[Oklahoma] Native, Black, & White Prisoners

Outdoor group mounted albumen photograph of 17 Oklahoma prisoners. [Oklahoma]: N.p., ca June 1893. Each subject is numbered in image with a corresponding identification recorded to mount recto.

A mounted group photograph of 17 Oklahoma prisoners. Each man in this diverse group of Native American, black, and white men is identified in red ink on the mount below the photo, with a small, neat number written on each subject as a key. Each figure wears a hat, vest and kerchief. The chains binding the men together are visible, especially around the ankles of those seated.

A man seated at center marked as number one, is noted as “Joe Bird, Shot 6/30/[18]93." Bird, who is described in contemporary newspaper reports as both "a negro" (Baptist Watchman, 29 June 1893) and a "Chocktaw half breed" (Oklahoma Press-Gazette, 3 July 1893), was a murderer twice over. He was tried for killing his mother-in-law, "whom he killed by splitting her head open with an ax, but as evidence was not complete he was indicted for manslaughter and punished with one hundered lashes on his bare back." Not deterred, in April of that same year, he murdered his ex-wife. After she had left and divorced him, he came to her house and "decoyed her out of her house and shot her in the head and killed her outright." (Baptist Watchman, 29 June 1893). For the crime, Bird was executed "by the sheriff's revolver" on 30 June 1893. (Oklahoma Press-Gazette, 3 July 1893).

Several of the men were involved the violence associated with the so-called Jones and Jackson Election Feud of August 1892 (The Purcell Register, 30 June1893). Violence broke out among supporter groups in the deeply contentious election for Principal Chief of the Choctaw Nation between Progressive Party incumbent Wilson N. Jones (ca 1827-1901) and National Party challenger Jacob B. Jackson (1845-1909). Columbus Brown, Sam Jefferson, Joshua Calvin, and Simeon [alt. Simon] Wade, were "all Indians" and all convicted of murder, that The Purcell Register noted were "troubles between two political faction of the Choctaw Nation" which were allgedly "committed for reasons peculiar to Indian politics." The paper notes that "Under the Choctaw laws they will be shot." (The Purcell Register, 23 June 1893). Kingsbury Hawkins and Colbertson [alt. Colbert] Thompson seemed to also be mixed up in the factional violence - both men were identified as "leaders of the gang" in a 16 September 1892 article in The Edmond News.

The assortment of men clearly from different ethnic backgrounds makes this a compelling view. The American West was not strictly segregated during the frontier era, especially among prisoners.

[Native Americans, African Americana, African American History, Black History, Western Expansion, Wild West, Frontier, Pioneers, Cowboys, Early Photography, Historic Photography, Albumen, Silver Gelatin, CDV, Carte de Visite, Cabinet Card, Boudoir Card]