On January 24, 1865, a fire at the Smithsonian Institution destroyed nearly 150 portraits of Native Americans that had been painted by Charles Bird King and subsequently copied by Henry Inman. The loss spurred a federal project to photograph Native diplomats when they came to Washington, DC.

This rare and unusually large image marks the occasion of a treaty between the United States, represented by two officials from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Sac and Fox Nation, represented from left by No-quah-ho-ko, Man-ahto- wah, Mut-tut-tah, Che-ko-skuk, and Keokuk. At right, Kanza representatives Al-le-ga-wa-ho, Kah-he-ga-wa-ti-ah-gah, and Wah-ti-ah-goh look on. In the agreement the Sac (Sauk) and Fox (Meskwaki) people, who had already been pushed out of their ancestral lands, gave up an additional 150,000 acres in Kansas. Alongside the Kanza, they were eventually relegated to a reservation in Indian Territory. Yet others remained hidden in their homeland, where they negotiated with local governments and purchased land, establishing the Meskwaki Nation in Iowa that is still growing today.

—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023).