π¦π£π’π§π§ππ πππͺπ, Northern Cheyenne Scout at Fort Keogh in Eastern Montana, 1889-90.
π¦π£π’π§π§ππ πππͺπ, Northern Cheyenne Scout at Fort Keogh in Eastern Montana, 1889-90.
The magnificent portrait by Christian Barthelmess showed Spotted Hawk in an eagle feather headdress with ermine danglers. He was holding an 1886 Winchester octagonal-barrel 45-70 lever action rifle and wearing a US Army cartridge belt.
[Hugh] Spotted Hawk made national news in 1897 when he was falsely arrested for murdering a white man. George Bird Grinnell, an anthropologist and historian who knew Spotted Hawk, raised funds for his defense and enlisted the help of Theodore Roosevelt to obtain the Cheyenne’s eventual release. Photo restoration and text by Gary Coffrin.
- - - addendum - - -
Online documentation incorrectly stated that Spotted Hawk served under General Nelson A. Miles. However, Lieutenant Edward Casey of the 22nd Infantry formed the Cheyenne Scouts, L Troop, at Fort Keogh in 1888. Nelson Miles had left his position at Fort Keogh in 1880, eight years prior, when Spotted Hawk was merely 13 years of age.
The print I used for the restoration was made by Miles City (Montana) photographer Robert C. Morrison. He obtained hundreds of glass-plate negatives of Christian Barthelmess from the widow after the death of Barthelmess in 1906.
The negatives of both Barthelmess and Morrison, 3600 in total, have sat in the storeroom of the underfunded Montana Historical Society since 2009, with almost none scanned and publicly posted. If our visual history is not online, our youth will never see it … and another generation will die without the opportunity to view these historically important images.
Curiously, I had to horizontally flip the photo to display the correct orientation. Although early tintypes almost always captured reversed images, it is rare, really rare, for a print made from a glass-plate negative to be flipped … but this one was and I made the appropriate correction.

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