1877 Chief Joseph Surrender, Nicopolis Ruins, Nast Elephant — Nov 17
$45.67
Skip to product information
🗞️ HARPER'S WEEKLY · November 17, 1877
Complete Issue + Supplement Pages · New York
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A historically exceptional issue — seven scenes documenting the surrender of Chief Joseph and the end of the Nez Perce War, two Thomas Nast political cartoons including the Republican elephant, Hayes visiting the Virginia State Agricultural Fair, and a supplement with a spectacular cavalry battle double-page, the ruins of Nicopolis, and a dramatic frontier combat scene. One of the most significant Native American history issues in the entire Harper's Weekly run.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🪶 CHIEF JOSEPH — END OF THE NEZ PERCE WAR
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
👤 FULL PAGE — "END OF THE NEZ PERCES WAR — SURRENDER OF CHIEF JOSEPH" — SEVEN SCENES
A full page of seven scenes documenting the surrender of Chief Joseph — Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, leader of the Wallowa band of the Nez Perce — who delivered his famous surrender speech on October 5, 1877, at the Bear Paw Mountains of Montana, just forty miles short of the Canadian border. The speech, ending with the words "From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever," became one of the most celebrated statements in American history. After a 1,170-mile fighting retreat across Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana — one of the most extraordinary military campaigns ever conducted by Native American forces — the surrender brought the Nez Perce War to its heartbreaking conclusion. This seven-scene front page is a primary document of one of the most significant events in the history of the American West, with accompanying text on the following page. An essential collectible for Native American history, Nez Perce history, and Western Americana collectors.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
✏️ THOMAS NAST
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🐘 FULL FRONT PAGE — THOMAS NAST: "THE OFF YEAR" — THE REPUBLICAN ELEPHANT
A Thomas Nast front-page political cartoon featuring the Republican elephant — the symbol Nast had invented just three years earlier in 1874. This "off year" election commentary captures Nast's ongoing role as the premier visual voice of American political life in the Gilded Age.
✏️ FULL PAGE — THOMAS NAST: "LES DEUX PRÉSIDENTS — ÉLYSÉE" — FEATURING U.S. GRANT
A full-page Nast cartoon depicting "The Two Presidents" — referencing both the American presidency (Grant) and the French presidency (Mac-Mahon), amid the ongoing constitutional crisis in France and the political situation in America following Hayes's disputed election. A sophisticated and internationally minded piece of Gilded Age political commentary.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🖼️ INSIDE THE ISSUE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🌾 FULL PAGE — "THE VIRGINIA STATE AGRICULTURAL FAIR AT RICHMOND — VISIT OF PRESIDENT HAYES" — FIVE PRINTS
Five prints documenting President Hayes's visit to the Virginia State Agricultural Fair in Richmond — a significant piece of Reconstruction-era political history, as Hayes's post-withdrawal visit to the former Confederate capital symbolized the new era of conciliation between North and South.
🗺️ ILLUSTRATION — "PTOLEMY'S MAP OF THE WORLD"
An illustration of Ptolemy's ancient map of the world — a fascinating piece of the history of cartography and geographic knowledge.
👤 PORTRAITS — "THE LATE SENATOR MORTON," "MR. JOHN WELSH," AND "MR. E. W. STOUGHTON"
Three quarter-page portraits of prominent Gilded Age figures — Senator Oliver Morton of Indiana (recently deceased), John Welsh (newly appointed U.S. Minister to Great Britain and organizer of the 1876 Centennial Exhibition), and E. W. Stoughton (the newly appointed U.S. Minister to Russia). A significant cluster of Gilded Age political portraiture.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
⚔️ THE SUPPLEMENT — RUSSO-TURKISH WAR
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🐎 DOUBLE-PAGE — "CLOSE OF THE BATTLE OF RACLEJO — FINAL CHARGE OF THE TURKISH CAVALRY"
The supplement showpiece — a spectacular and explosive double-page illustration of the final charge of the Turkish cavalry at the Battle of Raclejo, one of the war's Bulgarian-theater engagements. Horses rear and fall, sabers flash, riders collide in desperate close-quarters combat across the full double-page spread — an extraordinarily kinetic and visceral piece of Victorian military illustration. A spectacular and very frameable piece of Russo-Turkish War art.
🏚️ FULL PAGE — "THE RUINS OF NICOPOLIS AFTER THE BOMBARDMENT" — TWO VIEWS
Two panoramic views of the ruined city of Nicopolis (Nikopol, Bulgaria) after its capture and bombardment by Russian forces: a sweeping "General View of the Ruins — Sketched from the Shore of the Danube" showing the devastated townscape with the Danube beyond, and a close-up "Lower Part of the City, Near the River" showing broken walls, standing chimneys, and figures picking through rubble. A significant and poignant piece of Russo-Turkish War documentary illustration.
⚔️ LARGE ILLUSTRATION — FRONTIER COMBAT SCENE
A dramatic supplement illustration of violent hand-to-hand combat in a forested or rocky landscape — figures in desperate struggle, a wounded man at center. Please review all photographs for the full caption and details of this scene.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📋 CONDITION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I photograph every page of every issue so you can inspect the condition closely before purchasing. Please review all images carefully and don't hesitate to ask any questions — I'm happy to provide additional detail or close-up shots of any page, illustration, or area of concern before you buy.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📌 DETAILS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Publication ········ Harper's Weekly
Date ··············· November 17, 1877
City ··············· New York
Item Number ········ 174192
Pages ·············· Complete Issue + Supplement
Format ············· Illustrated folio newspaper
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📦 SHIPPING & PRESERVATION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
• Housed in an acid-free archival folder with Mylar overlay to protect the 148-year-old newsprint
• Flat-shipped with heavy-duty reinforcement to ensure safe arrival of the centerfold and supplement
• Fully tracked for your peace of mind
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🔍 SEO TAGS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Chief Joseph surrender 1877, End Nez Perce War, Chief Joseph seven scenes, Nez Perce War surrender, fight no more forever, Chief Joseph Bear Paw Mountains, Nez Perce War primary document, Lakota Sioux Indian Wars, Native American history antique, Nez Perce history print, Western Americana Indian Wars, Nast Republican elephant Off Year, Thomas Nast 1877 cartoon, Nast Les Deux Presidents, Nast Grant French cartoon, Gilded Age political cartoon, Republican elephant Nast, Hayes Virginia agricultural fair, President Hayes Richmond Virginia, Reconstruction reconciliation Hayes, Virginia State Fair Harper's, Senator Morton portrait, John Welsh portrait, E W Stoughton portrait, Ptolemy map world antique, cartography history Victorian, Battle Raclejo Turkish cavalry, Turkish cavalry charge double page, Russo-Turkish War cavalry, Nicopolis ruins bombardment, Nikopol Bulgaria ruins 1877, Russo-Turkish War documentary, Danube bombardment ruins, Harper's Weekly 1877, antique newspaper 1877, Victorian illustrated newspaper, Gilded Age newspaper, antique illustration engraving, Victorian wall art, framing quality print, Chief Joseph collector, Native American collector, history lover gift, rare newspaper collectible, museum quality ephemera, Gilded Age ephemera
1877 Chief Joseph Surrender, Nicopolis Ruins, Nast Elephant — Nov 17
$45.67