On August 5, 1851, Santee Sioux chief Little Crow signed a treaty with the federal government, ceding nearly all his people's territory in Minnesota. Though not happy with the agreement, he abided by it for many years. But in 1862, goaded by militants in his tribal council and angered at the delay in some federal payments to the Sioux, he launched a war against white settlements, which resulted in the pillaging of many farms and the deaths of more than a thousand whites. The uprising was quickly put down, and Little Crow fled to Canada with some of his followers. But he soon returned to Minnesota, and he was killed by a settler in 1863 while foraging for food in a forest outside of St. Paul.

The maker of this photograph, Joel Emmons Whitney, had a studio in St Paul from 1851 to 1871, and was among the first in his region to adopt technology for producing photographs on albumen paper. Among his studio's most-noted products were carte-de-viste images of Sioux Indians, many of whom were connected with the uprising of 1862.