The body of work that Horace Poolaw spent his life amassing has proved invaluable for Kiowa people and historians . It was a time when he was doing photography the 1920s through the 1950s in Oklahoma that was a very racist time for Native American people . He captured the truth about how we were just people living and working , relishing our new found freedom after the incarcerations as prisoners of war . The strangest thing is that so many people moved to Oklahoma that hated Indians knowing it was where they put so many different tribes after the Trail of Tears . I grew up in Oklahoma in a small town next to Pawnee , Oklahoma the home of Pawnee Bill and the origin of the Wild West Show . Poolaw took pictures that are very different from the ones displayed at the Pawnee Bill Museum , as well as publications of that time period . He photographed people being people and Natives with dignity . Many other photographers were photographing propaganda
Trail of Tears
Trail of Tears
Horace Poolaw