Date of Submission
Spring 2015
Academic Programs and Concentrations
Historical Studies
Project Advisor 1
Christian Crouch
Abstract/Artist's Statement
My project explores how and why William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody glorified the military's wars against Native Americans on the Great Plains through his career as a showman in the United States and in Europe. The military's and the Interior Department's competition for control over Indian Affairs allowed Buffalo Bill to support the army's image by adhering to popular white supremacist ideas in the nation. I look at how Buffalo Bill used his Native American performers to exemplify the military's peace keeping skills in the West while devaluing the Interior Department's authority in Indian Affairs.
Open Access Agreement
Open Access
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Echelman, Alexander Erez, "A Contested Future: Buffalo Bill's Wild West, Native American Performers, and the Military's Struggle for Control over Indian Affairs 1868-1898" (2015). Senior Projects Spring 2015. 139.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2015/139
This work is protected by a Creative Commons license. Any use not permitted under that license is prohibited.
Included in
American Material Culture Commons, European Languages and Societies Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, History Commons, Indigenous Studies Commons, Leisure Studies Commons, Theatre History Commons