Performance and Performers

Indian chiefs in the city attracted curiosity and crowds. They were often “onstage,” expected to comport themselves in certain ways, as both “wild Indians” and dignified diplomats. Some were invited to and participated in the ceremonial meetings of the Tammany Society; others not only attended the theater and the circus but sometimes participated in the shows, with displays of Native dances or horsemanship. Like later performers in the Wild West shows, they “played Indian” for white audiences, but they did so for their own purposes, mastering the arts of diplomatic theater and proclaiming their tribal identity in centers of colonial power.