Otoe Delegation

Archive record

Historic 1881 portrait of Otoe Native American tribal delegation in Washington D.C. by photographer Charles Milton Bell. Public domain historical photograph.

About this photograph

Charles Milton Bell photographed this Otoe delegation during their 1881 visit to Washington, D.C.

The photograph belongs to a large body of work produced by non-Native photographers documenting Native people for government records, commercial distribution, or ethnographic purposes. The sitters rarely controlled how such images were used afterward. Archive records from this period routinely name the photographer while leaving subjects unidentified or noted only by tribal affiliation, as is the case here.

Where individual names were not recorded at the time, they are typically lost. The cataloguing reflects what the historical record preserved and what it did not.

Compiled from the catalogue record and reference notes on the formats and events involved. The archive record above is the primary source.

Rights & Attribution

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