Talking Crow of Crow Creek Agency S. D. + Wife. [South Dakota?]: N.p., [1896]. Period pencil inscription to mount verso. 

A beautiful and sensitively composed portrait of a Sioux (possibly Crow or Dakota) couple in traditional dress. The man is identified by the verso inscription as Talking Crow of Crow Creek Agency in South Dakota. 

The woman wears a petit point dress and beaded breast plate with a blanket draped over her shoulders. Her hair is parted in the middle with lengthy beaded adornments. Next to her, Talking Crow is seated wearing a full-feather headdress with hair affixed to the bonnet feather tips, a beaded vest, and an arm cuff decorated with bear claws. Notably, he holds a war shield with eagle feathers, likely used in the man's younger warrior days. War shields that weren't confiscated by U.S authorities were often kept as family heirlooms. 

Interestingly, a campaign portrait of William McKinley is visible at the throat of Talking Crow. McKinley, who was elected President of the United States in 1896, continued prior United States policies of displacing Native American tribes, overturning treaties, and invalidating established tribal governments. He signed the Curtis Act in 1898, destroying the sovereign status of the Five Civilized Tribes and extending the Dawes Act. 

The Crow Creek Agency was originally founded as the Upper Missouri Agency in 1861 and was renamed in 1874. By 1871, it was located along the eastern shore of the Missouri River in central South Dakota. Several different tribes were placed on the Crow Creek Agency throughout its history. The Lower Yanktonai were settled at the Agency after the Treaty of 1859, which ceded all the Yankton and Yanktonai lands to the US government after the Spirit Lake massacre. After the uprising in Minnesota in 1862, the Lower Agency Mdewakanton and Wahpekute bands of Santee and Winnebago were also relocated to Crow Creek. They were followed by several hundred Lower Yanktonai, Sicangu, and Oohenunpa in 1866. The overcrowding led to another relocation of the Omaha and Santee to separate reservations in Nebraska. More groups of the Sioux were relocated to the region over the next decades. 

[Native Americans, Native American History, American Indian, Indian History] [Photography, Early Photography, Historic Photography, Daguerreotypes, Ambrotypes, Tintypes, Cased Images, Union Cases, Albumen Photographs, CDVs, Carte de Visites, Cartes de Visite, Carte-de-visite, Cartes-de-visite, CDV, Cabinet Cards, Stereoviews, Stereocards]