Miller returned to this image when commissioned in 1869 to produce a set of watercolors for Alexander Brown of Liverpool. He worked from a sketch he had used for the Walters commission a decade earlier (CR# 414). In that ten year period, Miller’s palette had become somewhat darker, and this work suffers somewhat as a consequence from lack of brilliance and appeal. The message is the same in all the versions, however, that of Indian community, security, and stability. In the West at this date, the Indian wars were beginning and their future looked especially dim, perhaps explaining the somber tone of the present work. He remarked that sentinels were posted atop the buildings to “keep an eye on the horizon, to discover the first sign of an enemy.” The enemies of the western Indian were many by 1869.
