An ambrotype of Chief War Bonnet by Alexander Gardner

Lot 323

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Rare Books, Autographs & Maps

By Doyle

Nov 25, 2025

Set Reminder 2025-11-25 10:00:00 2025-11-25 10:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Rare Books, Autographs & Maps https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/doyle/rare-books-autographs-maps-21321 Auction of Rare Books, Autographs & Maps on Tuesday, November 25, 2025 at 10am Consignments Are Currently Being Accepted for Future Auctions We Invite You to Contact Us for a Complimentary Auction Evaluation of Your Collection Doyle info@doyle.com

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Lot Description

[NATIVE AMERICAN] [GARDNER, ALEXANDER]. Sixth plate ambrotype of Southern Cheyenne Chief War Bonnet. Likely Washington: circa 1863. 3 1/4 x 2 1/2 inches (8 x 6 cm), housed in the lower portion of the original union case. The image is dark-toned, with some crazing/craquelure to the background, the seal is rather crudely renewed. Lacking upper portion of the union case. This seated portrait depicts War Bonnet in traditional Native American attire with a prominent feather in his hair, seated in what appears to be the same chair in which Gardner photographed Tom Thumb. The chief wears his war shirt and German silver pectoral, and a buffalo robe lies in his lap. The photograph was likely taken during the 1863 delegation to Washington D.C. A year later, War Bonnet was killed at the Battle of Sand Creek (in reality a massacre) in Colorado Territory. Though reported by Colonel John Chivington, who commanded the U.S. forces as an engagement in which several hundred warriors were killed, the victims were largely women and children and even the battle-hardened Kit Carson apparently remarked to Colonel James Rusling "Jis' to think of that dog Chivington and his dirty hounds, up thar at Sand Creek. His men shot down squaws, and blew the brains out of little innocent children. You call sich soldiers Christians, do ye? And Indians savages? What der yer s'pose our Heavenly Father, who made both them and us, thinks of these things? I tell you what, I don't like a hostile red skin any more than you do. And when they are hostile, I've fought 'em, hard as any man. But I never yet drew a bead on a squaw or papoose, and I despise the man who would." Provenance: Skinner, Sale 2132, January 11, 2003, lot 348

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