Lot 292
Albumen boudoir photograph featuring sixteen Apache men, women, and children from Geronimo's camp, titled in the negative "No. 181 - Group of Hostiles," with C.S. Fly's copyright and 1886 date at lower left, and "Fly's Gallery, / Tombstone, Ariz, / C.S. Fly, Proprietor" handstamp on verso. Fly famously took this image in late March 1886 at Canon de los Embudos, during a summit that was supposed to end in the surrender of Geronimo and his followers. Remarkably, it is part of a series of the only known images taken of American Indians during wartime. Jay Van Orden (1991: 20) notes that many of the individuals in this particular plate are wearing nearly new clothing, suggesting that the band had re-outfitted itself since losing nearly everything in a January raid by US forces on their Mexican stronghold.