Wild West Shows and the Images of American Indians, 1883-1933

Published by the University of New Mexico Press. 1996. 1st edition. Hardcover. By L.G. Moses.

Between the 1880s and the 1930s Show Indians depicted their warfare with whites and portrayed scenes from their culture in productions that traveled throughout the United States and Europe and drew huge audiences–well over a million people in 1885 alone. This book is the first to examine the lives and experiences of Show Indians from their own point of view. Their dances, re-enactments of battles, and village encampments, the author demonstrates, helped preserve the Indians’ cultural heritage through decades of forced assimilation.