ABSTRACT
During the early nineteenth century, American museums presented audiences with ethnocentric narratives of Native American history and culture. These institutions, invariably owned and operated by white men, used Indigenous material culture to advance popular notions of Indian “primitiveness” and racial inferiority – notions that helped justify contemporary policies of national expansion at the expense of Native people. Although such viewpoints were found in numerous popular culture mediums, they enjoyed an appearance of scientific legitimacy through their placement in museums. By the second decade of the nineteenth century, Native people were exhibiting their own histories and cultures within American museums. These demonstrations helped complicate established, ethnocentric museum interpretation. This chapter examines one such exhibition and uses it as a vehicle to explore how Native people exercised a degree of input over how their respective societies were represented in early American museums.
