Indigenous | Re-Riding History

 

The exhibition Re-Riding History: From the Southern Plains to the Matanzas Bay curated by Emily Arthur, Marwin Begaye, and John Hitchcock 

 

Train of Ink metaphorically retraces the history of 72 American Indian men forcibly taken from Oklahoma, transported by train to Florida, and held captive from 1875 ­to 1878. The United States war department imprisoned Cheyenne, Kiowa, Comanche, Arapaho, and Caddo leaders under Lieutenant Richard Henry Pratt.

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It was at Fort Marion, Florida that Pratt developed his forced assimilation and re-education methods that were institutionalized in off-reservation boarding schools. The most central example is the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, where Pratt coined the phrase “Kill the Indian, save the man.”

 

We asked each artist to respond to the historical journey of the Fort Marion prisoners through the creation of artwork inspired by prisoner biographies; ledger drawings made at Fort Marion from 1975-78; the topography of the changing landscape of the train route from Oklahoma to Florida; or the legacy of Carlisle boarding school.

 

By engaging these historical events, the artists offer an indigenous perspective of our shared history. The folio is a contemporary response to a historical experience held intact within American Indian communities through oral history and artwork.