An oil painting of green pastures and a community of tipis and buildings with Native and non-Native people in the foreground.

Crow Creek Agency, D. T.

William Fuller (1842-1922)

Date

1884
Object Type

Paintings
Medium

Oil on canvas
Dimensions

Image: 24 5/8 x 51 3/4 in.
Inscriptions

Recto:
signed and dated: l.l.: W. Ful[er] 18[8]4.
Verso:
inscribed l.l. : Crow Creek Agency \ Painted By \ William Fuller \ Carpenter at \ Crow Creek Agency D.T. \ 1884.
inscribed u.c. to c.c.: 1. White Ghost, Chief \2. Drifting Goose, " Coat 210 \ 3. Wizi \ 4. Mark Wells, h.b. Interpreter \ 5. Wallace Wells, Boss Farmer. \ 6. ["Group of 3" written in brackets, vertically] Surrounded, \ Whipper, \ ["6" crossed out] Burnt Prairie, \ 7. Hobo & Sioux maiden (Courting) \ 8. Tepees, \ 9. Episcopal Church. \ 10. " Rectory \ 11. Boys Dormitory \ 12. Government. School \ 13. Girls Dormitory. \ 14. Camp School.
inscribed u.r. to c.r.: Government Buildings \ 15. Granary. \ 16. Blacksmith Shop. \ 17. Officer's Quarters. \ 18. Post Office. \ 19. Issue House. \ 20. Mill. \ 21. Saw Mill. \ 22. Post Traders. Store. \ 23. W. Well's House \ 24. Gov. Barn \ 25. Supply Store House. \ 26. Carpenter Shop \ 27. Upper Missouri Boat Landing. \ 28. Gov. Office. \ 29. Agents Residence \ 30. Employees Houses. \ 31. Jail \ 32. Hospital. \ 33. School Farm \ 34. Agency " \ 35. Natural Grove of Box Elders
[removed] label in ink: 3978 Primitive Oil \ "Crow Creek Agency \ By William Fuller 1884 \ Canvas \ 20 x 30 [sic]
[removed] printed label: ARTIST Fullar, [sic] William [typewritten] DATES \ TITLE Crow Creek Agency, D. T. , [typewritten] \ 1884 [typewritten] \ SIZE and MEDIUM 243/4 x 511/2" oil/canvas [typewritten] \ STOCK NO A16021 [typewritten] \ NEG. NO. 8991 [typewritten] \ KENNEDY GALLERIES, INC. \ 20 East 56TH STREET • NEW YORK, N.Y. 10022 \ Established 1874 by H. Wunderlich 758-3850
Credit Line

Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, In memory of René d'Harnoncourt, Trustee, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, 1961-1968
Accession Number

1969.34
Copyright

Public domain

A carpenter by trade, Fuller worked at the Crow Creek Indian Agency in present-day South Dakota, but every other year he took time off to paint. This 1884 work shows gridded streets and farm fields, signs of efforts to assimilate the reservation’s Indigenous residents into White society and culture. Fuller’s painting also includes a portrait in the lower left of White Ghost, the leader of the Lower Yanktonai, holding a tobacco pipe. Although White Ghost had agreed to relocate his people to the reservation, he remained skeptical of U.S. governance. In 1875, he opposed plans to construct a mission school in his camp, declaring, “the white man picks out a little piece of land on which to build a house. Then he puts a fence around it, and after a while he builds a larger fence around that, and then a larger fence around that. . . . That is the way the Indians have been treated all along.”

—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023)

Location: Off view

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