The Sioux of the Rosebud - (Civilization of the American Indian) by Henry W Hamilton & Jean Tyree Hamilton (Paperback)

About the Book

The wealth of photographs Anderson took is represented here by more than 200 reproductions--the largest number ever published in a single collection. They are presented not as works of art (though many of them are indeed triumphs of the photographic art) but as important historical documents in the ongoing story of the American Indian.

Book Synopsis

In the late 1880s, John A. Anderson, a young Swedish-born settler near Fort Niobrara, Nebraska, bought a camera with earnings from carpentry work. He soon became a full-fledged photographer, and in 1889 General George Crook asked him to serve as official photographer to the Crook Treaty Commission on its visit to the Brulé Sioux Indians on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. Anderson agreed--and thereby moved into a poignant and oftentimes tragic era in the history of the Sioux. From 1891 until his death in 1948, Anderson lived on the Rosebud, recording the painful adjustment of the proud Brulés to life on the reservation.

This was a particularly hard time for the Brulés. Nomadic warriors by nature, they had been subjugated following their greatest triumph at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876 and were living like captives on what had once been their buffalo hunting grounds. The buffaloes were dead, and the Indians had been forced to accept white men's ways and white men's provender. To help feed themselves, they were compelled to farm--to "scratch the ground," as they scornfully expressed it--a way of life they regarded as shameful.

Anderson became a sincere friend of the Indian, who learned to trust him and allowed him to record their daily lives and their ceremonies. Anderson photographed Sioux camps, villages, and day schools; recorded councils between whites and Indians; and portrayed the Indians as they received their beef rations and annuity payments. When Buffalo Bill Cody and Charles P. Jordan organized their wild-west shows, he photographed the Sioux who joined the shows. Anderson was afforded the rare privilege of attending and photographing the White Buffalo, Sun dance, and Omaha Dance ceremonies. Anderson gave many of the photographs to his Sioux friends, who proudly displayed them in their cabins on the Rosebud.

Over the years many other photographs found their way into museums and state historical societies. Henry W. Hamilton and his wife, Jean Tyree Hamilton, first became aware of Anderson and his work through the papers of Remington Schuyler, the well-known artist and writer, who also lived on the Rosebud. The Hamiltons searched out prints and glass-plate negatives and, with the help of Indian consultants on the reservation, painstakingly dated the photographs and identified the subjects.

The wealth of photographs Anderson took is represented here by more than 200 reproductions--the largest number ever published in a single collection. They are presented not as works of art (though many of them are indeed triumphs of the photographic art) but as important historical documents in the ongoing story of the American Indian.

Review Quotes

"From 1891 until 1948 when he died, John A. Anderson lived on the Rosebud, recording the daily lives and activities of the Indian as they painfully adjusted to an agricultural existence....Anderson not only captures scenes which documented the ordinary chores of farming, ranching, and butchering, he showed much of the Rosebud landscape, many famous Indians, and photographed the unusual White Buffalo, Sun, and Omaha dance ceremonies....The Hamilton's have not only brought together the greatest single collection of Anderson's photographs, their painstaking captions and narrative form a remarkable history of the early 'civilization' of the Brulé Sioux....A must for any serious student of the American Indian."--American Book Collector

"Interesting, informative, and valuable for understanding Sioux culture, this addition to the University of Oklahoma Press American Indian Series is a handsome example of the bookmaker's art."--Great Plains Journal

"This book is a tribute to the fine original photography of John A. Anderson. It is a tribute to the photo-copy work of Wayne L. Nelson, then of the River Basin Surveys Staff, Smithsonian Institution, Lincoln, Nebraska, who copied all of the prints and negatives and made them usable. It is a tribute to the tireless efforts of Henry and Jean Hamilton in putting the whole work together and devoting then years to its research. It is a tribute to the fine printing and publishing of the University of Oklahoma Press. Most of all it is a memorial to a great people."--Ethnohistory

"This collection, with its careful identifications, progressive arrangement, and handsome format, comprises a valuable historical record of an important people and their way of life."--Pacific Northwest Quarterly