New Mexico
New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern region of the United States of America. It is one of the Mountain States and shares the Four Corners region with Utah and Arizona. With a population around two million, New Mexico is the 36th state by population. With a total area of 121,592 sq mi, it is the fifth-largest and sixth-least densely populated of the 50 states. Due to their geographic locations and eastern New Mexico exhibit a colder, alpine climate, while western and southern New Mexico exhibit a warmer, arid climate; the economy of New Mexico is dependent on oil drilling, mineral extraction, dryland farming, cattle ranching, lumber milling, retail trade. As of 2016–2017, its total gross domestic product was $95 billion with a GDP per capita of $45,465. New Mexico's status as a tax haven yields low to moderate personal income taxes on residents and military personnel, gives tax credits and exemptions to favorable industries; because of this, its film industry contributed $1.23 billion to its overall economy.
Due to its large area and economic climate, New Mexico has a large U. S. military presence marked notably with the White Sands Missile Range. Various U. S. national security agencies base their research and testing arms in New Mexico such as the Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories. During the 1940s, Project Y of the Manhattan Project developed and built the country's first atomic bomb and nuclear test, Trinity. Inhabited by Native Americans for many thousands of years before European exploration, it was colonized by the Spanish in 1598 as part of the Imperial Spanish viceroyalty of New Spain. In 1563, it was named Nuevo México after the Aztec Valley of Mexico by Spanish settlers, more than 250 years before the establishment and naming of the present-day country of Mexico. After Mexican independence in 1824, New Mexico became a Mexican territory with considerable autonomy; this autonomy was threatened, however, by the centralizing tendencies of the Mexican government from the 1830s onward, with rising tensions leading to the Revolt of 1837.
At the same time, the region became more economically dependent on the United States. At the conclusion of the Mexican–American War in 1848, the United States annexed New Mexico as the U. S. New Mexico Territory, it was admitted to the Union as the 47th state on January 6, 1912. Its history has given New Mexico the highest percentage of Hispanic and Latino Americans, the second-highest percentage of Native Americans as a population proportion. New Mexico is home to part of the Navajo Nation, 19 federally recognized Pueblo communities of Puebloan peoples, three different federally recognized Apache tribes. In prehistoric times, the area was home to Ancestral Puebloans and the modern extant Comanche and Utes inhabited the state; the largest Hispanic and Latino groups represented include the Hispanos of New Mexico and Mexican Americans. The flag of New Mexico features the state's Spanish origins with the same scarlet and gold coloration as Spain's Cross of Burgundy, along with the ancient sun symbol of the Zia, a Puebloan tribe.
These indigenous, Mexican and American frontier roots are reflected in the eponymous New Mexican cuisine and the New Mexico music genre. New Mexico received its name long before the present-day nation of Mexico won independence from Spain and adopted that name in 1821. Though the name “Mexico” itself derives from Nahuatl, in that language it referred to the heartland of the Empire of the Mexicas in the Valley of Mexico far from the area of New Mexico, Spanish explorers used the term “Mexico” to name the region of New Mexico in 1563. In 1581, the Chamuscado and Rodríguez Expedition named the region north of the Rio Grande "San Felipe del Nuevo México"; the Spaniards had hoped to find wealthy indigenous Mexica cultures there similar to those of the Aztec Empire of the Valley of Mexico. The indigenous cultures of New Mexico, proved to be unrelated to the Mexicas, they were not wealthy, but the name persisted. Before statehood, the name "New Mexico" was applied to various configurations of the U.
S. territory, to a Mexican state, to a province of New Spain, all in the same general area, but of varying extensions. With a total area of 121,699 square miles, the state is the fifth-largest state of the US, larger than British Isles. New Mexico's eastern border lies along 103°W longitude with the state of Oklahoma, 2.2 miles west of 103°W longitude with Texas. On the southern border, Texas makes up the eastern two-thirds, while the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora make up the western third, with Chihuahua making up about 90% of that; the western border with Arizona runs along the 109° 03'W longitude. The southwestern corner of the state is known as the Bootheel; the 37°N parallel forms the northern boundary with Colorado. The states of New Mexico, Colorado and Utah come together at the Four Corners in New Mexico's northwestern corner. New Mexico has no natural water sources
Albumen print
The albumen print called albumen silver print, was published in January 1847 by Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard, was the first commercially exploitable method of producing a photographic print on a paper base from a negative. It used the albumen found in egg whites to bind the photographic chemicals to the paper and became the dominant form of photographic positives from 1855 to the start of the 20th century, with a peak in the 1860-90 period. During the mid-19th century, the carte de visite became one of the more popular uses of the albumen method. In the 19th century, E. & H. T. Anthony & Company were the largest makers and distributors of the Albumen photographic prints and paper in the United States. A piece of paper 100% cotton, is coated with an emulsion of egg white and salt dried; the albumen seals the paper and creates a glossy surface for the sensitizer to rest on. The paper is dipped in a solution of silver nitrate and water which renders the surface sensitive to UV light; the paper is dried in the absence of UV light.
The dried, prepared paper is placed in a frame in direct contact under a negative. The negative is traditionally a glass negative with collodion emulsion, but this step can be performed with a modern silver halide negative, too; the paper with negative is exposed to light until the image achieves the desired level of darkness, a little lighter than the end product. The progress of the print can be checked during the exposure as it is a printing-out process and the image can be seen taking form as it is being exposed to light. Though direct sunlight was used long ago, a UV exposure unit is used contemporarily because it is more predictable, as the paper is most sensitive to ultraviolet light. A bath of sodium thiosulfate fixes the print's exposure. Optional gold or selenium toning stabilizes against fading. Depending on the toner, toning may be performed after fixing the print; because the image emerges as a direct result of exposure to light, without the aid of a developing solution, an albumen print may be said to be a printed rather than a developed photograph.
The table salt in the albumen emulsion forms silver chloride when in contact with silver nitrate. Silver chloride is unstable when exposed to light, which makes it decompose into silver and chlorine; the silver ion is reduced to silver by addition of an electron during the development/printing process, the remaining silver chloride is washed out during fixing. The black parts of the image are formed by metallic silver. Marshall, F. A. S. Photography: the importance of its applications in preserving pictorial records. Containing a practical description of the Talbotype process. George Eastman House "Photographic Process 3.0: The Albumen Process" Old Photos of Japan — Samples of hand-tinted albumen photographs Albumen prints from the American University in Cairo Rare Books and Special Collections Digital Library Albumen Photographs: history and preservation Jarvis, Chad. "Albumen printing: Creating and processing albumen paper". Alternativephotography.com. Archived from the original on 2012-07-14. Retrieved 2012-07-08.
"Kiwi Sun Photography: Albumen Printing". Archived from the original on 2009-01-07. Photos of Japan — A collection of hand-painted Japanese albumen prints
2010 United States Census
The 2010 United States Census is the twenty-third and most recent United States national census. National Census Day, the reference day used for the census, was April 1, 2010; the census was taken via mail-in citizen self-reporting, with enumerators serving to spot-check randomly selected neighborhoods and communities. As part of a drive to increase the count's accuracy, 635,000 temporary enumerators were hired; the population of the United States was counted as 308,745,538, a 9.7% increase from the 2000 Census. This was the first census in which all states recorded a population of over half a million, as well as the first in which all 100 largest cities recorded populations of over 200,000; as required by the United States Constitution, the U. S. census has been conducted every 10 years since 1790. The 2000 U. S. Census was the previous census completed. Participation in the U. S. Census is required by law in Title 13 of the United States Code. On January 25, 2010, Census Bureau Director Robert Groves inaugurated the 2010 Census enumeration by counting World War II veteran Clifton Jackson, a resident of Noorvik, Alaska.
More than 120 million census forms were delivered by the U. S. Post Office beginning March 15, 2010; the number of forms mailed out or hand-delivered by the Census Bureau was 134 million on April 1, 2010. Although the questionnaire used April 1, 2010 as the reference date as to where a person was living, an insert dated March 15, 2010 included the following printed in bold type: "Please complete and mail back the enclosed census form today." The 2010 Census national mail participation rate was 74%. From April through July 2010, census takers visited households that did not return a form, an operation called "non-response follow-up". In December 2010, the U. S. Census Bureau delivered population information to the U. S. President for apportionment, in March 2011, complete redistricting data was delivered to states. Identifiable information will be available in 2082; the Census Bureau did not use a long form for the 2010 Census. In several previous censuses, one in six households received this long form, which asked for detailed social and economic information.
The 2010 Census used only a short form asking ten basic questions: How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2010? Were there any additional people staying here on April 1, 2010 that you did not include in Question 1? Mark all that apply: Is this house, apartment, or mobile home – What is your telephone number? What is Person 1's name? What is Person 1's sex? What is Person 1's age and Person 1's date of birth? Is Person 1 of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin? What is Person 1's race? Does Person 1 sometimes live or stay somewhere else? The form included space to repeat all of these questions for up to twelve residents total. In contrast to the 2000 census, an Internet response option was not offered, nor was the form available for download. Detailed socioeconomic information collected during past censuses will continue to be collected through the American Community Survey; the survey provides data about communities in the United States on a 1-year or 3-year cycle, depending on the size of the community, rather than once every 10 years.
A small percentage of the population on a rotating basis will receive the survey each year, no household will receive it more than once every five years. In June 2009, the U. S. Census Bureau announced. However, the final form did not contain a separate "same-sex married couple" option; when noting the relationship between household members, same-sex couples who are married could mark their spouses as being "Husband or wife", the same response given by opposite-sex married couples. An "unmarried partner" option was available for couples; the 2010 census cost $13 billion $42 per capita. Operational costs were $5.4 billion under the $7 billion budget. In December 2010 the Government Accountability Office noted that the cost of conducting the census has doubled each decade since 1970. In a detailed 2004 report to Congress, the GAO called on the Census Bureau to address cost and design issues, at that time, had estimated the 2010 Census cost to be $11 billion. In August 2010, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke announced that the census operational costs came in under budget.
Locke credited the management practices of Census Bureau director Robert Groves, citing in particular the decision to buy additional advertising in locations where responses lagged, which improved the overall response rate. The agency has begun to rely more on questioning neighbors or other reliable third parties when a person could not be reached at home, which reduced the cost of follow-up visits. Census data for about 22% of U. S. househol
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a war fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865, between the North and the South. The Civil War is the most studied and written about episode in U. S. history. As a result of the long-standing controversy over the enslavement of black people, war broke out in April 1861 when secessionist forces attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina shortly after Abraham Lincoln had been inaugurated as the President of the United States; the loyalists of the Union in the North proclaimed support for the Constitution. They faced secessionists of the Confederate States in the South, who advocated for states' rights to uphold slavery. Among the 34 U. S. states in February 1861, secessionist partisans in seven Southern slave states declared state secessions from the country and unveiled their defiant formation of a Confederate States of America in rebellion against the U. S. Constitutional government; the Confederacy grew to control over half the territory in eleven states, it claimed the additional states of Kentucky and Missouri by assertions from exiled native secessionists without territory or population.
These were given full representation in the Confederate Congress throughout the Civil War. The two remaining slave holding states of Delaware and Maryland were invited to join the Confederacy, but nothing substantial developed; the Confederate States was never diplomatically recognized by the government of the United States or by that of any foreign country. The states that remained loyal to the U. S. were known as the Union. The Union and the Confederacy raised volunteer and conscription armies that fought in the South over the course of four years. Intense combat left 620,000 to 750,000 people dead, more than the number of U. S. military deaths in all other wars combined. The war ended when General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at the Battle of Appomattox Court House. Confederate generals throughout the southern states followed suit. Much of the South's infrastructure was destroyed the transportation systems; the Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished, four million black slaves were freed.
During the Reconstruction Era that followed the war, national unity was restored, the national government expanded its power, civil rights were granted to freed black slaves through amendments to the Constitution and federal legislation. In the 1860 presidential election, led by Abraham Lincoln, supported banning slavery in all the U. S. territories. The Southern states viewed this as a violation of their constitutional rights and as the first step in a grander Republican plan to abolish slavery; the three pro-Union candidates together received an overwhelming 82% majority of the votes cast nationally: Republican Lincoln's votes centered in the north, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas' votes were distributed nationally and Constitutional Unionist John Bell's votes centered in Tennessee and Virginia; the Republican Party, dominant in the North, secured a plurality of the popular votes and a majority of the electoral votes nationally. He was the first Republican Party candidate to win the presidency.
However, before his inauguration, seven slave states with cotton-based economies declared secession and formed the Confederacy. The first six to declare secession had the highest proportions of slaves in their populations, with an average of 49 percent. Of those states whose legislatures resolved for secession, the first seven voted with split majorities for unionist candidates Douglas and Bell, or with sizable minorities for those unionists. Of these, only Texas held a referendum on secession. Eight remaining slave states continued to reject calls for secession. Outgoing Democratic President James Buchanan and the incoming Republicans rejected secession as illegal. Lincoln's March 4, 1861, inaugural address declared that his administration would not initiate a civil war. Speaking directly to the "Southern States", he attempted to calm their fears of any threats to slavery, reaffirming, "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the United States where it exists.
I believe I have no lawful right to do so, I have no inclination to do so." After Confederate forces seized numerous federal forts within territory claimed by the Confederacy, efforts at compromise failed and both sides prepared for war. The Confederates assumed that European countries were so dependent on "King Cotton" that they would intervene, but none did, none recognized the new Confederate States of America. Hostilities began on April 1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter. While in the Western Theater the Union made significant permanent gains, in the Eastern Theater, the battle was inconclusive during 1861–1862. In September 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal. To the west, by summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy much of its western armies, seized New Orleans; the successful 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Robert E. Lee's Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg.
Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grant's command of all Union armies in 1864. Inflicting an ever-tightening naval blockade of Confederate ports, the Union marshaled the resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions, leading to the fall of Atlanta to William T. Sherman and his march to th
Navajo Nation
The Navajo Nation is a Native American territory covering about 17,544,500 acres, occupying portions of northeastern Arizona, southeastern Utah, northwestern New Mexico in the United States. This is the largest land area retained by a Native American tribe, with a population of 350,000 as of 2016. By area, the Navajo Nation is larger than West Virginia, Hawaii, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware; the original territory has been expanded several times since the 1800s. In 2016, under the Tribal Nations Buy-Back Program, some 149,524 acres of land were returned by the Department of Interior to the Navajo Nation for tribal communal use; the program is intended to help restore the land bases of reservations. The Navajo Nation has an elected government that includes an executive office, a legislative house, a judicial system, but the United States federal government continues to assert plenary power over all decisions; the executive system manages a large law enforcement and social services apparatus, health services, Diné College, other local educational trusts.
The population continues to disproportionately struggle with health problems and the effects of past uranium mining incidents. In English, the official name for the area was "Navajo Indian Reservation", as outlined in Article II of the 1868 Treaty of Bosque Redondo. On April 15, 1969, the tribe changed its official name to the Navajo Nation, displayed on the seal; this was assertion of sovereignty. In 1994, the Tribal Council rejected a proposal to change the official designation from "Navajo" to "Diné." It was remarked that the name Diné represented the time of suffering before the Long Walk, that Navajo is the appropriate designation for the future. In Navajo, the geographic entity with its defined borders is known as "Naabeehó Bináhásdzo"; this contrasts with "Diné Bikéyah" and "Naabeehó Bikéyah" for the general idea of "Navajoland". Neither of these terms should be confused with "Dinétah," the term used for the traditional homeland of the Navajo, it is situated in the area among the four sacred Navajo mountains of Dookʼoʼoosłííd, Dibé Ntsaa, Sisnaajiní, Tsoodził.
The Navajo people's tradition of governance is rooted in oral history. The clan system of the Diné is integral to their society, as the rules of behavior found within the system extend to the manner of refined culture that the Navajo people call "to walk in Beauty"; the philosophy and clan system from before the Spanish colonial occupation of Dinetah, through to the July 25, 1868, Congressional ratification of the Navajo Treaty with President Andrew Johnson, signed by Barboncito and other chiefs and headmen present at Bosque Redondo. The Navajo people have continued to transform their conceptual understandings of government since it joined the United States by the Treaty of 1868. Social and political academics continue to debate the nature of the modern Navajo governance and how it has evolved to include the systems and economies of the "western world". In the mid-19th century, most Navajo were forced from their lands by the US Army, were marched on the Long Walk to imprisonment in Bosque Redondo.
The Treaty of 1868 established the "Navajo Indian Reservation" and the Navajos left Bosque Redondo. The borders were defined as the 37th parallel in the north; as drafted in 1868, the boundaries were defined as: the following district of country, to wit: bounded on the north by the 37th degree of north latitude, south by an east and west line passing through the site of old Fort Defiance, in Canon Bonito, east by the parallel of longitude which, if prolonged south, would pass through old Fort Lyon, or the Ojo-de-oso, Bear Spring, west by a parallel of longitude about 109' 30" west of Greenwich, provided it embraces the outlet of the Canon-de-Chilly, which canyon is to be all included in this reservation, shall be, the same hereby, set apart for the use and occupation of the Navajo tribe of Indians, for such other friendly tribes or individual Indians as from time to time they may be willing, with the consent of the United States, to admit among them. Though the treaty had provided for one hundred miles by one hundred miles in the New Mexico Territory, the size of the territory was 3,328,302 acres —slightly more than half.
This initial piece of land is represented in the design of the Navajo Nation's flag by a dark-brown rectangle. As no physical boundaries or signposts were set in place, many Navajo ignored these formal boundaries and returned to where they had been living prior to captivity. A significant number of Navajo had never lived in the Hwéeldi near, they remained or moved to near the Little Colorado and Colorado rivers, on Naatsisʼáán and some with Apache bands. The first expansion of the territory occurred on October 28, 1878, when President Rutherford Hayes signed an executive order pushing the reservation boundary 20 miles to the west. Further additions followed throu
Fort Sumner
Fort Sumner was a military fort in New Mexico Territory charged with the internment of Navajo and Mescalero Apache populations from 1863 to 1868 at nearby Bosque Redondo. On October 31, 1862, Congress authorized the construction of Fort Sumner. General James Henry Carleton justified the fort as offering protection to settlers in the Pecos River valley from the Mescalero Apache and Comanche, he created the Bosque Redondo reservation, a 1,600-square-mile area where over 9,000 Navajo and Mescalero Apaches were forced to live because of accusations that they were raiding white settlements near their respective homelands. The fort was named for General Edwin Vose Sumner; the stated purpose of the reservation was for it to be self-sufficient, while teaching Mescalero Apache and Navajo how to be modern farmers. General Edward Canby, whom Carleton replaced, first suggested that the Navajo people be moved to a series of reservations and be taught new skills; some in Washington, D. C. thought that the Navajo did not need to be moved and that a reservation should be created on their own land.
Some New Mexico citizens encouraged killing the Navajo or at least removing them from their lands. The 1865 and 1866 corn production was sufficient. Army officers and Indian Agents realized that Bosque Redondo was a failure, as it had poor water and too little firewood for the numbers of people who were living there; the Mescalero soon ran away. When the Bosque Redondo was first established, Gen. Carleton ordered Col. Christopher "Kit" Carson to do whatever necessary to bring first the Mescalero and the Navajo there. All of the Mescalero Apache had been relocated by the end of 1862, but the Navajo were not resettled in large numbers until early 1864; the Navajo refer to the journey from Navajo land to the Bosque Redondo as the Long Walk. More than 300 Navajos died making the journey, it was a bitter memory to many Navajo. One man described it as follows: "By slow stages we traveled eastward by present Gallup and Shushbito, Bear spring, now called Fort Wingate. You ask how they treated us? If there was room the soldiers put the children on the wagons.
Some let them ride behind them on their horses. I have never been able to understand a people who killed you one day and on the next played with your children...?" In April 1865 there were about 500 Mescalero Apache interned at Bosque Redondo. The Army had planned only 5,000 would be there, so lack of sufficient food was an issue from the start; as the Navajo and Mescalero Apache had long been enemies, their enforced proximity led to frequent open fighting. The environmental situation got worse; the interned people had no clean water. The water from the nearby Pecos River caused severe intestinal problems, disease spread throughout the camp. Food was in short supply because of crop failures and Indian Agent bungling, criminal activities. In 1865, the Mescalero Apache, or those strong enough to travel, managed to escape; the Navajo were not allowed to leave until May 1868 when the U. S. Army agreed that the Bosque Redondo reservation was a failure; the 1868 Treaty of Bosque Redondo was negotiated with the Navajo and they were allowed to return to their homeland, to a "new reservation."
They were joined by the thousands of Navajo, hiding out in the Arizona Territory hinterlands. This experience resulted in a more determined Navajo, never again were they surprised by raiders of the Rio Grande valley. In subsequent years, they have expanded the "new reservation" into well over 16 million acres. Fort Sumner was purchased by rancher and cattle baron Lucien Maxwell. Maxwell rebuilt one of the officers' quarters into a 20-room house. On July 14, 1881, Sheriff Pat Garrett shot and killed Billy the Kid in this house, now referred to as the Maxwell House. In 1968—one hundred years after the signing of the treaty that allowed the Navajo people to return to their original homes in the Four Corners Region—Fort Sumner was declared a New Mexico State Monument; the property is now managed by the New Mexico Historic Sites division of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs. On June 4, 2005, a new museum designed by Navajo architect David N. Sloan was opened on the site as the Bosque Redondo Memorial.
Congress had authorized the establishment of the memorial by the Secretary of Defense in 2000, making federal funds available for construction. The Bosque Redondo Memorial and Fort Sumner Historic Site are located 6.5 miles southeast of Fort Sumner, New Mexico: 3 miles east on U. S. Route 60/U. S. Route 84 3.5 miles south on Billy The Kid Road. National Register of Historic Places listings in De Baca County, New Mexico Bosque Redondo — destination of the long walk The Long Walk Trail Of The Navajos Thompson, Gerald; the Army and the Navajo: The Bosque Redondo Reservation Experiment 1863-1868. Tucson, Arizona: The University of Arizona Press. ISBN 0-8165-0495-4 New Mexico State Historic Sites – Fort Sumner Historic Site/Bosque Redondo Memorial New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs History of the NASA Scientific Balloon Flight Facility from which are launched stratospheric balloons each year
Seth and Mary Eastman
Seth Eastman and his second wife Mary Henderson Eastman were instrumental in recording Native American life. Eastman was an artist and West Point graduate who served in the US Army, first as a mapmaker and illustrator, he had two tours at Minnesota Territory. During these years, he painted many studies of Native American life, he was notable for the quality of his hundreds of illustrations for Henry Rowe Schoolcraft's six-volume study on History of Indian Tribes of the United States, commissioned by the US Congress. From their time at Fort Snelling, Mary Henderson Eastman wrote a book about Dakota Sioux life and culture, which Seth Eastman illustrated. In 1838, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Honorary Academician; when the Eastmans were based in Washington, DC before the American Civil War, Mary entered the literary "lists" and wrote the bestselling Aunt Phillis's Cabin: or, Southern Life As It Is. Defending slaveholders, she responded as a Southern planter to Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery work, Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Mary Eastman's novel was one of the most read anti-Tom novels and a commercial success, selling 20,000–30,000 copies. Seth Eastman retired as a Lieutenant Colonel and Brevet Brigadier General for disability during the American Civil War, he was reactivated when commissioned by Congress to make several paintings for the US Capitol. Between 1867 and 1869, Eastman painted a series of nine scenes of American Indian life for the House Committee on Indian Affairs. In 1870 Congress commissioned Eastman to create a series of 17 paintings of important U. S. forts. He completed the paintings in 1875, eight still hang in the Senate Wing. Seth Eastman was born on January 24, 1808 in Brunswick, the eldest of 13 children of Robert and Sarah Lee Eastman, he persuaded his parents to let him go into the military. Sixteen when he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1824, he graduated in 1829 to enter the Army as a second lieutenant in the 1st Infantry Regiment. Eastman made his career with the U.
S. Army, he became an accomplished artist and used his skills in early mapmaking and recording Army activities. In 1830 he was assigned to Fort Snelling near. A large installation with 20 officers and up to 300 enlisted men, the fort was deep in American Indian territory on the upper Mississippi River. While stationed there for three years, Eastman learned the Sioux language and captured many scenes of American Indian life in the territory, he sketched prolifically. From 1833 to 1840, Eastman was assigned to West Point. In 1841 Eastman was returned to Minnesota. While stationed there for several years with his second wife and growing family, he continued to study and paint Native American life, their son Frank was born in 1844, daughter Virginia in 1847, son John McC. in 1849. He learned much about the Dakota culture particularly, he painted and drew pictures of the Sioux villages of Kaposia and Little Crow, as well as settlements in present-day Scott and Winona counties. Hearing that Congress had authorized a study of Indians by the explorer and former US Indian agent Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, Eastman asked to be assigned as illustrator.
In 1849 at age 41, he had the chance. Captain Eastman and his family settled in Washington, where their son Harry was born in 1854. Eastman began to work on what would be hundreds of pictures to illustrate the massive Schoolcraft study, published in six volumes from 1851–1857, it was a monumental work. During that time, he completed some 275 pages of illustrations to accompany Schoolcraft’s six-volume Information Regarding the History and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States; when Volume I came off the press in early 1851, Eastman could take just pride in his accomplishment. His precise and exquisitely executed illustrations of Indian life, painted entirely from his frontier sketches, proved that he was singularly the best-qualified person in the country to undertake this epic work. Eastman's work, which complements the work of Hudson River School landscape painters of his era, illustrates how images of the landscape supported and extended the United States' work of empire building.
That is, the images of Americans' possession and domination of the landscape supported their mission of empire. Eastman's images helped spur it on. In this regard, Eastman was working on a similar mission to the landscape painters who were working from private commissions. Near the end of his career, at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, Eastman was commissioned by the House Committee on Military Affairs to paint pictures of seventeen important forts, he completed these paintings between 1870 and 1875. One controversial painting was Death Whoop, twice removed from display because of negative comments from viewers, as it portrayed an Indian's scalping a white man. In the 1930s the paintings were displayed again in the Capitol Building. Seth Eastman, Treatise on Topographical Drawing, New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1837, his textbook on the techniques of map-making and map-reading was made mandatory for all topography classes at West Point. Eastman created symbols for use on all maps, explained how to draw height and depth on a two-dimensional sheet of paper.
Henry Rowe Schoolcraft and Statistical Information Regarding the Hi
