Scope and Contents

Bound book of unruled paper, now disbound and laminated. Includes scenes of hunting, ceremonies and daily Indian camp life. The manuscript now contains 14 drawings and the original volume cover. Original sequence of pictures not recorded. Identified as by a Cheyenne prisoner held at Ft. Marion, Florida (1875-78) on the basis of style and content.

Biographical / Historical

William Babcock Hazen (1830-1887) was born in Vermont and spent his boyhood in Ohio. In 1855, he graduated from the U.S. Military Academy ranked Twenty-eight in his class. Prior to the Civil War, Hazen served with the Fourth and Eighth Infantry regiments, earning distinctions in the field while fighting against Indians in Oregon and southwestern Texas. Hazen went on to serve in the Civil War, where he fought in the Battles of Shiloh and Bentonville. After the war, he served as Inspector General of the Department of the Platte and did a tour at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. In 1869, he was stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma and later at Fort Smith, Arkansas, becoming Superintendent of Indian Affairs in 1870. While serving in this capacity, Hazen worked with various tribes in Oklahoma, including the Comanches and the Creeks. After publicly criticizing the role of the U.S. military in the Indian Wars, Hazen was posted to Fort Buford in Dakota Territory, where he stayed off and on from 1875 through 1880. For more information on William Hazen see Great Plains Command: William B. Hazen in the Frontier West by Marvin E. Kroeker, 1976, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Biographical / Historical

Fort Marion, also known as Castillo de San Marco, is a stone fortress in St. Augustine, Florida. Between 1875 and 1878, seventy-two prisoners from the southern plains were incarcerated in the fort. Captain Richard Pratt supervised the prisoners during their incarceration at Fort Marion. The prisoners consisted of 27 Kiowas, 33 Cheyennes, 9 Comanches, 2 Arapahos, and a single Caddo. They were accused of participating in the recent Red River War, earlier hostilities, or both. For further information on Fort Marion see Karen Daniels Petersen, Plains Indian Art from Fort Marion, University of Oklahoma Press, 1971 and Richard Pratt, Battlefield and Classroom, ed. by R. M. Utley, Yale University Press, 1964.