Indian Photography and Curtis’s Legacy

Photograph of Chief Joseph by Edward Curtis. Chief Joseph is depicted as not smiling and stoic looking. He is adorned in jewelry. Edward Curtis. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian. https://www.si.edu/object/chief-joseph:npg_NPG.78.68

Online article by Ellie Gascoigne about the impact of Edward Curtis on Indigenous representation. "Edward Curtis and "The North American Indian": An Exploration of Truth and Objectivity". n.d. Photography Ethics Centre.

Cover of The Truth About Stories by Thomas King. Book descibes Indigenous methodologies of storytelling and impact of non-Native storytelling on Indigenous communities. This includes a section about Edward Curtis and his photography's impact on Indigenous communities. University of Minnesota Press. 2003. 

As depicted in item 1, photographer Edward Curtis often crafted posed images. The Native people in them are often seen from a frontal view, expressionless, rigid, and with cultural accessories – many of which were used by Indigenous peoples to hunt with or were symbolic of weaponry used in war. Adding to this highly-staged nature, scholars of American Indian history report that items not belonging to the Indigenous peoples photographed were included. 

Within this page, perspectives from different scholars regarding Curtis’s The North American Indian photography project are explored. Curtis’s imagery was plagued with inaccuracies and financially supported by political machines such as J.P Morgan and “Keep Calm and Carry A Big Stick” imperialist President Theodore Roosevelt. Emerging from centuries of genocide, assimilation tactics, and removal policies, the population of Indigenous peoples had declined substantially since the onset of colonization in 1492. As writer Ellie Gascoigne describes in item 2, “only 237,196 [Native Americans] remained” (Gascoigne, 2018). Despite being knowledgeable about oppressive practices that were being committed against Native peoples at the times of the project, none of these harsh realities were discussed. It is here that the emergence of the romanticized, “mystic” American Indian archetype was born, as third source author and storyteller Thomas King explores. 

References:

Edward Curtis. Chief Joseph. 1903. Photograph. 39.7 × 28.1 cm (15 5/8 × 11 1/16"). National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. ,https://www.si.edu/object/chief-joseph:npg_NPG.78.68.

Gascoigne, Ellie. “Edward Curtis and ‘the North American Indian’: An Exploration of Truth and Objectivity.” Photography Ethics Centre. Photography Ethics Centre, January 27, 2022. https://www.photoethics.org/content/2021/2/24/edward-curtis-and-the-north-american-indian-an-exploration-of-truth-and-objectivity.

King, Thomas. The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative. Toronto, ON: House of Anansi Press Inc., 2010.