Gwendolyn Cates was 11 when her father first took her to visit a Navajo reservation. Her father had set out to learn the local language, and made friends on the reservation. Gwendolyn continued to visit as she grew older. Later she became a professional photographer. It was almost a natural when she was asked by the Men's Journal to travel to ten reservations around the country to document Indian Country. A book "Indian Country" grew from the assignment. It contains dozens of portraits, including many from Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Wisconsin. Cates told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr she wanted to dispel misconceptions about native people. The book includes pictures of many well known and not so well known Indians. One is a portrait of Leonard Peltier who is serving a life sentence for murder at the Federal Prison in Leavenworth, Kansas.
This file was digitized with the help of a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).