Many Horns, Blackfeet Sioux, from the American Indian Chiefs series (N2) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes Brands 1888

This is a lithograph made by Allen & Ginter for their cigarette brands. It depicts Many Horns, a Blackfeet Sioux chief. Consider the making of this image. It’s a lithograph, a mass-produced print; it would have been made by skilled laborers, turning out thousands of these cards to be included in cigarette packs. These cards, like the cigarettes themselves, were part of the larger phenomenon of mass consumption. The image flattens Many Horns into a symbol, a collectible, divorced from his lived reality. These cards were designed to be collected and traded, becoming a tool of commerce, promoting the sale of tobacco through images of Indigenous people, packaged alongside a product that was aggressively marketed to the Native population at the time. It makes you think about how images can be used, and perhaps misused, in a consumer culture. When we look at it this way, this seemingly innocuous card gains a new, darker meaning.