Historians of the Tribe

Executed around 1890, the year when the massacre at Wounded Knee effectively ended the army’s conflict with the Plains Indians, Historians of the Tribe clearly situates the glories of Native Americans in the past. In a tightly defined, darkened interior, watched over by a tribal elder in the central background, five men—their postures slumped or languid in surrender—record and reread their hieroglyphic history. At the moment of their defeat, Remington chose to depict his Native American subjects with a certain sentimentality.

Created in 1890, this work belongs firmly within the daily life tradition of American painting. Frederic Remington worked at a moment when the young republic was still deciding what its own art should look like — how much to borrow from Europe, how much to invent from its own landscape and daily life. Every gesture, fabric, and gleam of light was pitched at an audience learning to take American subjects seriously.

The physical object — Oil on canvas, 62.2 × 111.4 cm (24 1/4 × 43 7/8 in.) — carries its own history of handling and restoration. Frederic Remington's brushwork here moves between exacting description and looser, more suggestive passages, a balance typical of 19th-century American studio practice.

Look closely and the painting opens up. Objects you might pass over — a folded letter, a half-drawn curtain, the angle of a glance — were placed to be read. The apparent casualness is staged — objects and gestures are arranged to read as a moment caught rather than composed.

Today the painting is held by Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, where it remains a touchstone for understanding Frederic Remington's contribution to Western art. It has been studied, copied, restored, and argued over for centuries — proof that great paintings keep generating new readings long after their creators have gone.

“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”