Which Chosen People? Manifest Destiny Meets the Sioux: As Seen by Frank Fiske, Frontier Photographer

This remarkable historical account traces the life and work of Frank Fiske, a frontier photographer whose decades-long residence at Standing Rock Reservation positioned him uniquely to document one of America’s most turbulent periods. Through Fiske’s photographs, journals, and writings, Robert V. Dodge reconstructs the collision between American expansionism and Sioux sovereignty during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The narrative opens with young Frank’s childhood observations of competing claims to chosenness—white Americans invoking Manifest Destiny, Chinese laborers speaking of their Middle Kingdom, and Sioux leaders like Sitting Bull asserting their people as God’s chosen. This thematic tension anchors the book’s examination of how different cultures understood their place in the world and their rights to the land.

Dodge carefully chronicles the events leading to the Sioux’s desperate circumstances: broken treaties, the Fort Laramie agreements, the aftermath of Little Bighorn, and the government’s systematic efforts to “civilize” Native peoples through the Dawes Act. Central to this history stands Sitting Bull, who emerges as a complex figure—neither the demonized savage of newspaper accounts nor an idealized martyr, but a genuine leader attempting to preserve his nation’s independence and dignity.

Fiske’s photographs reveal an artist’s eye combined with a documentarian’s commitment to recording reality. His portraits of Sioux leaders, warriors, and families capture individuals with agency and presence, countering the dehumanizing stereotypes prevalent in his era. Yet Fiske himself embodied the contradictions of his time, harboring genuine affection for the Sioux people while accepting the inevitability and even desirability of their assimilation.

The book presents admirable personalities—Sitting Bull’s principled resistance, Charles Eastman’s intellectual achievements bridging two worlds, and riverboat pilot Grant Marsh’s remarkable skill and integrity. Conversely, it exposes the callousness of Indian agents, the duplicity of government officials, and the casual racism embedded in American institutions and media.

Dodge demonstrates that Fiske’s work serves as a historical corrective, preserving images and accounts of a proud people before their traditional way of life vanished. His photographs and writings provide irreplaceable documentation of Standing Rock Reservation during a transformative and tragic period.

This book will appeal to readers interested in Native American history, photography, frontier life, and the human dimensions of America’s westward expansion. It offers both historical substance and personal narrative, showing how one man’s artistic vision can illuminate an era’s moral complexities.