The mid-to-late 1800s was a period of armed and violent Anglo expansion into Native American territories in the Southern Plains of the United States. In 1875, a group of 73 Native Americans were singled out from warriors that surrendered to the U.S. army. The captives, 1 woman and 72 men from the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche, and Caddo tribes, were incarcerated without trial at Fort Marion, a historic fort in St. Augustine, Florida. During their imprisonment, efforts to “educate” and “civilize” the captives included the provision of paper and pencils for drawing.   

For the tribes of the Plains, figural drawing and historical visual record-keeping did not begin during incarceration at Fort Marion. Narrative imagery had long been rendered on buffalo robes, shields, tipis, and other media. Drawings on paper developed by the 1860s as a portable form of storytelling using accountant ledger books generally obtained through trade or taken during raids from non-Natives. Ledger drawings, as they have come to be known, represent an adaptation of materials, styles, and images to continue telling stories and recording history.  

For the Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Arapaho men incarcerated at Fort Marion, ledger drawings documented in detail their observations and experiences at the Fort, and the details of their lives and identities during and prior to incarceration. The act of recording affirmed their agency and humanity in the face of a project of cultural genocide. The names of the captives and their stories are remembered with reverence; for them and their living descendants, ledger drawings are much more than art.  

This exhibition presents both historic ledger books and individual drawings produced at Fort Marion, as well as contemporary ledger drawings by numerous artists. It was conceived and developed by Professor Ross Frank and the students of Ethnic Studies class Representing Native America at the University of California, San Diego, and collaboratively organized with members of the Cheyenne and Arapaho and Kiowa tribal nations and the staff of Mingei International Museum. Historic Footprints recontextualizes Fort Marion Ledger drawings, foregrounding the knowledge and work of descendants and descendant communities to honor and interpret the visual narratives created by their forebears.