Indian Lives

This book presents a selection of powerful photographs of North American Indians, not simply as adjuncts to a historical discourse, but as visually compelling images in their own right. Coinciding with the beginnings of photography in the field, the period covered here - c. 1861 to 1890 - witnessed the end of unhindered traditional life for most Native Americans. Contemporary cameras captured that vanishing life with startling immediacy, a full generation before Edward Curtis began taking his famous series of photographs. The early photographers, among them such well-known figures as William Henry Jackson and Alexander Gardner, were clearly fascinated by the historical spectacle, at once romantic and brutal, unfolding before their eyes and documented its various aspects in both posed and candid shots. In an introduction the author places the photographs in the contexts of White American expansion and Indian culture, and discusses the means and aims of photography at the time. In a series of narratives, organized thematically around certain tribes and their activities or around outstanding historical events, Hiesinger goes on to provide a background for the interpretation of the individual images. Biographical notes on the photographers, a map, a chronology, and a bibliography complete a volume that brings the reader into intimate contact with a critical period of American history.