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Photographs of Indians of the Southwest by E.A. Bonine: Finding
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photCL 200
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Title: Photographs of Indians of the Southwest by E.A. Bonine
Dates (inclusive): 1880-1883
Collection Number: photCL 200
Creator:
Bonine, Elias A., 1843-1916
Extent:
73 photographs in 1 box; photographs 17.5 x 11 cm. (7 x 4 in.)
Repository:
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Photo Archives
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, California 91108
Phone: (626) 405-2191
Email: reference@huntington.org
URL: http://www.huntington.org
Abstract: This collection contains 73 studio portraits of Native Americans from southwestern Arizona, and were probably taken between
1880 and 1883 in
E.A. Bonine’s photography tent in Yuma, Arizona.
Language: English.
Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information, contact Reader
Services.
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material,
nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and
obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher.
Photographs of Indians of the Southwest by E.A. Bonine. The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Gift of the Grace Nicholson Estate in 1963.
Elias A. Bonine (1843-1916) was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Not much is known about his early life, but at some point
he became interested in photography for a career.
In 1876, Bonine sold a sawmill he owned and moved to California along with his cameras. He traveled throughout California,
operating a tent photography business as he went. His travels from 1880 to
1883 took him to Yuma, Arizona, where he photographed the Yuma, Mohave, and Cocopa Indians. The point of these photographs
was not to archive the tribes’ cultures, but to satisfy customers’ desires
to see a romanticized version of the Indians. Despite his popularity, Bonine left Yuma and moved back west to Pasadena, where
he set up his home base. He travelled back to Arizona in later years,
photographing the Silver King Mine area and the town of Pinal.
Scope and Content of Collection
This collection contains 73 studio portraits of Native Americans from southwestern Arizona,
and were probably taken between 1880 and 1883 in E.A. Bonine’s photography tent in Yuma, Arizona. The collection includes
photographs of Chief Pasqual of the Yuma tribe, and posed portraits of members of the Yuma,
Apache, Pima, Cocopa, Tohono O’Odham (also known as the Papago), and Mohave tribes. A few of the portraits have been identified
with the names of people and tribes, but the majority of individuals
remain unidentified.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the
Huntington Library's Online Catalog.
Apache Indians -- Photographs.
Cocopa Indians -- Photographs.
Indians of North America -- Arizona -- Photographs.
Mohave Indians -- Photographs.
Pima Indians -- Photographs.
Tohono O’Odham Indians -- Photographs.
Yuma Indians -- Photographs.
Portraits.
Photographs.