Indians of North America -- Great Plains Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Stereographs
Photographs
Date:
1862
Scope and Contents note:
Stereoview of Dakota women and children with a canopy in corn fields, guarding corn from birds. The photograph was made by Adrian John Ebell, shortly before the Sioux uprising in Minnesota, 1862.
Biographical/Historical note:
Adrian John Ebell (1840-1877) immigrated to the United States from Ceylon as a youth and entered Yale University in 1859. In 1862, he hired University of Chicago student Edwin R. Lawton as his assistant on a trip to photograph Native Americans in Minnesota. They rented camera equipment from St. Paul photographer and gallery operator Joel E. Whitney, who would later publish many of Ebell's photographs. On August 17, Ebell and Lawton stayed at Dr. Thomas S. Williamson's mission near the Upper Sioux Agency and fled with the other refugees when news of the revolt reached the mission the next day. Ebell created his most widely published photograph of the refugees resting on the prairie during this flight. After the group stopped in Henderson, Ebell and Lawton continued on to St. Paul, where Ebell gave his exposed glass plates to Whitney for publication and wrote articles about the experience for the St. Paul Daily Press. Ebell then briefly joined Colonel Henry Hastings Sibley's expedition, photographing the Dakota captives at Camp Release, before returning to his studies at Yale. In June 1863, his account of the uprising, entitled "The Indian Massacres and War of 1862," was published in Harpers New Monthly Magazine.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 2000-15
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Additional Ebell photographs held in National Anthropological Archives Photo Lot 90-1.
The Minnesota Historical Society also holds Ebell photographs from 1862.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Stereographs
Citation:
Photo Lot 2000-15, Adrian John Ebell photograph of women and children guarding corn, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
