The Changing Image of American Indians in Film

On July 4, 1898, Quanah Parker asserted, "We fear your success. This was a pretty country you took away from us--but you see how dry it is now. It is only good for red ants, coyotes, and cattlemen." This is the country we see in Western films. Although American Indians and the American landscape were portrayed sympathetically in silent films such as The Red Girl (1908), Hiawatha(1913), The Daughter of Dawn (1920), and The Vanishing American (1925), in most later Westerns these representations primarily turned savage. According to Scott Simmon, they devolve along two paths, "one about war, the other about love--neither leading anywhere except Indian death" (4, 80, 81). Films highlighting Quanah Parker such as Comanche(dir. Carl Krueger, 1956) and The Searchers(dir. John Ford, 1956) illustrate this change. It is only when they are constructed by American Indian filmmakers such as Chris Eyre and Sherman Alexie that representations of American Indians regain authenticity and serve as more powerful critiques of environmental degradation.

Westerns as a genre tend to focus on Plains Indian tribes, the nomadic tribes in the plains settlers crossed to reach the West, with little distinction between tribes. But the films also respond to film history, a history that coincides with political and cultural history of both Hollywood and the United States as a whole. According to Simmon, “Indians may well have entered American film for the reason they came into the European tradition as a whole: Searching for stories to set in the landscape, pioneer filmmakers stumbled upon ‘Indians,’ the presumed men of nature” (4). Set in Eastern lush forests instead of desert plains, the narratives of these early silent westerns “are set entirely within tribal communities or feature a ‘noble redskin’ as guide or savior to the white hero” (4).

By 1914, however, Simmon asserts, American Indian actors and sympathetic narratives were no longer prominent in westerns at least partly because the “U. S. Army began planning, with some innocence, for America’s entry into World War I by requisitioning horses” (80). According to Simmon, “The subsequent history of Indian images in silent-era Hollywood becomes a story with two paths—one about war, the other about love—neither leading anywhere except Indian death” (81).  In spite of Simmon’s contention, at least a few westerns highlighting American Indian characters and narratives present a more sympathetic view of a possible comic evolutionary narrative, a narrative of environmental adaptation that reveals the ineffectiveness of a tragic evolutionary path and the intruder pioneers who seek destruction rather than adaptation. 

The Daughter of Dawn, for example, romanticized Native American culture and lifestyle, as did In the Land of the Head Hunters (1914), Hiawatha (1913), shot by F.E. Moore's production company, The Vanishing Race, a 1917 film made by the Edison Studios, and Before the White Man Came (1920) which employed Crow Indians and Cheyenne Indians as actors. The film cast is entirely Native American, with over 300 people from the Comanche and Kiowa tribes in the film including White Parker, as lead actor, and Wanada Parker. They were the children of Quannah Parker. The cast wore their own clothing and brought their own personal items to the film, including tepees. No matter how noble a savage the American Indians might be, however, they cannot assimilate into western culture and must be removed to reservations or destroyed. American Indians, like other human and nonhuman nature, must be exploited for gain or, if they limit the construction of civilization, annihilated. These films reinforce the destiny of forced environmental change and eradicate the possibility of an alternative, a narrative of environmental adaptation.