Portrait of Sitting Bull - Magnificent Photograph

Notman was a photographer recognized not only for his considerable technical skill, but also for the ceaseless curiosity with which he, his sons, and his studio employees traveled the vast country around them. With their cherished cameras they journeyed far and wide, from the historic seaports of the Atlantic to the remote Pacific coast. Notman's immense photographic records - almost 400,000 prints bear the studio's imprint - comprise a sweeping portrait of North America during the Victorian era. Not content merely to photograph the rich and the powerful of the cities, Notman dispatched members of his staff to the great plains of the prairies, where they photographed the Cree Indians and the Blackfoot of Alberta with the same devotion to capturing an individual's unique character and personality that they employed in photographing princes and prime ministers. One of his greatest contributions to our understanding of the past lies in this abundant and sensitive documentation of Indian life in North America. As the end of the nineteenth century approached, most of the great nomadic Indian nations had been reduced to a shadow of their former glory. Most of their lands had been taken from them, the plains were being settled by newcomers, the buffalo herds had been virtually destroyed, and once proud Indian tribes had been crushed by starvation, disease, rifle fire, and cannon.

The ancient traditions of these native people began fading into mist and myth. Only a few photographers bothered to salute their passing, foremost among them Edward Sheriff Curtis and Adam Clark Vroman in the United States, and William Notman in Canada. They knew they were working against time in their efforts to record a people and a way of life that were vanishing.

The photographs of the Notman studio and of Notman's American contemporaries have had a profound impact on North America's appreciation of its native people. The cruel stereotype of Indians as "savages" has gradually given way to a new understanding of native North Americans as a people of great dignity, possessed of an enormously rich and varied culture. This magnificent photograph of the great Sioux chief was to become one of Notman's most widely acclaimed pictures. Postcards bearing Sitting Bull's image were distributed worldwide and the famous face appeared on millions of matchboxes, calendars, and other popular items. For most North Americans, and countless others around the world, photographs such as this one are the way they will remember, not without sorrow, North America's founding race.

Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains [Paperback]

"If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans, and in my heart he put other and different desires. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows."

"I am here by the will of the Great Spirit, and by his will I am chief. I know Great Spirit is looking down upon me from above, and will hear what I say..."

"The earth has received the embrace of the sun and we shall see the results of that love. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans; in my heart, he put other different desires.

"In my early days, I was eager to learn and to do things, and therefore I learned quickly. Each man is good in the sight of the Great Spirit."

"Now that we are poor, we are free. No white man controls our footsteps. If we must die, we die defending our rights."

Sitting Bull: His Life and Legacy [Hardcover]

Known as Slow when he was little, Native American Sitting Bull becomes one of the greatest chiefs ever known, in an easy-to-read biography that recounts his adventures from the battle of Little Big Horn to Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.

Sitting Bull (All Aboard Reading) [Paperback]

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Sitting Bull: The Life and Times of an American Patriot [Bargain Price] [Paperback]

During the Little Big Horn, he was in camp making sure the children were safely concealed. He was a firm friend of Buffalo Bill Cody, who made him a celebrity, and was shot to death while being arrested by Indian policemen during the Ghost Dance rebellion,

Sitting Bull [Paperback]

Sitting Bull [Paperback]

The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn [Paperback]

Real "Founding Fathers" hoodie by lotzostuff

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