Chief James Garfield Velarde

William Henry Jackson

1899 · Photochrom · Photographs

This leader of the Jicarilla Apache Nation took the name Chief James Garfield after receiving a peace medal from President Garfield, and he later adopted the surname Velarde. In this studio portrait—taken twelve years after his people were relocated to a reservation—he wears a mix of Euro-American clothing and Native regalia: a white collared shirt and a waistcoat, a fur sash decorated with conchos, shell ear ornaments, and a shell necklace. The image was published by the Detroit Photographic Company, which Jackson joined in 1897. It was widely reproduced on postcards and in albums using the Photochrom process, in which black-and-white negatives are converted to color images using photolithography.

Artist

William Henry Jackson

Date

1899

Medium

Photochrom

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gilman Collection, Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation, 2005