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1881: The End of "The Indian Threat": Sitting Bull In Captivity
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In the July 1891 edition of Century Magazine,
an article appeared written by Major George W. Baird,
in which he recounts his glory days as an Indian fighter
under the command of General Nelson A. Miles. Illustrated
with engravings by Frederic Remington, the article
covers Mile's career from its beginning at Fort Dodge
in 1874 to its conclusion six months earlier at Wounded
Knee, where armed troops opened fire on a group of
Big Foot's band of Lakota people killing 200-250 men,
women and children who were illegally performing the
Ghost Dance. Already by July 1891, Baird recognized
that Wounded Knee represented the climax of what he
called "the battle of civilization," and
that the Indian threat in the West was now over. With
White hegemony secured, Baird was now in a position
to offer a more magnanimous approach to what remained
of the "Indian problem":
There are but two goals for the
Indians--civilization or annihilation...I feel
for the Indians, not only friendly feeling but
admiration for many of their qualities...The American
people, those who really wish and hope to save
the Indians from extinction and degradation, must
be prepared to use great patience and summon all
their wisdom.
The signal that a new day had come in the history
of the West elicited two public responses. There was
a new wave of reform, most evident in the creation
of Indian boarding schools designed to civilize the
Native through forced assimilation. And there was
an acceleration of efforts to re-characterize this
"battle of civilization" in the public imagination;
to cast the Indian as an "other", distinct
from Euro-American civilization and deserving of displacement
to make the wilderness safe for the civilized farmer.
Ever since 1881, when Sitting Bull surrendered at
Fort Buford, every generation has recreated this historic
conflict with the Plains Indians dramatically; in
photographs, Wild West Shows, Victorian Adversing,
dime novels, paintings, early cinema, pulps, literature,
comic books, movies, radio, and on television. That
the Western genre of entertainment still thrives reflects
the dominant culture's need to dramatize its history
and to believe in the righteousness of that history's
outcome. |
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| The beginning of America's need to dramatize
its conflict with the Plains Indians in popular
culture can be traced back at least as early
1881, when Sitting Bull surrendered to authorities
at Fort Buford. Five years after the fiasco
at Little Big Horn, Sitting Bull was a living
representation of the Indian resistance. The
Indian leader subsequently spent two years in
captivity at Fort Randall, where newspaper reporters
and tourists flocked to see him. At this time,
photographers also took advantage of Sitting
Bull's physical captivity to capture his image
on film. Most noteworthy was the work by a Nebraskan
photographer named William R. Cross, who assembled
a series of twenty-four photographs in such
a way as to chronicle the story of Sitting Bull's
capture and incarceration. Twenty-one of these
were published as stereoviews, a popular media
format in the later Nineteenth Century. They
were successfully marketed by Joshua Bradford
Bailey, Dr. George P. Dix, and John L. Mead,
an indication of the public's hunger for a popular
cinematic construction of the Plains Indian.
The photographs contain all the major elements
of what would later comprise the traditional Western movie plot: Savage Indians, Euro-American
agents of civilization in the form of (often
victimized) settlers, guardians of civilization
in the form of the American military, and a
moral message in the form of the inevitable
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righteous triumph of civilization over savagery.
In these images, the Noble Savage is hardly
evident. With the Plains conflict ongoing, the
Noble Savage was put
on hiatus until such time as the Indian threat
had passed. In the Cross photographs, the Indians
are generally depicted as subdued and defeated,
now reliant on civilization for their very survival.
This theme surely provided much needed reassurance
to the general public that Euro-Americans were
in control. With Sitting Bull safely ensconced
at Fort Randall, news reports and interviews with
him quickly confirmed his celebrity status. Sitting
Bull himself was reported to have taken advantage
of the attention by selling some of his personal
artifacts and his autograph for outrageous sums.
Cross chose the stereoview as his format for publication
doubtless because he knew it would appeal to a
wide audience and maximize profits. The chronicle
begins with an autographed cabinet card of Sitting
Bull. Printed at the bottom of the card is an
anglicized spelling of his Indian name, followed
by the autograph. Below that is |
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| the dramatic caption,
"The above is a true Photo and Autograph
of 'Sitting Bull', the Sioux Chief at the Custer
Massacre." On the reverse are printed personal
statistics about him such as his height, weight,
and the number of wives he had, followed by the
declaration that although the infamous
Sioux admits to no wrongdoing, he and his band
are nevertheless "prisoners at Fort Randall."
On Sitting Bull's lap are staged two symbolic
items, a weapon and a peace pipe. The suggestion
seems to be that the Indian is now at a crossroads.
The Indian can choose peace and become civilized,
or he can choose futile resistance. The other
two images that are not stereoviews are also cabinet
cards, and likewise they are of other Indian leaders
who represent contrasting futures for the Indian.
One is a portrait of Steps, a "Nes Perce
Indian" who "lost his feet above the
ankles, also his right hand while being frozen,
having been caught in one of the severe snow storms,
21 years ago." The other is an image of One
Bull, Sitting Bull's defiant nephew, shown brandishing
a weapon. On the reverse is printed, "had
to be knocked down and carried |
| aboard the boat
to be brought as a prisoner to the fort."
Image number 4 begins the stereoviews, and the
depiction of Sitting Bull's captivity. Four views
of the iconic Indian tepee are shown, with the
explanation on the reverse that an effort was
made to show the scene in a manner more attractive
than is actually found in reality. Other Indian
objects are the subjects of other stereoviews,
likewise displayed in a romanticized manner. These
images of the vanishing Plains culture included
animal skins, totem poles, and tools employed
by the Indian medicine man. Cross was careful,
however, to not overly romanticize the Indian.
In one image titled "Women's
Rights," women are shown working, accompanied by
the following explanation. "Two squaws sitting
beside their tepee, resting after carrying the wood
seen beside them on their backs, as seen in view No.19,
for half a mile, while their liege lords and master
(the noble red men), are smoking." This satirical
description was part of a growing theme in American
popular culture in which the Indian male was singled
out for negative stereotyping as being lazy. |
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| The civilizing force in Cross's narrative is represented
by the Twenty-fifth Infantry, a unit of black "Buffalo
Soldiers" commanded by White officers. One stereoview
titled "Battalion Drill" emphasizes the orderly
conduct of soldiers, and thereby of the force of civilization.
Another image titled "Issuing Rations" emphasizes
the growing dependence of the Indian on Euro-American
taxpayers. The caption reads, "An Indian with a
pipe in his hand in the foreground watching the artist,
some officers and their families with Indians standing
and squating around them." On the back are listed
the specific rations allotted to these dependent former
nomads. Another image emphasizes the humaneness of treatment
these Indians received by listing all of the goods the
Indians were issued, from paper to combs to handkerchiefs.
Following the introduction of the military and the assurance
that the Indian was subjugated but treated humanely,
the sequence of photographs concludes with scenes that
introduce the Euro-American settler to the narrative.
Most telling is the image of Sitting Bull sitting
before his tepee with members of his family in a |
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posture suggesting submission to a social
hierarchy. Sitting Bull and his family are at
one end, closest to the ground. Next to them,
but higher up, sits a White female, representative
of the settler for whom the West is being made
safe. She can sit safely next to the Indian
"savage," now that he's been tamed.
At the top of the hierarchy, in the background,
a military soldier, the Indian tamer, sits astride
his mount, keeping a watchful eye on the situation.
Sitting Bull was charged with, but acquitted
of being the person who killed General Custer.
He was in May 1883 to the Standing Rock Agency
to be with his people. His notoriety saw him
become an Indian spokesperson at public ceremonies
and events, including the one marking the completion
of the Northern Pacific Railroad in Bismarck
in 1883. In 1885 he was recruited by Buffalo
Bill Cody to be a star in his traveling Wild
West show, where he was paid enormous sums of
money to represent the "bloodthirsty savage"
in front of adoring crowds. After declining
to follow the tour to Europe in 1887, Sitting
Bull took on the cause of trying to stop White
encroachment of Sioux lands. He was assassinated
on December 15, 1890, during the days leading
up to the massacre at Wounded Knee. |
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