Cattle Brand c. 1936

This is J. Henry Marley's 'Cattle Brand', made with ink on paper. Marley’s life spanned an era of significant transformation in the American West. His simple design captures a far more complex set of issues, marking territory, ownership, and identity in a rapidly changing landscape. Consider what it meant to brand livestock during Westward Expansion. This practice was not merely about ownership, it was also about power, control, and the imposition of a particular vision of civilization onto the land. The cultural context includes the displacement of indigenous populations and the subjugation of the natural world. Moreover, branding, even in its graphic representation, evokes complex themes of identity, history, and the emotional weight of ownership. In this context, identity becomes inextricably linked to land, property, and the fraught history of the American West.