Judge — January 14, 1911 — page 15: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This multi-panel satirical cartoon depicts an escalating series of violent encounters between what appears to be Native Americans (shown on the right in each panel) and settlers or soldiers (on the left). The sequence progresses through eight scenes labeled with different terms, showing increasingly dramatic confrontations—fires, raids, and combat. The title "Well, It Might Have Been" suggests a counterfactual or hypothetical scenario. This appears to be commentary on Indian Wars or frontier conflict, likely satirizing either the inevitability of such violence or perhaps the justifications given for it. The progression implies either a warning about what could occur or ironic commentary on how conflicts escalated. Without the specific date or publication context, the exact political point remains unclear, though it engages with late-19th-century American anxieties about frontier conflict.