
AMAMWI_180120_197.JPG: 1946: The Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun opens, with sympathetic treatment of Sitting Bull who adopts Annie into the Lakota tribe. The musical becomes a classic and had been performed throughout the world in every decade since.
AMAMWI_180120_200.JPG: 1971: Harry Belafonte records the song "Custer's Last Stand" on the album Calypso Carnival.
AMAMWI_180120_204.JPG: 1977: The television film The Court Martial of George Armstrong Custer premieres. Custer survives the battle and must explain his actions in court.
AMAMWI_180120_208.JPG: 1980: The Indians win at the Supreme Court in United States v Sioux Nation of Indians. The court rules the Lakota are entitled to $106 million for the "taking of tribal property" with regard to the Black Hills. The Lakota refuse to accept this settlement, and the money is still in a government account. With interest, the amount is now more than one billion dollars.
AMAMWI_180120_211.JPG: 1991: Congress renames the battlefield Little Bighorn National Monument and authorizes an Indian memorial to be built. It is dedicated in 2003.
AMAMWI_180120_214.JPG: 1992: Disneyland Paris opens, featuring Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show with Mickey and Friends. The show is faithful to the original, with Indians, cowboys, buffalo, horses, and cattle. It has been performed more than 10,000 times.
AMAMWI_180120_219.JPG: 2002: We Were Soldiers, starring Mel Gibson, draws parallels between the Vietnam War and Little Bighorn. American soldiers in the movie adopt Custer's battle song "Garryowen."
AMAMWI_180120_221.JPG: 2009: The movie Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian opens, with Custer portrayed as a buffoon rather than a villain or hero. McDonald's, as part of the promotional tie-in, is criticized for including Custer as toy figure in its Happy Meals.
AMAMWI_180120_224.JPG: 2002: Homestake Gold Mine in the Black Hills closes, after producing 40 million ounces and becoming the largest and deepest gold mine in the Western Hemisphere.
AMAMWI_180120_226.JPG: McDonald's Happy Meal toy
Custer figure, 2009
AMAMWI_180120_230.JPG: 2012: Political columnist Michael Barone on one of the presidential debates: "Did Mitt Romney win the first debate between him and Barack Obama? Did Sitting Bull win at Little Bighorn?"
AMAMWI_180120_233.JPG: 2011: Oglala Sioux leaders honor the delivery of Lakota helicopters to the South Dakota National Guard. A 1969 Pentagon directive states that army aircraft were to carry "Native American terms and names of Native American tribes and chiefs," and that names should "suggest an aggressive spirit, and confidence."
AMAMWI_180120_236.JPG: U.S. Army uses Native American names to "suggest an aggressive spirit, and confidence."
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2018 photos: Equipment this year: I continued to use my Fuji XS-1 cameras but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000.
Trips this year:
Civil War Trust conferences in Greenville, NC, Newport News, VA, and my farewell event with them in Chicago, IL (via sites in Louisville, KY, St. Louis, MO, and Toledo, OH),
three trips to New York City (including New York Comic-Con), and
my 13th consecutive trip to San Diego Comic-Con (including sites in Reno, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Los Angeles).
Number of photos taken this year: about 535,000.
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