(2007) Having received an Emmy for best TV-made movie (by HBO), directed by Yves Simoneau from Daniel Giat's screenplay, based on Dee Alexander Brown's book, this film's depiction of the events from the massacre at Little Big Horn to the slaughter at Wounded Knee Creek deserve attention and reflection on another inglorious, shameful period of our nation's past.

Having been given by treaty in 1868 the sacred Black Hills and surrounding lands for hunting, the Sioux experienced the United States government's efforts, under President Ulysses S. Grant (Fred Thompson), to drive them out and relocate them to reservations, with the rationalization that setting Indians on the path to civilization required their being so isolated and confined.

While Chief Red Cloud (Gordon Tootoosis) acquiesced, complaining that the white man's "hunting for amusement" had reduced the available game on which his tribe depended for sustenance, moving with his people to the Pine Ridge Sioux Agency, after Colonel Miles and Senator Henry Dawes (Aidan Quinn), an advocate for Indian rights, warned that refusal of agreeing to the new terms would mean "your people will perish," the Sioux led by Chief Sitting Bull (August Schellenberg) fought the blue coats at Cedar Creek Valley on 21 October 1876. Before the battle, Col Miles had accused Sitting Bull of holding on to a mythology that all Indians had been peaceful until the arrival of Europeans, saying that long before the white man: "You were killing each other," listing the Sioux's many enemies. In defeat Sitting Bull led a retreat into Canada, where he was welcomed and told that Queen Victoria blamed the US government for breaking its word.

Along with the larger historical events, the story of a brave (honored with an eagle feather for his courage at Little Big Horn), young, mixed-blood Sioux, Ohiyesa - who became Dr Charles Eastman (Adam Beach), a personage of history - is recalled, following his Indian, Christ-worshipping father's removing him from the tribe (telling the boy that "The earth belongs to the white man") and placing him in a school with a white teacher from which he eventually rises to matriculate at Dartmouth College, graduating from medical school in Boston. Charles owes his good fortune to Senator Dawes who says that the Indian has been absorbed but not yet assimilated, a problem similar to the Irish- and German-immigrant problems.

The Senator has worked tirelessly in Washington for passage of a bill through Congress, granting every adult male Sioux 160 acres on the reservations in the Dakotas, which would leave excess land to be sold to the US government at 50¢ an acre for white farmers and the Northern Pacific Railroad - eventually leading to statehood for the Dakotas - providing the tribe with $5.5 million to build schools, hospitals, churches, and other amenities for social improvement. But the Indians, for whom their language has no equivalent of "land ownership," turn down the opportunity.

The Sioux doctor also makes acquaintance with his future wife, Elaine Goodale (Anna Paquin), a Caucasian teacher who speaks Lakota and volunteers to teach on the reservation. Epidemics of measles, whooping cough, and influenza along with drought result in starvation and death for many; out of the deplorable conditions arise old superstitions (a prophecy that death will consume all white people) to relieve the empty feeling of hopelessness.

Into the Standing Rock Sioux Agency arrives Sitting Bull, who surrenders his rifle to agent James McLaughlin (J.K. Simmons), who then informs the Sioux chief that every man is an equal on the reservation. Too proud to farm, Sitting Bull joins Bill Cody's traveling show and poses for photographs to earn a living.

Returning with a more generous offer of $1.25 per acre, Senator Dawes warns the Sioux that a refusal this time will mean a loss of their land without any payment; Sitting Bull confronts the statesman by saying that each patch of land is incapable of supporting a family. It will be assimilation or extermination, Dawes says to Charles.

Is it enough to say, "Mistakes were made," or as Senator Dawes says: "The mistakes of the past are in the past on both sides"? Is it enough that in 1980 the United States Supreme Court ruled that the federal government was in the wrong when it broke treaties, but no compensation (valued at $600 million) has been awarded the Sioux descendants? Or are the bitter, angry indictments of Rev Jeremiah Wright Jr and others more deserving of being heard and acknowledged with sincere apologies?

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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