Eastman, Seth (1808–1875)

Seth Eastman was a painter and soldier best known for his depictions of the everyday life of Dakota and Ojibwe people around Fort Snelling in the 1840s. He stands out among other nineteenth-century American artists—particularly those who also painted American Indian people—because of his commitment to realism. Unlike his peers, Eastman mostly avoided romanticizing the Native people with whom he lived.

Seth Eastman was born in 1808 in Brunswick, Maine. He attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he was trained in topographical drafting and sketching. After graduation, he was sent first to Fort Crawford in Wisconsin and then to Fort Snelling in Minnesota.

In 1830, during his first tour at Fort Snelling, Eastman married a Bdewakaŋtuŋwaŋ Dakota woman named Wakaŋ Inażiŋ Wiŋ (Woman Who Stands Sacred). She was a daughter of Maḣpiya Wic̣aṡṭa (Cloud Man), leader of the village at Bde Maka Ska (White Earth Lake, formerly known as Lake Calhoun).

The couple had a daughter named Wakaŋ Tanka Wiŋ (God Woman/Great Spirit Woman). Wakaŋ Tanka Wiŋ—called Nancy or Mary Nancy in English—was the mother of author and lecturer Ohiyesa (The Winner, called Charles Alexander Eastman in English).

After his first tour was completed, in 1833, Eastman left his new family and returned to West Point to teach drawing. Soon afterward, without officially separating from Wakaŋ Inażiŋ Wiŋ, he married Mary Henderson, a military surgeon’s daughter, in New York. She published a number of books and essays, most illustrated by Eastman.

During Eastman’s time as a teacher, he published a Treatise on Topographical Drawing. He also became an increasingly skilled oil painter. Most of his paintings from this period were landscapes made around West Point, but he also created paintings based on previous sketches made during his time in Minnesota, like Fort Snelling on the Mississippi Near the Falls of St. Anthony.

After being briefly stationed in Florida in the summer of 1840, Eastman returned to Fort Snelling. Between 1841 and 1848, he served as commander of the fort four times. He also produced a large number of oil paintings, drawings, and watercolors of his surroundings and the Native people of the area. Both Seth and Mary built strong relationships with their Dakota and Ojibwe neighbors and learned their languages.

In 1848, Eastman was transferred to Texas and stayed there until 1849. He left Texas in September of that year and was granted a five-month leave to go to Washington. There, he worked on the illustrations for Henry R. Schoolcraft’s Historical and Statistical Information Respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States. The first volume was published in 1851.

For this work, Eastman created eighty-five compositional drawings of Native life and more than 180 drawings of artifacts and maps. The subjects of these drawings included weapons, tools, clothing, pictographs, landscape views, and ceremonies. The images were then reproduced as engravings or colored lithographs for publication.

Soon after he arrived in Washington, Eastman was asked by congressional delegate Henry Sibley to help design the Minnesota territorial seal. Eastman took on the job, and his version was adopted.

From 1855 to the outbreak of the Civil War, Eastman was stationed throughout the country. In 1861, he was made a mustering and disbursing officer for Maine and New Hampshire. He officially retired in December of 1863.

In 1867, Congress passed a joint resolution authorizing Eastman to paint decorations for the rooms of the committees on Indian affairs and military affairs in the House and Senate. He painted nine canvases for the House Committee on Indian Affairs—largely based off his work for Schoolcraft’s books—that can still be found in the U.S. Capitol building. Eastman also painted seventeen military forts for the House Committee on Military Affairs between 1870 and his death in 1875. He died of a stroke while painting his beloved alma mater, West Point.