The Standing Rock Portraits

THE STANDING ROCK PORTRAITS

BY FRANK BENNETT FISKE

Frank Fiske at age 16, photograph by S.T. Fansler ca. 1899

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Frank Bennett Fiske

by Frank Vyzralek

F

rank Bennett Fiske was a rarity among those American photographers

whose work centered upon the American Indian. Unlike most such artists, Fiske was a native of the Dakotas and grew up with many of those people who later became subjects for his camera on the reservation lands bordering the Missouri River. The Sioux Indian people of the Standing Rock agency were friends and neighbors – a part of his life and upbringing.

“Fiske was a native of the

The son of a soldier, Fiske was born June 11, 1883 at the military post

Dakotas and grew up with

of Fort Bennett (from whence came his middle name), about 30 miles

many of those people who

north of Pierre, South Dakota on the west bank of the Missouri. After

later became subjects for his

an abortive fling at ranching, George Fiske hired on as a civilian wagon-

camera on the reservation

master with the U.S. Army, and in the spring of 1889 moved to Fort

lands bordering the Missouri

Yates, North Dakota where the military post coexisted with the Standing

River. The Sioux Indian

Rock Indian agency headquarters. During the decade that followed,

people of the Standing Rock

Frank Fiske attended school both at the fort and at the boarding school

agency were friends, neighbors

for Indian children. His summers were spent herding cows for families at

- a part of his life and

the post, practicing his violin, working as a cabin boy on the river boats

upbringing.”

and helping out at the post’s photograph gallery.

Fiske’s boyhood ambition was to become a steamboat pilot, and after being hired as a cabin boy he learned the trade from Captain John Belk and other boatmen of that day. Unfortunately, boating on the Missouri River was then in its waning days. Fort Yates was an important river point only because it didn’t have a railroad and was the destination for considerable government freight. Nonetheless, Fiske spent many hours on the river and came to know its ever-changing bends and shoals intimately.

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P

hotography was another absorbing interest, and the young Frank

“By 1917 he felt

Fiske devoted many hours to learning the business from S. T. “Dick”

knowledgeable enough to

Fansler, operator of the post photo studio at Fort Yates. Most 19th

publish ‘The Taming of the

century Army installations had such galleries; usually the buildings were

Sioux’, his own story of

government property and were made available to the first photographer,

the tribe’s history. Fiske’s

transient or otherwise, who asked for its use. The Fort Yates studio had

attitude toward the Sioux, as

been occupied in the past by such distinguished artists as David F. Barry

demonstrated by his writings,

and Orlando Goff. During October 1899, Fiske learned that his mentor

was generally sympathetic to

Fansler would not return, and successfully won permission from the

the plight of the tribespeople

commanding officer to occupy the building the following spring. Though

though it is clear he viewed

several months short of his seventeenth birthday, by 1900 Frank Fiske

them as a culture largely

had a photographic studio of his very own.

different from his own.”

Business was good until 1903 when the military post of Fort Yates was closed down. With great expectations and even greater enthusiasm, Fiske opened a studio at Bismarck; by March 1905 he was back home again, the Bismarck venture having apparently been something less than successful. With more leisure time, he then concentrated on improving his camera technique and began making portrait studies of the Indian men, women, and children of the Standing Rock agency. As time went on, he became proficient in posing his subjects effectively and his collection of negatives grew.

At the same time, his interest in the culture and history of the Sioux people developed and he began reading all he could find on the subject, as well as interviewing any of the reservation old-timers who would talk to him. By 1917, he felt knowledgeable enough to publish The Taming of the Sioux, his own story of the tribe’s history. Fiske’s attitude toward the Sioux, as demonstrated by his writings, was generally sympathetic to the plight of the tribespeople, though it is clear he viewed them as a culture largely different from his own. While chafing at the government

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bureaucracy that grew up in the name of administering Indian affairs, he applauded the firm hand of the military which forced the Indians back to their reservations following the Ghost Dance uprising of the early 1890’s. With the Army in charge, “they would not remain sulky and stubborn any longer,” he wrote approvingly.

“While a modern survey of

F

iske saw the Standing Rock Sioux of 1917 as a “good natured people”

Fiske’s work shows Indians who were “not at all dissatisfied with their lot in life.” He concluded posed in both modern and his book with the opinion that “from now on the history of this once traditional dress few of those great nation promises to be very prosaic and uninteresting, indeed.” negatives which he signed and These are attitudes not untypical of their day, even among the more copyrighted, and which he enlightened segments of white society. They also suggest that part of presumably regarded as his best Fiske’s underlying interest in the American Indian as a photographic and most saleable work, show subject may have stemmed from an urge to recreate the exciting, and the tribesmen as anything but the to many whites, romantic aspects of the Plains Indian wars - what had image of the noble aborigine of in reality been one of the most brutal and difficult eras in American the misty past.” history. While a modern survey of Fiske’s work shows Indians posed in both modern and traditional dress, few of those negatives which he signed and copyrighted, and which he presumably regarded as his best and most saleable work, show the tribesmen as anything but the image of the noble aborigine of the misty past.

While the photography business and his studies of Indian history took up much of his time, Fiske also worked as an assistant pilot on the riverboats operated by Isaac P. Baker of Bismarck whenever his services were required, from 1912 to the end of the decade. In 1918, after his attempts to enlist in the World War I Army were rejected due to his age, Fiske importuned Baker to let him accompany the river steamer Scarab on a voyage down the Missouri to St. Louis, and made a remarkable series of photos of the river in an era when it was little used as an artery

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of transportation. Upon arrival in St. Louis, Fiske enlisted at Jefferson “Frank also found time to Barracks and was accepted for service. Any fantasies he may have had continue his studies of the region’s of fighting overseas were dashed however, and he spent the months until past. His second book, The Life war’s end training as a machine gunner.

and Death of Sitting Bull, was a work of more than passing

In 1919 he married Angela Cournoyer, a South Dakotan descended from interest since he had seen, as a the fur trader Joseph Picotte and his Indian wife. The two had known each youngster, the Sioux leader being other since 1908, when Angela visited her sister, a teacher at the Standing buried in the military cemetery Rock boarding school. Angela had degrees from Haskell Institute, the at Fort Yates” University of South Dakota, and the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. Following the wedding, the couple settled at Fort Yates, where Angela soon found work as a substitute teacher at the reservation school.

In 1921, their daughter Francine was born.

B

usiness at the Fort Yates studio, with its small clientele, was never

profitable enough to afford a comfortable living, and now with a family to provide for, Frank Fiske took such work as was available. Appointed Sioux County Auditor, he served three years, and was then elected to a two-year term as County Treasurer. Fiske found indoor work of that sort too confining, and in 1925 the family moved to McLaughlin, South Dakota where they remained until 1928. The following year Frank took over Fort Yates’ weekly newspaper, the Sioux County Pioneer-Arrow. The paper became sort of a family project for the next decade. Even Francine did a stint as editor during 1938-39. Even after the paper had passed to another owner, Frank Fiske served intermittently as editor until the last years of his life.

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Joe No Heart

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Joe No Heart is pictured here as an Indian Policeman. [ ca. 1906-1910 ]

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Joe No Heart

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Known in latter years as “Medicine Joe� to his neighbors at Fort Yates, he has a single eagle feather in his hair. [ ca. 1912 ]

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Yellow Hawk

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The beaded headband of the eagle feather headdress is decorated with a fox tail and ermine fur.

Trade cloth cape and pants, as well as the moccasins, contain bead work. [ no date ]

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank the State Historical Society of North Dakota for access to the Frank Fiske Archive and for their cooperation in realizing this book. Thank you Claudia Berg, director, and Sharon Silengo, photo archivist.

COLOPHON Copyright Š 2019 Uitgeverij TERRA Terra is part of Uitgeverij TerraLannoo bv P.O. Box 23202 1100 DS Amsterdam The Netherlands info@terralannoo.nl www.terra-publishing.com Text: Frank Vyzralek, Rod Slemmons Photography: Frank Bennett Fiske Graphic design: Murray Lemley Lithography: DPS online, Amsterdam First edition 2019 ISBN 978 90 8989 817 3 NUR 653 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced and/or made public by means of printing, photocopying, microfilm or by any other means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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