Dacotah Encampment

Before Captain Eastman’s long residence at Fort Snelling, he was posted there briefly in 1830 as a 22-year-old lieutenant. Within a year, he had married a Dakota chief’s daughter, Wakaninajinwin, or Stands Sacred, and had a daughter, known as Nancy Eastman. Although Eastman would return to the fort ten years later with a new wife, this early union undoubtedly opened him to the domestic side of Dakota life. Here he records small everyday activities against a sea of tipis, all constructed by women. This watercolor, one of 35 works on paper by Eastman in Mia’s collection, was the basis for an illustration in Henry Rowe Schoolcraft’s massive Historical and Statistical Information Respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co., 1851-57).