Figure057

Citation

Unknown Photographer Photographer. ““Tonquaways of Texas”.” circa 1865. Greg French Collection. Mirror of Race, 11 Feb. 2021, mirrorofrace.bc.edu/items/show/263. Accessed 30 Apr. 2024.

Title

“Tonquaways of Texas”

Subject

unknown

Creator

Unknown Photographer Photographer

Date

circa 1865

Type

studio portrait

Identifier

Figure057

Rights Holder

Greg French Collection

Original Format

carte de visite: albumen print

Physical Dimensions

cdv standard

Factual Commentary

The penned inscription on this photograph reads “Tonquaways of Texas,” and it dates from around 1865. The two men, at this point unidentified, each pose with a bow and a single arrow. They wear a combination of tribal and Western clothing.

“Tonquaway” is a 19th spelling for the Tonkawa tribe, which once roamed the region that is now Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico. In 1884, the US government forcibly gathered and relocated the Tonkawas, finally settling them in Oakland, Oklahoma in 1885. That this image identifies the two men as “Tonquaways of Texas” is further evidence, apart from the photographic style of the print and mounting, that this image dates from a time before their expulsion from Texas.

The Tonkawa have endured, despite their version of the Trail of Tears. According to the official website of the Tonkawa tribe, the Waco (Wichita) name for the Tonkawa is “Tonkaweya,” which means “They All Stay Together,” and the Tonkawa’s own name for themselves is “Tickanwa•tic,” which means “Real People.”

Interpretive Commentary

In the case of photographs of Native Americans from the 19th century, it is always worth asking if they have full agency in the representation of themselves in any given image.

So, for example, in this photograph of the two Tonkawa men, we can ask: For whom was this image made? It is a carte de visite, which means it was printed from a glass plate negatives, and so many copies could have been made by the photographer. The fact that it bears the title “Tonquaways of Texas” indicates that the images was indeed printed for a clientele other than these two men, who would not need this label. As such, it was probably sold to white patrons of the photographer as a quasi-ethnographic souvenir.

But even if that were the case, photographic images such as this, especially quite early ones, provide important and rare evidence about the lives and cultures of Native peoples.

Alternative Title

Collection

Mirror of Race