A Tintype is a one of a kind positive image on a metal plate and a popular visual medium of the mid-1800’s. Around this time my ancestors were being forced to decide between signing away most of their rights in treaties or face extinction by colonizers.

These portraits are created by documenting people's avatars in the cowboy roleplaying video game Red Dead Redemption 2. In the game you can create and play with around 24,000 other real people online daily. Most people create some sort of cowboy player but there are forums and social groups of players that choose to create their characters or avatars as Indians in the game. I have been meeting up with them in the game and taking Tintype portraits of them in this virtual world.

I’m curious about why someone would want to roleplay as a Native American character during one of the hardest times in their history. Is it because the romanticized images of the so-called vanishing indian have become so commonplace in common media? Do they not know that these images have fueled identity issues that many natives still struggle with? Do they think that by playing as these figures that they are somehow honoring us? Just as they think they honor us with a school mascot? Do they hope to find some connection to the native experience that will help with the guilt? Or do they just like to root for an underdog?

M. Earl Williams