fwiw, “treatment by the movie industry” was the first reason given by Brando’s rep when she refused an Oscar on his behalf:
Which makes the Indian Wars different from most wars in history because…?
Also, cite.
Wikipedia article on Cynthia Parker.
It was not the story of Cynthia Parker I was commenting on. It was Puddleglum’s (implicit) assertion that North American Indians were, as a rule, unusually savage in their war-making.
I don’t have the book anymore, but in The Son by Philipp Meyer (fiction about a boy kidnapped by Indians in Texas in the mid-1800’s), the author lists firsthand accounts as sources.
Are you arguing that those things didn’t happen?
Nope. I’m saying that I don’t think that North American Indians were UNUSUALLY savage in war, on balance and viewed historically–that they were any worse than most other warring powers in history, that they committed atrocities with any more regularity than Europeans.
I think I’m slightly off topic, but the U.S. Declaration of Independence calls native Americans savages.
^ Right, no doubt they formed an Axis of Evil.
In shining contrast, when the colonies made war upon the tribes of western New York, they only destroyed fields, granaries, fruit trees, and farm animals. Depopulating an area by destroying all the food isn’t at all like killing people directly. Much more supportable in a moral sense.
(Sarcasm. And sorrow. If the native Americans behaved badly…the Europeans behaved worse.)
Another John Ford movie, and I think he quite consistently portrayed both sides as savage and bloodthirsty. Of course, the main characters are usually the whites because that’s who the audiences would identify with and cheer for. However, he also did CHEYENNE AUTUMN in which the Indians are totally sympathetic and the whites are the bad guys (and savages.)
It seems to me that even in movies that treat Native Americans sympathetically, Pawnee are usually portrayed as sneaky, violent and unsavory. Dances with Wolves, Little Big Man, Westward Ho The Wagons, and others cast the Pawnee as villains.
Yeah, the Pawnee really need to fire their public relations firm.
The problem for the Pawnee is unfortunately they can be slotted into both ends of the “bad indian” spectrum. Early in their contact with American settlers they could be hostile raiders, so they could be safely cast as bad guys in the “savage indian” stereotype. But later they were frequently allied with American authorities, providing scouts to the U.S. army in its wars with other plains tribes, thus casting them as suck-up bad guys in the “noble indian” stereotype. They managed to get hit with both those barrels in the movie Little Big Man.
In addition the Pawnee were inveterate enemies of the Cheyenne and Sioux, two of the tribes most associated* with resistance against American expansion. So any film from a Sioux or Cheyenne perspective ( like Little Big Man or, obliquely, Dances with Wolves ) tends to trash them as well.
*The Comanche and Apache seem to be the only other peoples with similar stature in American mythology. Folks like the Arapaho and Kiowa seem a bit less known.
It was Hayes Code times. You COULDN’T be graphic about it.