Curtis traveled throughout North America to photograph and catalogue Native American peoples. He often depicted them as “ancient” communities, even editing the photographs to exclude any modern technology present to distance them culturally from the rest of the Eurocentric world. In his major photographic project, The North American Indian, there is a sense of urgency to sensationalize Native culture alongside an understanding that it will soon go extinct. This added a sense of novelty and excitement for the European Americans who would see these photos. His mission was to document the practices of a fleeting culture as many people at the time thought that native tribes would soon “die out,” but did not address the fact that in many cases they were being abused by European settlers, causing their presence to diminish.

There were many dangerous results from dehumanizing indigenous groups, one being the fetishization of native women. In some communities, it was customary to be nude or semi-nude in public, as human physique was not inherently sexualized. Viewing the photographs of women, especially of nude or semi-nude women, becomes upsetting when the viewer thinks of the way white men might have looked at them. The fetishization of women of color through these ethnographic collections have encouraged deep rooted sexualization and pedophilia surrounding them. The cultures of many non-Europeans have been deeply affected by this and still today there are people who grossly sexualize and appropriate these cultures.

The effects of the fetishization of Native women is still seen today in the disproportionately high rates of sexual violence against them.