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Joseph K. Dixon
(1856-1926)
Curley Custer Scout – Crow
Wanamaker Expeditions, 1908-1913
Original Photogravure from “The Vanishing Race: The Last Great Indian Council”, 1913
Dimensions: 9 ¾ in. by 6 ½ in. (24.8 cm x 16.5 cm)
With frame: 12 ½ in. by 10 ½ in. (32 cm x 27 cm)
Ex collection Paul Coze (1903 – 1974), France
Ex collection Daniel Dubois, France
Acquired from the above
Sold
Here is an except of how Dixon presents Curley in his book “The Vanishing Race: The Last Great Indian Council”, 1913 page 154:
Curly, a Reno Crow, was born on the Little Rosebud, Montana, and is fifty-seven years of age. He has the bearing, grace and dignity of an orator. His name will also go down in history as one of the leading scouts who trailed for General Custer the Indian camp, and as the last of his scouts on the fated field where Custer and his command were slain. At times he is taciturn and solemn, and then bubbles over with mirthfulness. At the council held on the Crow Reservation, in October, 1907, with reference to the opening of unoccupied lands, Curly uttered this eloquent speech:
“I was a friend of General Custer. I was one of his scouts, and will say a few words. The Great Father in Washington sent you here about this land. The soil you see is not ordinary soil—it is the dust of the blood, the flesh, and bones of our ancestors. We fought and bled and died to keep other Indians from taking it, and we fought and bled and died helping the whites. You will have to dig down through the surface before you can find nature's earth, as the upper portion is Crow. The land, as it is, is my blood and my dead; it is consecrated, and I do not want to give up any portion of it.”
Curly, a Reno Crow, was born on the Little Rosebud, Montana, and is fifty-seven years of age. He has the bearing, grace and dignity of an orator. His name will also go down in history as one of the leading scouts who trailed for General Custer the Indian camp, and as the last of his scouts on the fated field where Custer and his command were slain. At times he is taciturn and solemn, and then bubbles over with mirthfulness. At the council held on the Crow Reservation, in October, 1907, with reference to the opening of unoccupied lands, Curly uttered this eloquent speech:
“I was a friend of General Custer. I was one of his scouts, and will say a few words. The Great Father in Washington sent you here about this land. The soil you see is not ordinary soil—it is the dust of the blood, the flesh, and bones of our ancestors. We fought and bled and died to keep other Indians from taking it, and we fought and bled and died helping the whites. You will have to dig down through the surface before you can find nature's earth, as the upper portion is Crow. The land, as it is, is my blood and my dead; it is consecrated, and I do not want to give up any portion of it.”
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