The collection refers mainly to Araucanian and Tehuelche groups of Patagonia, compraising full-face and profile torso portraits. The photographs were taken in 1885 by Samuel Boote - and then came the most familiar name of the collection -, by order of Francisco Pascasio Moreno, director of Museo de La Plata, in the Barracks of the 8th Regiment in Tigre (Buenos Aires).
There indigenous people belonging to Inacayal and Foyel tribes were imprisioned after the so-called “Conquest of the Desert”. In 1886, approximately fifteen members of these tribes were moved to the Museo de La Plata, where they lived some years. Probably some of the pictures were taken between that year and 1888.
