Robert V Dodge 
Which Chosen People? 

The belief in American exceptionalism reached its apex during the 1800s and was expressed as a God-given passport called "Manifest Destiny". Among its victims were Native Americans. The Sioux resisted, eventually in desperation resorting to Ghost Dancing and claiming that Indians, not the whites, were the chosen people. The military, political, and legal destruction of Indian culture provided precedent and justification for the empire building that accelerated soon after Sioux resistance was crushed. Frank Fiske was a young boy who observed this confrontation firsthand at the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, where Sitting Bull was held, then killed. Fiske recorded the story as he grew and also kept the glorious past of the Sioux alive with his spectacular photographs of the people and their traditions.