Image Gateway
Tom Torlino, in 1882 (left), and 1885 (right)
To find out what happened to Tom Torlino and his descendants, read this 2013 article from the Navajo Times
To read Torlino’s student file or view a lesson plan suggestion organized around his before & after photographs, visit the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center
The same man who photographed Tom Torlino in Carlisle (John N. Choate) also took this photograph on the left of ex-slave Henry W. Spradley. View Choate’s 1902 book of photographs on the Indian School
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- Col. Pratt with Navajos (1882)
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- Navajos students (1883)
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- Torlino and Watchman (1885)
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- Tom Torlino (1886)
Essential Question
How should we view Tom Torlino (or Hastiin To’Haali)?
Close Reading Exercise
The historical documents below concern the fate of Tom Torlino. What do they reveal about his relationship with the Carlisle Indian School? How do they support or challenge some of his family’s oral traditions about Hastiin To’Haali as described in the Navajo Times article (above) from 2013?
Richard Henry Pratt to John Oberly, January 4, 1886
Tom Torlino and family in the 1910 US Census
When Historians Disagree
- Learn more about the ongoing interpretive debate over “the myth of the vanishing Indian” from this recent New York Times article about Pekka Hamalainen’s new book, Indigenous Continent (2022)