In the 19th century, photographs and artworks often showed Native Americans as primitive people left behind by progress, which supported the belief in manifest destiny and the forced move of tribes onto reservations. Frank Rinehart's portraits, taken at the 1898 Trans-Mississippi Exposition in Omaha, show people from more than 30 tribes with a sensitivity missing from many contemporary images, but they were still made to sell to white visitors, and the studio backdrops of bookshelves and flowers placed sitters in a staged setting. The writer Simon Ortiz notes that the real person can vanish into the image.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.