American Indian Culture and Research Journal

[P]hotographs become standard evidence for historical occurrences, and acquire a hidden political significance. They demand a specific kind of approach; free-floating contemplation is not appropriate to them. —Walter Benjamin The photographic image possesses an incredible amount of control. Photography has the ability to control the direction of one’s thinking by presenting itself as truth. Prejudices can be quickly confirmed by staged, manipulated, or misrepresented photographs. An imbalance of information is presented as truth. —Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie INTRODUCTION: “MR. BENNETT’S INDIANS” In the winter of 1883, the photographer H. H. Bennett decided to spice up his descriptive catalogue of stereo views with something new. Several years earlier, a simple listing of his photographs—mostly landscape views of the area surrounding the Wisconsin River Dells—brought the small-town studio photographer considerable renown and enhanced sales. Now, after a sluggish business year, Bennett sought to recapture some of the trade that he saw slipping west with the frontier. Perhaps his imagination was triggered by a visit with Buffalo Bill Cody who, as the local paper put it, was “attracted by Bennett, the man who shoots with a camera as well as Buffalo Bill does with a rifle."