Ne-Bah-Quah-Om. (Big Dog)

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Artist: Joel Emmons Whitney (American, 1822–1886)
Medium: Albumen print (carte de visite)
Size: 3 9/16 × 2 1/4 in. (9 × 5.7 cm) (image)
Museum: Minneapolis Institute of Art
Rights: Public Domain Mark

By the middle of the 19th century, photographic objects pervaded everyday life, found inside of pockets, along mantlepieces and desktops, or placed within albums. As printing technologies advanced, the photographic medium became inextricably linked to the United States government’s colonization of Indigenous land; photographs of Native people extended the violence of colonization by making commodities of their images.

Photographic portraits of historically significant figures, including those related to the US-Dakota War of 1862, circulated images of Native people that were meant to communicate their disempowerment, imprisonment, and exile. Whitney’s portraits of the men associated with this brief, tragic, and deeply consequential war provide incomplete and unforgettable glimpses of Native resistance, despite their staging within his studio: today, we bear witness to the leaders of an uprising against the starvation, abuse, and forcible removal of their people from their ancestral homelands.

Text: Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia), CC BY 4.0.