AMERICAN INDIANS PHOTOGRAPHS Camillus S Fly photographer

Sale 2580 - Lot 13

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Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 7,500

(AMERICAN INDIANS--PHOTOGRAPHS.) Camillus S. Fly, photographer. The Captive White Boy, Santiago McKinn. Albumen photograph, 4 3/4 x 8 inches, on original mount, with photographer's copyright statement in the negative, and his printed sticker on verso, image #170 from Fly's "Scene in Geronimo's Camp" series; minor foxing and wear. Tombstone, AZ, March 1886 image

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In March 1886, The Arizona photographer Camillus Fly accompanied General Crook's forces for their negotiations with Geronimo's band of Chiricahua Apache, who were holding out in the Sierra Madre mountains about 20 miles south of the New Mexico border. Fly was surprised to discover a fair-skinned child playing among the Apache children, and arranged this photograph.

The child was Santiago "Jimmy" McKinn (1875-1941), aged 11, son of an Irish-American father and Mexican-American mother. The Apaches had raided his family's New Mexico ranch in September 1885, killing his older brother and taking Jimmy captive. The father John McKinn pursued the Apaches but was told the boy had been killed. During his six months in captivity, Santiago became fluent in the Apache language, and resisted returning to his birth family. He was placed aboard a train with other Apache prisoners bound for Florida, but his parents were allowed to collect him when the train stopped in Deming, NM. He went on to raise a family in New Mexico, spending his final years in Phoenix, AZ.