Across an arid plain, eight men ride for cover. Just before reaching the trees, one keels over, having been struck by a bullet. Close behind, a group of Native Americans follows in hot pursuit, and it is not clear who will emerge victorious.

Remington executed this climatic scene after Harper’s Weekly sent him west from his home in New York to document army efforts to capture the Apache leader Geronimo. Following the trip, Remington devised this fictional scene to convey the bravery and comradery of western cowboys. The picture was a critical sensation, and it would shape future popular imaginings of western life. Despite its remarkable drama, A Dash for the Timber simplifies a more complex reality. Remington presents settlers and Indigenous peoples as incompatible, linked only through acts of violence. This visual rhetoric denies Native Americans their humanity, portraying them as the primary aggressors, and it obscures accounts of diplomacy and cross-cultural exchange that did not culminate in open conflict..

—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023)