Name/Title
Robidoux, Joseph, Jr. (Indian Joe) & wife, Portrait Photos (4)Entry/Object ID
P1995.1H.123Description
Robidoux, Joseph, Jr. (Indian Joe) & wife, Portrait Photos (4). b/w. Three photos of the eldest son of Joseph Robidoux, founder of the city of St. Joseph. One photo of Joe, Jr.'s Native American wife, NA-KE-Tom-ME (1807-1904). Joe's Indian name as MO-NA-KA. (Copied from print courtesy of Nora Murphy, White Cloud, KS) See Museum Graphic, Spring, 1955.
95.1H.123 & 125 = Joe, Jr. in mid-life, He has a full head of grey hair, with full chin-length beard & mustache, wearing a dark coat over vest. Head/shoulders pose. #123 is 5" x 7". #125 is *' x 10" (Included are 2 unmarked 8" x 10" copies)
95.1H.124 = Joe, Jr. as older man. Photo by Alex Lozo, copy from framed photo framed by T.F. Indermill. Shows head/shoulders view in oval, Joe with receding hairline, full beard & mustache. He is wearing dark coat over buttoned vest with handkerchief in his right pocket. "Joseph, E. Robidoux, B.B." handwritten at top of photo.
95.1H.126 = Copy of framed portrait of Joe, Jr.'s Native American wife, NA-KE-Tom-KE. The portrait is in oval frame. It depicts an older woman in native dress, seated in front of a photographer's background screen. She has a cloth band about her head, and long strands of beads about her neck, her hands in her lap. Her dark long-sleeve shirt is worn over a full-length skirt, the toes of her shoes are beaded. She is holding a long walking stick. (Included are 3 unmarked copies of this photo).
95.1H.123B = Article written about Joe, Jr. by Bartlett Boder
"He was also known as Indian Joe, The Indian, Joseph E. Robidoux, or Young Joe. He spent most of his life trading with Indians, exchanging white men's guns, knives, hatchets, blankets, beads and vermillion for furs. The furs were shipped to St. Joseph, then to St. Louis, still the world's largest fur market; then via New Orleans to Europe where the gentlemen of London and Paris used beaver pelts in the fashionable beaver top hats. European women as well as men used bear pelts for warm coats and buffalo robes to cover their knees on winter drives.
He married two Indian wives successively and died at the age of eighty-seven on the Iowan Indian reservation near White Cloud, Kansas. On behalf of his father he made annual voyages to the headwaters of the Missouri river in Montana, and on one occasion brought down a fleet of mackinaw boats loaded with 100 tons of pelts.
Eugenie Delisle was his mother's maiden name. She died when he was born in St. Louis in 1802, when her husband Joseph Robidoux already a seasoned fur trader with his log cabin at present St. Joseph, was only 19."
Original digital scan located on History CD 04Made/Created
Studio
Alex Lozo Photographic Gallery of ArtDate made
1870Place
City
St. JosephState/Province
MissouriLexicon
Nomenclature 4.0
Nomenclature Secondary Object Term
Print, PhotographicNomenclature Primary Object Term
PhotographNomenclature Sub-Class
Graphic DocumentsNomenclature Class
Documentary ObjectsNomenclature Category
Category 08: Communication ObjectsSearch Terms
Robidoux Family, Robidoux, Joseph, Jr.Relationships
Related Person or Organization
Person or Organization
Robidoux FamilyPerson or Organization
Robidoux, Joseph, Jr.Person or Organization
NA-KE-Tom-MEProvenance
Notes
Photo of Joe, Jr. as older man by Alex Lozo, Photographer. Photo of Native American wife copied from print belonging to Nora Murphy, White Cloud, S, in 1966.
