Typed transcript available.

Captions inscribed in negatives.

The collection was originally acquired through gift and purchase from the Little Raven family by O. E. Slayton, a pharmacist in Canton, Oklahoma. Robert Bensted of Kansas City, Missouri, purchased it from the heirs of Slayton. Upon the death of Bensted, his sisters Violet Bensted Pennington and Dorothy Bensted sold and gave the collection to Gary Spratt. Spratt sold it at an auction of Historic Americana held by Cowen's Auctions, June 6-7, 2007.

Purchased from the William Reese Company on the Walter McClintock Memorial Fund, 2008.

William G. Mitchell (1837-1883) served as an adjutant to Winfield Scott Hancock.

Little Raven (circa 1809-1890) was a leader among the Southern Arapaho Indians.

William Stinson Soule (1836-1908) created photographs of American Indians around Fort Dodge, Kansas, in 1867, and at Camp Supply or Fort Sill, Indian Territory, between 1868 and 1874.

Official manuscript transcript by William G. Mitchell of a preliminary meeting between Little Raven, a Southern Arapaho Indian leader, and Major General Winfield Scott Hancock at Fort Dodge, Kansas, April 28, 1867, which Mitchell prepared for Little Raven. The ensuing negotiations led to the Medicine Lodge Treaty, a set of three treaties between the United States and the Kiowa, Comanche, Plains Apache, Southern Cheyenne, and Southern Arapaho signed in October 1867.

Two photographs accompany the transcript. One is a portrait photograph of Little Raven, probably created by William Stinson Soule at Fort Dodge, Kansas, circa 1867. The other photograph is a group portrait that consists of Little Raven and his daughter, Annie Little Raven; Yellow Bear and his daughter, Minnie Yellow Bear; and Left Hand and his son, Grant Left Hand, circa 1879. It was created by Frederick Gutekunst of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, when the Arapaho Indian men visited their children at the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

The collection includes a letter by Cato Sells, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, January 25, 1917, which certifies that Little Raven, a son of the elder leader, was a member of a delegation of Cheyennes and Arapahos from Oklahoma visiting Washington, D.C.

Left Hand > Portraits.

Little Raven > Portraits.

Yellow Bear > Portraits.

Arapaho Indians > Government relations > 1789-1869.

Arapaho Indians > Pictorial works.

Indians of North America > Government relations > 1789-1869.

Indians of North America > Pictorial works.

Indians of North America > Treaties, 1867.

Albumen prints.

Photographic prints.