indian peopleibed with strangeness, assigned them evil deeds. the words in a catalogue issued by the federal government in 1877 explained that little crow, who you see here, quote, martha: the letter group of ans against the whites. back ofrawled on the this image explained that these men were in jail for scalping a white man. the words appended to this titled "the vanishing race" the indians stripped of their primitive dress are passing into the darkness of an unknown future. with words, photography was a narrative medium, the insistent realism mitigated by the words that while images into complicated stories about manifest destiny, american expansion, and the faulty logic of a vanishing race. when we insist today on transforming such images and art, collectible objects, and pictures that speak to any ideas or arguments, we do not look at them as 19th century audiences and counted them. for viewers at the time, the words of fixed to these pictures were essential to understanding the cultural and political meanings. images visualize the past, an