An archivist for the Palace of the Governors photo archives was going through a collection of old photographs in the museum last summer when he recognized a face.

“I said, ‘My God, that looks like Manuelito,’ ” said Daniel Kosharek. “I thought, ‘Well, that’s weird. I’ve never seen this before.’ ” Kosharek checked the files and, sure enough, the image was not there.

Only a handful of photographs exist of Manuelito, one of the main Navajo war chiefs during the Long Walk period.

Born in southeastern Utah in 1818, Manuelito resisted the 1864 relocation of the Diné people from the Four Corners area to Bosque Redondo, near Fort Sumner, and signed the 1868 treaty ending the internment. He died in 1893.

Kosharek said he immediately recognized Manuelito from his distinctive face and unusual height. He had never seen this particular image, so he spent two weeks checking the Library of Congress, the National Archives, The Getty, the Denver Public Library, the Arizona Historical Society and other archives, but he found that “nobody had this image,” he said.

The approximately 3 1/2- by 4-inch albumen proof print was one of many stereo exposures — used for stereoscopic viewers, popular in the 19th century — of Native Americans, probably taken in the 1870s by one of Santa Fe’s earliest photographers, Henry T. Hiester.

Maryanne Redding, curator of photography art at the New Mexico History Museum, has written an article about the photograph for the winter edition of El Palacio, a magazine of the Museum of New Mexico. She said Hiester worked in Illinois and Pennsylvania before coming to Santa Fe in the early 1870s. He ran a photographic studio on the Plaza until at least 1877 and then moved to Arizona.

The Museum of New Mexico obtained Hiester’s photographs in the 1960s with a donation known as the Hiester/Melander Brothers Collection. Although the image Kosharek first saw had nothing written on it, the envelope that held the actual glass-plate negative was inscribed, possibly in Hiester’s handwriting, to say, “Manuelito and Cayetanito.”

The undated photograph shows Manuelito, wearing a headband, a heishi necklace and knee-high moccasins, sitting in front of an adobe building. Cayetanito is standing next to him with a long blanket draped over his shoulders.

Little is known about Cayetanito — possibly a diminutive of Kayenta, the Navajo name for northeastern Arizona. But Redding said the given name was used by two Navajo chiefs who signed a treaty with the government in the 1860s — one of them using the last name Tabaco Grande and the other San Lucero.

Both stereo images will appear in the edition of El Palacio that goes on sale Dec. 1. Also appearing are Redding’s story and a piece by historian Charles Bennett on Manuelito’s role in Navajo life, including his surrender to the Bosque Redondo camp, his escape and his meetings with Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Rutherford B. Hayes.

Redding said the History Museum recently began the first major inventory of its entire photographic collection, which will likely uncover other previously unknown images.

Kosharek said he often finds rare photographs in the collections, but “nothing on the magnitude of something like Manuelito.”

by Tom Sharpe | The New Mexican

source: http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/palace-of-the-governors-War-chief-photo-a-rare-find

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