Great Plains Quarterly

Devorah Romanek, anthropologist, art historian, and curator of exhibits at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, brings forward the unique collection of photographs of an American officer in 1866 in what became New Mexico. Historian Jennifer Nez Denetdale writes a poignant foreword in which she tells the painful past of her ancestors and the Navajo Nation being removed at the very time this officer took his pictures. Professor Denetdale reminds us of the powerful effects of conquest on both Navajos and Apaches after the Civil War and asks us to look at these photos with this in mind.

Romanek places the pictures into categories of people and places. At other moments Romanek groups images of whites and Mexicans living in New Mexico separately from images of Navajos, Apaches, and other Native people. First come the images of whites and Mexicans, almost all of whom are men. Romanek gives many details about these men and their role in the territory, and these biographical details are sometimes entirely complete and other times frustratingly shallow. The portraits of Mexican leaders alongside images of American officers seem rare and make the familiar less familiar in this souvenir collection of historic images.

The first chapter, "Faces and Places," features a mix of Native people from many tribes, as well as Mexicans, Americans, maps, and even a photograph of dead soldiers on a Civil War battlefield in Mississippi. Chapter 2, "Government in Exile: Portraits of Benito Juárez and His Cabinet," is less than ten pages long, analyzing images from elsewhere in the book and highlighting a handful of images of American officers. Chapter 3, "Hardship and Greed: Portraits of US Army Officers and Prominent Merchants," also just a few pages long, showcases several portraits of army officers and their wives. Chapter 4, "Sorrow: Portraits of Navajos at Bosque Redondo," tells some of the story of Navajo removal and captivity at Bosque Redondo, attempting to communicate some of the suffering there. Romanek pays attention to those who profited from Navajo suffering, including those who sold tainted goods to the government and the men who bought sexual services from Navajo women. To be sure, the group portraits of the Navajos are the most arresting in the book: the pain, the affection, and the trauma are easy to see in these rare photographs of Navajos at the height of the American campaigns of removal and extermination. [End Page 266]