Waŋbdí Tháŋka, also known as Jerome Big Eagle, was born in 1827 at Black Dog village, in present-day Eagan, Minnesota. His succeeded his father, Máza Ȟóta (Grey Iron) in 1857. He along with the other chiefs and headmen went to Washington in 1858 on treaty business. In the spring of 1862, Wamditanka, Little Crow and Traveling Hail were candidates for Speaker of the Mdewakanton tribe which Traveling Hail won. Big Eagle lead his band at the second battles of New Ulm and Fort Ridgley and also Birch Coulee and Wood Lake. The photograph of Big Eagle was taken in Davenport during the summer of 1864. W. W. Hathaway, then the assistant commissary at Camp Kearney (the Indian Stockade, at Camp McClellen, Davenport) described the circumstances of making the File: "I was also a personal friend of Big E